How to backup and restore Dashboard Server Community Edition

If you are using Dashboard Server with high availability (HA) see Enabling High Availability.

Backing up Community Edition

You may need to connect to your SquaredUp server (How to connect to your SquaredUp server).

We recommend you stop the Dashboard Server application pool (How to check and modify the application pool identity) and then backup the entire Dashboard Server folder.

Where to find the Dashboard Server folder

Name of the Dashboard Server folder

The name of the Dashboard Server folder is SquaredUpv followed by the product version number.

Location of the Dashboard Server folder

If you deployed Dashboard Server via the Azure or AWS Marketplace:

The default location for the Dashboard Server folder is F:\SquaredUpv[Version Number].
For example, for Dashboard Server Community Edition v5 the default location is F:\SquaredUpv5.

If you installed Dashboard Server using the installer:

The default location for the Dashboard Server folder is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\SquaredUpv[Version Number], but a custom location may have been chosen during the installation.
For example, for Dashboard Server v5 the default folder location is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\SquaredUpv5

If you wish you can just backup the SquaredUpv[Version Number]\User folder, as this is where your specific dashboards and settings are located. Within the User folder the Packages folder contains your user-published dashboards and perspectives and Configuration folder contains your Dashboard Server configuration settings.

Restoring Dashboard Server

1. If you wish to install the latest version of Dashboard Server:

   Download the latest version of Dashboard Server and run the installer.

   Get the latest version of Community Edition

   How to install Dashboard Server Community Edition using the installer

   If you want to redeploy the same version of Dashboard Server:

   Run the 'Deploy Dashboard Server Community Edition' tool on the Windows Start menu,

2. Log on to Dashboard Server and complete the setup to configure Dashboard Server, such as activating your license. If you need an additional activation please contact SquaredUp Support.

3. In IIS stop the SquaredUpv[Version Number] application pool.

4. Restore the SquaredUpv[Version Number]\User folder.

5. Restart the SquaredUpv[Version Number] application pool.

If you restore to a new machine or operating system, you will need to reconfigure any API connections. API connections are encrypted, so any old connections will not be accessible because they cannot be decrypted on the new machine.

Backing up and restoring the HA share

Backup Dashboard Server on each server as normal (How to backup and restore Dashboard Server Community Edition). No additional actions are required: Any SquaredUp server can rebuild the content of the network share from its local disk data. So backing up individual Dashboard Server instances (and not the network share) is sufficient.

If the share does have to be recreated, ensure you configure permissions on the share first:

Configure permissions on the share

Before configuring HA it is important to check the permissions on the share itself. The share has its own permissions which cannot be viewed via Windows Explorer, and they always take precedence over the file and folder permissions. If the Dashboard Server application pool identity (How to check and modify the application pool identity) is not allowed to read and change, then the permissions added to the folders by the  squaredup5 ha command are overridden/ignored by the share, and Dashboard Server will fail to start with an 'Access denied' error.

In Computer Management check that the Dashboard Server application pool account has 'Read' and 'Change' permissions to the share itself, as described below:

1. On the machine that hosts the share, click on the Start button > type Computer Management > open Computer Management.
2. Navigate to System Tools > Shared Folders > Shares.
3. Right-click on the SquaredUp share and then on Properties.

4. On the Share Permissions tab, check that all Dashboard Server application pool accounts have read and change permissions:

   

5. If your servers are using a domain service account as the Dashboard Server application pool identity (How to check and modify the application pool identity) then this account should be given read and change permissions.

   If your SquaredUp servers are using Network Service as the Dashboard Server application pool account (How to check and modify the application pool identity), then all the machine accounts for the SquaredUp Primary and Secondary servers should be given permissions, for example, Squpserver01$ and Squpserver02$.

   It should not be necessary to grant full control, and this could pose a security risk.

To restore the files to a new or empty HA share run the HA configuration steps from any SquaredUp server, to copy the files from this server to the share. See Enabling High Availability

To restore to an existing share folder you must delete the file SquaredUp_ds_[version].index, if it exists, in order for the restore to proceed. Restoring will then recreate the SquaredUp_ds_[version].index file on the share.