Server Backups

[daveinvb]

I host Nagios XI in AWS using EC2 and RDS. The databases are backed up through RDS. Is there any information that updates regularly on the server so that it is necessary to have daily backups of the server? Since all of the historical and object configuration data is stored in the database, couldn't the server be easily rebuilt from an AMI that was captured after the most recent user was added regardless of if it were a month old?

[jdalrymple]

historical data (perfdata specifically) is stored in RRD files local to the XI box. Also External configs such as nsca.cfg, nrpe.cfg, and your etc/static files.

That's it though, if you don't care about those things then there is no amazing need to backup the XI box.

[daveinvb]

Is it safe to assume that nsca.cfg and nrpe.cfg do not change after the client and plugins have been configured and that the newest static files are written from the database using CCM > Tools > Write Config Files?

I'm not sure I understand what perfdata is used for. I've read https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... fdata.html but that covers more of the implementation and It looks like it is performance data from plugins. Could you explain what it is and what it does?

Thanks

[jdalrymple]

Is it safe to assume that nsca.cfg and nrpe.cfg do not change after the client and plugins have been configured

You would either change these by hand or through the inbound transfers tool. If you're not fiddling, it's not changing.

and that the newest static files are written from the database using CCM > Tools > Write Config Files?

Static files are a feature that allows configurations to be loaded that are explicitly NOT part of CCM. They never go to the database.

I'm not sure I understand what perfdata is used for.

Things like this:

Clipboard01.jpg

If you don't backup your perfdata, then when restoring, the above picture will then look like this:

Clipboard02.jpg

In most environments this is not acceptable. It's up to you to decide how valuable to you your historical data is.