Tableau Server on Linux Help

When you have External File Store enabled on your Tableau Server, you cannot use the tsm maintenance backup command to do a backup of the Tableau Server repository and File Store Data. Instead, use a "snapshot" backup process to create a point-in-time snapshot of your network share.

• Tableau Server configured with External File Store
• Tableau Server configured with External File Store and External Repository

Backup strategies:

The backup strategy you use depends on your recovery plan. The snapshot backup process may not be sufficient by itself as it only creates a backup of the File Store (and repository data if requested), and there are other configurations and settings that you may need in order to do a full recovery.

Important: We strongly recommend disabling scheduled tasks before you perform an upgrade. This includes all updates to data content and should be done before you create your pre-upgrade backup. This may involve disabling jobs that are triggered outside of Tableau Server, such as those initiated through REST API-based extract refreshes or using tabcmd.

Here are some scenarios that illustrate when the snapshot backup process may or may not be enough:

• Standby Tableau Server – If you maintain a standby Tableau Server to use if your production Server is down, creating a snapshot backup and restoring it to your standby server on a regular schedule may be sufficient. Your backup schedule should be based on your recovery point objective.

• New Tableau Server, existing configuration not needed – If you plan to use a new Tableau Server installation in case of a disaster but don’t necessarily need to use the configurations and settings from your existing Tableau Server installation, you can install a fresh instance of Tableau Server and use the snapshot to restore your data.

• New Tableau Server, existing configuration needed – If you plan to use a new Tableau Server installation that includes your existing configurations and settings as well as your backed-up date, you need additional files along with the snapshot backup. To do a full backup including all the configurations and settings, follow these instructions:

  1. Export topology and configuration data. This exports most of the Tableau Server configuration and topology. For more information, see Perform a Full Backup and Restore of Tableau Server.
  2. Create a network share snapshot of the File Store (and repository data, if desired) as described in the Backup and Restore with External File Store section of this topic.
  3. Document the settings that are not included in the export. These include values for system user accounts, coordination service deployment configuration and customised settings. For more information, see Perform a Full Backup and Restore of Tableau Server.

Tableau Server configured with External File Store

When you have Tableau Server configured with an External File Store, your backup process needs to include creating a point-in-time snapshot backup of the network share with the External File Store. The following procedure describes how to do this.

Note: If you have both an External File Store and an external repository, see Tableau Server configured with External File Store and External Repository.

Creating a snapshot backup

Use the following steps to create a snapshot backup:

1. Prepare for the snapshot backup.

   Run the following command to create a repository backup file and temporarily copy it to the network share. Tableau Server continues to operate normally during the snapshot prepare process. To ensure a consistent snapshot, the internal process that deletes unused extracts will be paused. This process will resume once you complete the backup process described in a later step.

   tsm maintenance snapshot-backup prepare

   You should see the following message when the prepare step is complete: Preparation for snapshot backup succeeded.

   Confirm that the repository backup file was created on the network share.

   Note: The prepare step creates a backup file of the repository and KMS and Asset keys. If you are using a cloud solution for your encryption key solution, you will need access to the CMK used to decrypt the keys which is necessary for restore. For more information on encryption key solution with AWS, see AWS Key Management System. For more information on encryption key solution with Azure, see Azure Key Vault.

2. Create a snapshot of your network share.

   Use the appropriate process to create a snapshot of your network share. The snapshot is a read-only version of the share, taken at a particular point in time. This will include your File Store data, along with the repository backup file that was temporarily copied to the share in the previous step. The steps you take to create this network share snapshot depend on your network. See your networking documentation for details.

3. Complete the snapshot backup process.

   Run the following command to complete the backup process and restart the paused internal processes. This removes the temporary repository backup file that was copied to your network share.

   tsm maintenance snapshot-backup complete

   Confirm that the temporary repository backup file was removed from the network share.

Restoring a snapshot backup

These steps apply to both single-node and multi-node Tableau Server installations.

1. Stop Tableau Server.

   At the command prompt, run the following command:

   tsm stop

2. Restore your File Store data by restoring your network share snapshot to your network. Your specific steps will depend on your network.

3. Restore the repository data.

   Use the following command to restore the repository data:

   tsm maintenance snapshot-backup restore

   Note: If you are using a cloud solution for your encryption key solution, make sure the server where the backup is being restored has decrypt access to the cloud instance where the CMK is deployed.

4. Restart Tableau Server.

   At a command prompt, run the following command:

   tsm start

Tableau Server configured with External File Store and External Repository

When you have Tableau Server configured with both an External File Store and an external repository, there are special steps you need to take to create a backup. These include creating a point-in-time snapshot backup of the network share with the External File Store and may include separately backing up your external repository. The following procedure describes how to do this.

Note: If you have an External File Store but are using the default repository, see Tableau Server configured with External File Store.

Backing up the repository

When you have both an External File Store and an external repository, you have two options for backing up the repository data. There are reasons why you might choose each of these:

• Include the repository backup with the network share snapshot:

  Ease of management. You do not have to do a separate backup of the repository, and the backup is in sync with the File Store data.

• Back up the repository independently:

  Doing a backup of an External Repository separately can be faster, especially if you are using a cloud solution that allows for snapshot backups of the instance. The size of the backup file can significantly impact the time it takes to prepare for a network share snapshot.

Option 2: Back up repository separately

This option is recommended only when the host platform for the External Repository allows you to do snapshot backup. If you are using Azure as your host platform, we recommend using Option 1.

Create snapshot backups

1. Prepare for the snapshot backup.

   Run the following command to create a repository backup file and temporarily copy it to the network share. Tableau Server continues to operate normally during the snapshot prepare process. To ensure a consistent snapshot, the internal process that deletes unused extracts will be paused. This process will resume once you complete the backup process described in a later step.

   tsm maintenance snapshot-backup prepare

   You should see the following message when the prepare step is complete: Preparation for snapshot backup succeeded.

   Note: The prepare step creates a backup of the KMS and Asset keys. If you are using a cloud solution for your encryption key solution, you will need access to the CMK used to decrypt the keys which is necessary for restore. For more information on encryption key solution with AWS, see AWS Key Management System. For more information on encryption key solution with Azure, see Azure Key Vault.

2. Create a snapshot of your network share.

   Use the appropriate process to create a snapshot of your network share. The snapshot is a read-only version of the share, taken at a particular point in time. This will include your File Store data. The steps you take to create this network share snapshot depend on your network. See your networking documentation for details.

3. Create a backup of the repository: Use the backup technology of platform where you are hosting your external repository to create a backup.

   Important: The snapshot of the network share and the Repository backup must be completed within 3 hours and 30 minutes after completing the Prepare step (step 1). This is to make sure that the File Store and the Repository backups are in sync and to allow the restore to work properly.

   For more information on creating a snapshot of AWS DB instance, see Creating a DB snapshot.

   For more information on creating a backup of Azure DB instance, see Backup and Restore on Flexible Server (PostgreSQL 12 and later) or Backup and Restore on Single Server (PostgreSQL 11 or earlier).

   Note: If you are using a cloud solution for your encryption key solution, make sure the server where the backup is being restored has decrypt access to cloud instance where CMK is deployed.

4. Complete the snapshot backup process.

   Run the following command to complete the backup process and restart the paused internal processes.

   tsm maintenance snapshot-backup complete

Restoring a snapshot backup

These steps apply to both single-node and multi-node Tableau Server installations.

1. Use the database backup of your External Repository. If you are using a cloud platform to host your Repository, this generally requires that you create a new database instance into which you restore the backup.

   For detailed instructions on creating a new instance, see the option for your hosting solution in Install External Repository.

2. Use the instructions in Step 1 of the Install Tableau Server with External PostgreSQL Repository topic to create a configuration file for the new instance.

3. Stop Tableau Server.

   At the command prompt, run the following command:

   tsm stop

4. If the restoration of the external repository requires a new database instance, use the following command to point Tableau Server to the new database instance:

   tsm topology external-services repository replace-host -f <filename>.json -c <ssl certificate file>.pem

   The .json file is the configuration file you created in Step 2. The certificate file is the SSL certificate you downloaded from the new database instance.

5. Restore your File Store data by restoring your network share snapshot to your network. Your specific steps will depend on your network.

   Note: Some technologies require you to create a new network share when doing a restore. If this applies to your network attached storage, you can do your restore before stopping the Tableau Server. If you are restoring the File Store data to a new network share, you must configure Tableau Server to use the new network share. For more information, see Configure Tableau Server to use a different external storage.

6. Run the following command to restore the KMS and Asset keys:

   tsm maintenance snapshot-backup restore

   Note: If you are using a cloud solution for your encryption key solution, make sure the server where the backup is being restored has decrypt access to cloud instance where CMK is deployed.

7. Run the following command to restart Tableau Server:

   tsm start

Who can do this

Tableau Server Administrators can backup and restore Tableau Server. In addition you must have permission to access and perform snapshot backups on the external storage.