Cisco NCS

[david.lind]

Hello!

Recently I was asked to perform backup on a virtual server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with NCS on top of it. The people in charge of the server wants the backup to be performed on the underlying OS, not directly in NCS.

My problem is that I cannot figure out how to leave the NCS console, when I ssh to the box I get dropped into the NCS interface and exit will just terminate my connection with the server. I haven't really used Cisco or anything related to it before so I'm kind of stuck here.

Ideas?

Cheers!

[ramkris2]

Hi David,

I'll try to answer this in-line.

>I was asked to perform backup on a virtual server running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 with NCS on top of it.

NCS comes in an appliance form or as an ova file to be installed as a Virtual machine. In both the cases, users won't have access to the OS or the file system in a direct way.

>The people in charge of the server wants the backup to be performed on the underlying OS, not directly in NCS.

NCS is an application running on top of the appliance/VM. Yes, the backups for NCS can be saved locally or on a remote machine (like a FTP server).

What are you trying to backup exactly ?

Ram

[david.lind]

Hi Ram,

Sorry if the previous post was kind of blurry, but I am not sure myself what they are asking of me. :-)

But OK, the NCS is an appliance or a virtual machine that has been installed from an ova file and there is no way to reach the underlying OS(the backup software being used is packaged as .rpm's so to use that we would have to be able to reach the underlying OS, I guess).

I think the guys responsible for the NCS are a bit confused since they told me that the software was running on RHEL 6 and that it was indeed possible to ssh into the machine and control the OS by dropping out of the EXEC prompt in NCS.

They will have to use NCS own backup function and store it remotely.

[ramkris2]

Hi David,

That's correct!

[david.lind]

And to answer your question: I guess they want me to backup the contents of the VM which is done with software from IBM on all other machines.

[ramkris2]

Hi David,

With regards to the backup, from the NCS perspective only two things can be done:

1. The appliance backup (which would include NCS & the Cisco ADE OS data)

2. Just the application backup (which is NCS)

Command reference:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/wireless/ncs/1.0/command/reference/cli_app_a.html#wp1027894

To clarify again, it won't be possible to reach the underlying OS on the NCS without a root patch. But the root patch will be used only by the TAC for troubleshooting purposes & it's not available for download.

Ram.

[lanny-8080]

hi Ram,

Is there a way of automating the backup of the NCS application from the appliance?

Cheers

Lanny