Regularly backing up Tableau Server is an important step in proper administration and maintenance of your server. You can use the tsm maintenance restore
command to restore Tableau Server backups created using the tsm maintenance backup
command. Database backups made in other ways, and virtual machine snapshots are not valid sources for restoring Tableau Server, so it is critical that you have an up-to-date backup.
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You can only restore from a backup that has the same type of identity store as the running server. For example, a backup from a server using local authentication can be restored to a Tableau Server initialized with local authentication, but a backup from a server using Active Directory authentication cannot be restored to a server initialized with local authentication.
Looking for Tableau Server on Windows? See Back Up Tableau Server Data(Link opens in a new window).
Tableau Server data includes data extract files, as well as the Tableau PostgreSQL database, which contains workbook and user metadata, and configuration data. When you use TSM to create a backup, all of this data is saved in a single file with a .tsbak extension. If you are running a distributed installation of Tableau Server data from all the nodes is backed up.
The frequency of your backups depends on your environment, including how much use your server gets and how much and frequently the content and users change. Any changes or updates that happen after your backup will be lost if there is a system failure and you need to restore Tableau Server. The more activity there is, the more often you need to back the server up.
In addition to regularly scheduled backups, you should always create a backup before upgrading to a new version of Tableau Server. The upgrade process does not create a backup except when the version of PostGRES is being updated, and then the upgrade process creates a PostGRES-only backup to be used internally.
To help protect against data loss, after you create the backup, you should store the .tsbak file on a computer that is not a part of your Tableau Server installation.
Disk Space Usage for BackupThe free disk space required to create a backup varies depending on the amount of data in the Tableau Server repository and file store services, and their collocation with the tabadmincontroller service. During backups, the background tasks for cleaning up old extracts are temporarily paused. This means that, for the duration of the backup, extract refreshes will leave extra files in place, adding to disk space usage. If your backup takes a long time, or if your organization uses many extracts that are regularly updated, this can result in a significant amount of temporary disk space usage. These temporary files will be removed after the backup is complete.
The following table lists the disk space requirements for backup based on whether the node hosts the repository, file store, controller, or some combination of them. In multi-node Tableau Server environments you need to estimate the required disk space on each node.
Optimizing Tableau Server BackupThere are several ways you can maximize backup efficiency. Your environment can impact how effective each of these is, so test with your data to see what works best.
Optimizing with topology configurations:
The Administration Controller is usually on the initial node, unless you have had an initial node failure and moved the controller to another node.
Optimizing with backup strategies:
Backup is a resource intensive process. If possible, doing your backups during off peak hours is a generally a good strategy. But this however, depends on your requirements and how often Tableau Server data is updated and what your restore requirements. For a detailed explanation of backup and disaster recovery, see Tableau Server Disaster Recovery. Here are some backup strategies and adopt them to your requirements
Backup compression: You have the option of running your backups with or without compression. When you do your backup with compressions, your backup size will be comparatively smaller, but you may see a slower performance. So if your goal is more focused on speed, choose the --skip-compression
option:
Use the --skip-compression
option when backing up Tableau Server. This creates the backup without using compression, and results in a larger backup file but can reduce the amount of time it takes for the backup to complete. For more information, see tsm maintenance backup.
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Create a backup using the TSM command line interface (CLI)Use the tsm maintenance backup
command to create a backup of the data managed by Tableau Server. This data includes data extract files and the Tableau PostgreSQL database, which contains workbook and user metadata.
Important:Â Do not use the pg-only
option when generating a backup unless instructed by Tableau Support. This option will only back up the repository and cannot be used to restore your Server. Its primary use is for troubleshooting, and Tableau Support will ask you to create a --pg-only
back up if this is necessary.
Note: When backing up Tableau Server on Linux to a network location, the unprivileged user must have write access to the network share where the backup files are written or the backup will fail.
To back up server configuration data, use the tsm settings command. When you use the tsm maintenance backup
command, the current date is appended to the backup file:
tsm maintenance backup -f <backup_file> -d
For more information, see tsm maintenance backup.
Create a pre-upgrade backupYou should always create a backup before upgrading Tableau Server. You can create a backup while Tableau Server is running and minimize the amount of time the server is unavailable during upgrade. The process for creating a pre-upgrade backup is the same as for creating regular backups, with one additional consideration for distributed installations.
Note: Uninstall Tableau Server from any nodes that you are not including in your new installation to avoid conflicts between the older nodes and the new installation.
Backups during upgradesDuring a Tableau Server upgrade, when necessary, a temporary backup of the database may be created to allow for migrations that occur as part of upgrades. This is done during the upgrade and in most cases has no noticeable impact to the upgrade process. In certain special cases there can be additional impacts:
legacy-identity-mode
before you can restore to Tableau Server 2022.1 (or later). For more information, see Troubleshoot Issues with the Identity Migration.Major version pgsql updatesâIf an upgrade includes a major version update to the database used for the Tableau repository, the internal upgrade backup is done without compression to save time. This requires additional temporary disk space during the upgrade process.
Tableau Server versions that include a major version database update; 2020.4.
Beginning in 2020.4.0 you can use tsm commands to schedule a backup. You need to do this from the command line (there is no TSMÂ UIÂ to schedule backups). The tsm maintenance backup
command allows you to create and update backup schedules. The tsm schedules
commands give you the ability to view, delete, pause, resume, and update schedules.
Open a command prompt as administrator on the initial node (the node where TSM is installed).
Run the following command:
tsm maintenance backup -f <backup-file> -sr <recurrence> -st <time-to-run> -sd <days-to-run> -sn <schedule-name>
For example, to create a backup schedule named "monthly-backup" that runs on the 15th of each month at 2 am and generates a file called <yyyy.mm.dd.hh.mm>-ts-mid_month_backup.tsbak
:
tsm maintenance backup -f ts-mid_month_backup -sr monthly -st 02:00 -sd 15 -sn monthly-backup
Open a command prompt as administrator on the initial node (the node where TSM is installed).
Run the following command:
tsm schedules list
You can sort the schedules by scheduled run time, earliest to latest, or by name using the --next-run
or --schedule-name
options. You can alternately display details for a single schedule using the --schedule-id
option. When you view a single schedule you see additional details about it, including when i twas created, how many times it has run, and specific options used when it is run. Job options are shown in JSON format as " Job args ".
Open a command prompt as administrator on the initial node (the node where TSM is installed).
Run the following command:
tsm schedules update --schedule-id <ID> --schedule-time <time-to-run> --schedule-recurrence <frequency> --schedule-days <day-to-run>
Note: To add or change a name, use the tsm-maintenance-backup
command.
Open a command prompt as administrator on the initial node (the node where TSM is installed).
Run one of the following commands:
To suspend a schedule:
tsm schedules suspend --schedule-id <scheduleID>
To resume a suspended schedule:
tsm schedules resume --schedule-id <scheduleID>
If you back up often, you might want to create a script that performs the backup and related tasks for you. These tasks include:
Clean up files and folders before running the backup.
Running the backup itself.
Copying the backup file to a separate computer for safekeeping.
This section discusses tsm
commands you can use together to perform a backup and related tasks.
You can clean old Tableau Server log file and temporary files to reduce the time it takes to create a backup, and to ensure the backup file is as small as possible.
To clean log files older than a few days, run the following command:
Run the backupNote: When backing up Tableau Server on Linux to a network location, the unprivileged user must have write access to the network share where the backup files are written or the backup will fail.
To create the backup, use the tsm maintenance backup
command:
tsm maintenance backup --file <backup_file> --append-date
Note the following about the command:
Add --append-date
to the command to include the date in the backup file name.
The backup file is assembled in a temporary location in the data directory and then written to the directory defined in the TSMÂ basefilepath.backuprestore
variable:
/var/opt/tableau/tableau_server/data/tabsvc/files/backups/
<filename>.tsbak
For more information about where backup files are written, and how to change that location, see tsm File Paths. Note:Â Even when you change the backup location, the backup process uses a temporary location in the data directory to assemble the backup file.
As a best practice, after the backup is created, copy the backup file to another location that is separate from Tableau Server.
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