Hi, I’m Jay from Sophos Support, and today I'll be walking you through the backup and
restoration process for Sophos Firewall version 19.
Backups contain the entire configuration of a Sophos Firewall and are encrypted.
You can save these backups onto the Sophos Firewall, use FTP to save them on a server,
or email the backup.
You will also want to keep these backups secure by creating a secure storage master key.
I’ll be walking you through the process of creating the secure storage master key,
creating a backup, restoring from a backup, as well as the best practices that follow
this.
Let’s start by going over the Secure Storage Master Key first.
Now, before you create a backup, make sure your default administrator has set up a Secure
Storage Master Key (SSMK).
The SSMK adds extra protection while restoring your backups. It protects sensitive information
on the Sophos Firewall, such as passwords, secrets, and keys by encrypting the data.
This key is required for restoring backups that have a master key.
You can restore backups created before a master key was set, without needing a key.
To restore a backup with a master key, you must enter the key and the backup encryption
password.
If you change the master key, you must use the old key to restore backups created before
the new key was issued.
Sharing backups with Sophos Support requires sharing the encryption password and master
key.
Without the master key, scheduled backups are still taken, but without the additional
protection.
A manual backup requires setting the master key before creating it.
For instructions on how to set up the SSMK, see the Sophos Firewall help, which you will
find linked in the video description.
Moving on, you’ll want to keep these best practices in mind when creating a backup:
Firstly, make sure that you have automatic backups are set up on a schedule.
Create a manual backup before and after you make a considerable change to the configuration.
Also ensure that you create a backup before upgrading the firmware.
You will also want to make sure that your backups are secure by doing the following:
If you save backups at a different location, ensure that the location is secure.
Before you start, we recommend you go through the Compatible devices for restoring configuration
section of the Sophos Firewall help.
There you can read about the dependencies for backup and restore, such as the hardware
model, wireless model, revision number, firmware, and pattern.
You can find a link to this within the video description.
Now let’s go over the steps to create a backup:
Sign in to the Sophos Firewall web admin console using an administrative account.
Go to System and select Backup & firmware.
Click the Backup & restore tab.
Backup mode allows you to choose where you want to save the backup file. Select Local
to save it locally on the firewall, select FTP to specify an FTP server to save to, or
select Email to specify a recipient address to send the backup file to.
One thing to note when choosing FTP or Email is that the Sophos Firewall will first store
the backup locally, and then transfer the backup file.
Enter a prefix to identify the backup configuration. The prefix is useful to identify the configuration
if you have more than one firewall.
Select the frequency with which you want to take backups (Never, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly).
Setting the frequency allows the firewall to automatically take backups as per the specified
Schedule.
Enter a password to encrypt the backups. Encryption provides security in addition to the SSMK.
You need to enter this password when restoring the backup.
Click 'Apply' to save your backup settings. To take a manual backup outside of the specified
schedule, click 'Backup Now'. For this demonstration, we will click 'Backup Now' to start the backup
process.
The time it takes to complete depends on the size of your configuration.
Once the backup process is complete, you can download the backup file from the location
where you saved it.
Now, to restore a backup.
Under 'Backup restore', click 'Choose File' and select the backup file that you want to
restore.
Enter the password that you used to encrypt the backup.
Click 'Upload and restore' to start the restoration process.
Enter the Secure Storage Master Key and click 'Restore'.
The time it takes to complete depends on the size of your configuration.
Once the restoration process is complete, sign into the Sophos Firewall web admin console
to confirm that the configuration has been restored successfully.
It's important to note that restoring a backup file will overwrite the current configuration
of Sophos Firewall. So, it's recommended to take a backup of the current configuration
before performing a restore.
Also, make sure to review the configuration after the restore to ensure that all settings
are correct and up to date.
I hope you found this video useful! Let us know by giving us a thumbs up on Techvids
if we resolved your issue.
Check out the documentation for this video in the video description.
For further assistance, view and post questions on community.sophos.com.
And go to techvids.sophos.com for more great videos like this one!