Backup, Recovery and Maintenance

Sipwise C5 Backup

For any service provider it is important to maintain a reliable backup policy as it enables prompt services restoration after any force majeure event. Hence, we strongly suggest you to configure a backup procedure. The Sipwise C5 can be integrated with any Debian compatible backup software.

What data to back up

  • The database

This is the most important data in the system. All subscriber and billing information, CDRs, user preferences, etc. are stored in the MySQL server. It is strongly recommended to have up-to-date dumps of all the databases .

  • System configuration

The system configuration folder /etc/ngcp-config/ must be included in the backup as well. It contains the system specific configuration (like SSL keys). Also you might have some local modifications. We suggest backing up the whole /etc folder to preserve the etckeeper history to be able to answer when and who changed particular configuration files in the past.

  • Exported CDRs (optional)

The /home/jail/home/cdrexport directory contains the exported CDRs. It depends on your call data retention policy whether or not to remove these files after exporting them to an external system.

Recovery

In the worst case scenario, when the system needs to be recovered from a total loss, you only need 4 steps to get the services back online:

  • Install Sipwise C5 as explained in chapter 2.

  • Restore the /etc/ngcp-config/ directory from the backup, overwriting your local files.

  • Restore 'mysql.encryption.key' in constants.yml if new MariaDB instance/binlogs were encrypted (DB is encrypted by default). See the detailed information in MariaDB data restoration remarks.

  • Restore the database from the latest MySQL dump.

  • Apply the changes to bring the original configuration into effect:

ngcpcfg apply 'restored the system from the backup'

Reset Database

All existing data will be wiped out! Use this script only if you want to clear all previously configured services and start configuration from scratch.

To reset database to its original state you can use a script provided by CE: * Execute ngcp-reset-db. It will assign new unique passwords for Sipwise C5 services and reset all services. The script will also create dumps for all Sipwise C5 databases.

Accounting Data (CDR) Cleanup

Sipwise Sipwise C5 offers ways to cleanup, backup or archive old accounting data — i.e. CDRs — that is not necessary for further processing any more, or must be deleted according to the law. There are some Sipwise C5 components designed for this purpose and they are commonly called cleanuptools. These are configurable scripts that interact with NGCP’s accounting and kamailio databases, or remove exported CDR files in order to clean or archive the unnecessary data.

Cleanuptools Configuration

The configuration parameters of cleanuptools are located in the main Sipwise C5 configuration file: /etc/ngcp-config/config.yml. Please refer to the config.yml file description: Cleanuptools Configuration Data for configuration parameter details.

In case the system administrator needs to modify some configuration value, the new configuration must be activated in the usual way, by running the following commands:

> ngcpcfg apply 'Modified cleanuptools config'

As a result new configuration files will be generated for the accounting database and the exported CDR cleanup tools. Please read detailed description of those tools in subsequent sections of the handbook.

The Sipwise C5 system administrator can also select the time when cleanup scripts are run, by modifying the schedule here: /etc/cron.d/cleanup-tools

Accounting Database Cleanup

The script responsible for cleaning up the database is: ngcp-cleanup-acc

The configuration file used by the script is: /etc/ngcp-cleanup-tools/acc-cleanup.conf

An extract from a sample configuration file is provided here:

############

batch = 10000
archive-target = /ngcp-data/backup/cdr
compress = gzip

username = dbcleaner
password = rcKamRdHhx7saYRbkJfP
host = localhost
port = 3306

redis-batch = 10000
redis-port = 6379

connect accounting
keep-months = 2
use-partitioning = yes
timestamp-column = cdr_start_time
backup cdr_cash_balance_data
backup cdr_time_balance_data
backup cdr_relation_data
backup cdr_tag_data
backup cdr_mos_data
backup cdr_export_status_data
backup cdr_group
timestamp-column = first_cdr_start_time
backup cdr_period_costs
timestamp-column = start_time
backup cdr

archive-months = 2
archive cdr_cash_balance_data
archive cdr_time_balance_data
archive cdr_relation_data
archive cdr_tag_data
archive cdr_mos_data
archive cdr_export_status
archive cdr_group
archive cdr_period_costs
archive cdr

cleanup-days = 1
use-partitioning = no
timestamp-column = cdr_start_time
cleanup int_cdr_cash_balance_data
cleanup int_cdr_time_balance_data
cleanup int_cdr_relation_data
cleanup int_cdr_tag_data
cleanup int_cdr_group
cleanup int_cdr_export_status
timestamp-column = start_time
cleanup int_cdr

connect kamailio
time-column = time
cleanup-days = 90
cleanup acc

connect-redis 21
connect kamailio
time-column = time_hires
cleanup-days = 3
cleanup-mode = mysql
cleanup-redis acc:entry::*

# Clean up after mediator by deleting old leftover acc entries and deleting
# old entries out of acc_trash and acc_backup
connect kamailio
time-column = time
cleanup-days = 30
cleanup acc_trash
cleanup acc_backup

maintenance = no

The configuration file itself contains a detailed description of how database cleanup script works. It consists of a series of statements, one per line, which are going to be executed in sequence. A statement can either only set a variable to some value, or perform an action.

There are 4 types of actions the database cleanup script can take:

  • backup database tables

  • archive database tables

  • cleanup database tables

  • cleanup redis databases

These actions are discussed in following sections.

A generic action is connecting to the proper database: connect <database name>

Backup Database Tables

The database cleanup tool can create monthly backups of data in the accounting database tables by moving old records to separate tables named: cdr_YYYYMM. The instruction in the configuration file looks like: backup <table name>, by default and typically it is: backup cdr

Configuration values that govern the backup procedure are:

  • time-column: The name of the column in the table to use for determining which month a record belongs to. Must be a "datetime" column.

  • timestamp-column: The name of the column in the table to use for determining which month a record belongs to. Must be a "decimal(13,3)" column.

  • use-partitioning: If a table is partitioned using the time-column (timestamp-column) and the value is set to "yes", then moving/deleting records are instant operations, done by managing the partitions. Otherwise the usual method is used to delete/move records by chunks.

  • batch: How many rows to include per transaction when processing in chunks. If unset or ⇐ 0, it does them all at once.

  • keep-months: How many months worth of records to keep in the table and not move into the monthly backup tables.

    IMPORTANT: Months are always processed as a whole and this specifies how many months to keep AT MOST. In other words, if the script is started on December 15th and this value is set to "2", then all of December and November is kept, and all of October will be moved out.

Archive Database Tables

The database cleanup tool can archive (dump) old monthly tables. The statement used for this purpose is: archive <table name>, by default and typically it is: archive cdr

This creates an SQL dump out of older tables created by the backup statement and drop them from database afterwards. Archiving uses the following configuration values:

  • archive-months: Uses the same logic as the "keep-months" variable. If set to "12" and the script was started on December 15th, it will start archiving with the December table of the previous year. Archiving continues month by month, going backwards in time, until the script encounters a missing table.

  • archive-target: Target directory for writing the SQL dump files. If explicitly specified as "/dev/null", then no actual archiving will be performed, but instead the tables will only be dropped.

  • compress: If set to "gzip", then gzip the dump files after creation. If unset, do not compress.

  • host, "username" and "password": As dumping is performed by an external command, those variables are reused from the "connect" statement.

Cleanup Database Tables

The database cleanup tool may do database table cleanup without performing backup. In order to do that, the statement: cleanup <table name> is used. Typically this has to be done in kamailio database, examples:

  • cleanup acc

  • cleanup acc_trash

  • cleanup acc_backup

The cleanup statement works exactly like the backup statement, but doesn’t actually backup anything, but rather only deletes old records. Additional configuration parameters required by the cleanup procedure:

  • cleanup-days: Any record older than these many days will be deleted.

Cleanup Redis Databses

With the advent of persisting kamailio.acc record data in a redis keystore, a separate cleanup-redis <key pattern> statement was introduced. It will remove old redis entries, whose keys match the given redis SCAN pattern. Typically this has to be done for the redis 21 database (acc records), eg.:

  • cleanup-redis acc:entry::*

connect-redis <redis database number> has to be used instead of connect +<mariadb database name>, which is needed to initially connect before any <backup>, <archive> and <cleanup> operations.

The cleanup-redis statement works similar to the cleanup statement, with some additional options below:

  • time-column: The name of the field in a redis entry denoting the record timestamp in epoch seconds.

  • cleanup-mode: If set to "delete", aged entires will be simply removed. If set to "mysql", they will be inserted into a database table first. The latter requires connect to open the database additionally.

  • redis-batch: Chunk size of redis entries with matching keys to look at. Note that redis processing always works in chunks, there is no partitioning.

  • cleanup-days: Any entry older than these many days will be deleted.

Exported CDR Cleanup

The script responsible for cleaning up exported CDR files is: ngcp-cleanup-cdr-files

The configuration file used by exported CDR cleanup script is: /etc/ngcp-cleanup-tools/cdr-files-cleanup.yml

A sample configuration file is provided here:

enable: no
max_age_days: 30
paths:
  -
    path: /home/jail/home/*/20[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]/[0-9][0-9]
    wildcard: yes
    remove_empty_directories: yes
    max_age_days: ~
  -
    path: /home/jail/home/cdrexport/resellers/*/20[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]/[0-9][0-9]
    wildcard: yes
    remove_empty_directories: yes
    max_age_days: ~
  -
    path: /home/jail/home/cdrexport/system/20[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]/[0-9][0-9]
    wildcard: yes
    remove_empty_directories: yes
    max_age_days: ~

The exported CDR cleanup tool deletes CDR files in the directories provided in the configuration file, if those have already expired.

Configuration values that define the files to be deleted:

  • enable: Enable (yes) or disable (no) exported CDR cleanup.

  • max_age_days: Gives the expiration time of the exported CDR files in days. There is a general value which may be overridden by a local value provided at a specific path. The local value is valid for the particular path only.

  • paths: an array of path definitions

    • path: a path where CDR files are to be found and deleted; this may contain wildcard characters

    • wildcard: Enable (yes) or disable (no) using wildcards in the path

    • remove_empty_directories: Enable (yes) or disable (no) removing empty directories if those are found in the given path

    • max_age_days: the local expiration time value for files in the particular path