feature request - firewall config backup and restore
yesterday, blue went out for the 1st time. after reading up on how to recover, the reflash worked and i had to pair and update the device names and rules again.
a way to download the config and use the same config to update a new firewalla would be nice. i mean, if you got a quite a few devices like IoT that will each have to be renamed in the device list, and rules recreated or approved again, a config file would make recovery easier.
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that's a different use case scenario. that's for migrating from a live firewalla to another live firewalla.
the scenario i had in mind is to recover the firewalla from a config file or backup file.
picture a remote office using blue, it goes down. it's then reflashed and paired to the mobile app of the administrator for the site. he now needs to recreate all the rules and allow the devices again. something that could be avoided if the app had an export config feature to dropbox or google drive which could be imported back into the reflashed blue.
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In this situation, as long as you have the app that paired with the old unit available, you can "restore" the config to a new unit. (So the firewalla need not be 'live', as long as the app is there, the config is saved on the app storage)
Anyway, we do understand config dump, it is on the list for sure.
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Do you know anything about this functionality?
I have quite a lot of rules in my hand... that could well be facilitated as you do in Pi-hole by means of a link and you put all the domains you want to block.
Besides, if you have to restore the Firewalla, it doesn't migrate to another one... you have to start all over again.
These basic things, I do not understand how they are not raised.
Do we keep waiting for improvements like this, or do we look for options that give them to us?
My hardware:
- Firewalla Blue, v1.971 (gf77d20b)
- Firewalla App, v1.45.92 -
Please see this doc for config migration.
https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015356093
And you can either migrate from one box to another or migrate to the same box after factory reset.
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That link just tells how to migrate. I still don't see a way to backup my current configuration before making changes. I understand that it should be on my phone, but if I made my changes from my phone, then would there be a backup of the config before the changes?
Am I missing something?
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I think the option to backup/restore a point in time would be valuable, maybe an auto backup when changes are made, and keep x amount of revisions.
There may be times many changes are made, and you end up breaking something and cannot remember what the config was prior. Also having the option to export a backup just in case Firewalla is damaged, a restore can be done to a new unit.
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The auto-backup idea is interesting, but I wanted a way to save my complete config to a backup that I could restore at any time. I thought that was what this thread was all about?
Any other decent router lets you backup the config to a downloadable file. After powering up my FWG for the first time, I was super disappointed that this feature was missing. It makes me less confident in making any significant configuration changes to my network.
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@argentcove, possible to post the requirement to https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/115000356994-Feature-Requests-
This way our developers can look there and see if they can do something. But in general, saving configuration should not be an issue, and unfortunately, it can only be saved in the app. Restoring can only happen if the unit is reset.
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After you reflash, you should get an option to restore from your settings. see https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015356093-How-to-migrate-data-from-one-Firewalla-Box-to-another-
(make sure you don't remove the old instance from your app before pairing)
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I agree with needing a simple way to be able to restore settings without a nuclear “reset” of the device. As I have stated before, my Asus routers have this feature as does every other firewall software. TBH, if my Asus router was good at dual wan functionality ( it has the capability but it doesn’t work correctly ) I would not have gone with Firewalla Gold. My Asus RT-AC86U with Merlin firmware and added scripts will do everything my FWG will do for a lot less money. Don’t get me wrong, I like the FWG but really guys, a simple ability to establish a restore point seems like a no brainer.
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I agree with David Parish. We need a simple way to restore. In addition, if I’m not mistaken backup only store in apps. Is there ways to download to somewhere to save it?
Some people do lost their phone without backup. I simple configuration backup file store where else is highly recommanded. -
Can you elaborate where we can find this “last successful configuration” ?
The first thing I do when setting up a router is to save a known good baseline configuration. This has saved me more than once when I have gone down a “rabbit hole” trying to do tweaks or solve an issue. It is also comforting knowing if I screw things up, I can restore to a good working config.
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Basically, any configuration is a set of line code, then it has been stored on a file somehow with an extension of *.cfg or *.backup ...etc. we need a way to download and save such a file then in case something happened and we need to restore the last running config, then we can just upload this simple file and boom done.
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Currently the config is stored in the app storage. If a person clears cache and data for the app, which is in the instructions to join beta, would you not lose your config? We should be able to export the config to a different storage location and be able to roll back to at least a couple previous versions of the config ideally.
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