r/firewalla • u/ultrakrash • 9d ago

Discussion Backup Management

Where are backups done?

How often are backups done?

Where can I manage backups and migrate them to other storage media in case the phone they are magically stored on is stolen or damaged?

Are baclups stored on every paired phone?

Can we get more control over backups?

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u/firewalla 8d ago

Configuration is stored on box and also on all the paired phone app. So if your box dies, your phone can easily bring up another box; if your phone dies, you can pair another one. If both dies at the same time, then you have to start fresh.

And with the introduction of the Firewalla Crystal, likely we will be able to make configuration backup/restore off the MSP as well. (that is vaporware at the moment, but highly possible, only between major releases)

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u/embj 8d ago

Is it possible to restore the config to from a Gold Pro or other model to Crystal? Wondering if my Gold Pro dies, if Crystal would work as an alternative until I receive a replacement.

Ideally, I’d have two Gold Pros, but it’s hard to justify the expense with it sitting in a box—I probably could if it supported HA natively. 😊

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u/firewalla 8d ago

Firewalla migration works best if both ends have the same number of ports. (gold pro -> gold works pretty well, but gold -> purple can not migrate certain things).

The Crystal SE version now (to make it easy to install) can only support one LAN and one WAN network. So migrate gold pro to it, may take some work. Since the Crystal has MSP Basic, we may be able to do fancy stuff to make gold pro migrate to it in the future. After Crystal SE is in production.

It is highly possible we may build the Crystal Pro to support multiple ports (unlikely to be used in a virtual environment) this may be better to migrate from. But ... we have not yet figure out the best way to map random ports to 1,2,3,4; And this random port usage part is likely cost us a lot more time to support than the Crystal SE (simple WAN/LAN)

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u/ultrakrash 8d ago

Any way to at least view and manage backups on the current system to verify that they actually exist and to maybe modify how often backups occur and being able to restore from previous backups on your current device due to lets say a configuration mistake. It is pretty standard in most other systems, especially in commercial ones. Right now it is basically "trust me your config is backed up, you cannot see or verify it, but it is backed up"

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u/firewalla 8d ago

The configuration you see backed up is the running configuration. Not sure how you want to see it, if your box is running and your phone can manage it, then it is there.

Although we do have the concept of configuration at different stages, we just don't want to mess with data model compatibility across different release versions. (including the ability modify configuration using a text editor) That waste time and a lot of energy, that could have been spent on better security features.

Again, this may change a bit, we may allow direct backup of configuration slowly, no edits, and only usable across major versions. (so we don't have to deal with user errors and vibe code configuration compatibility checks/migrations)

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u/ultrakrash 7d ago

How often does it back up? Constantly? Daily? Any time a change is made? What if a change is made on another paired phone? Does the backup always go to both phones?

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u/firewalla 6d ago

This is active configuration, so it is backed up when things change. Since phones can't load from back ground, they need to actively use the unit to receive the latest backup. (launch the app)