1015 - ESE: Command-line options (Backup Pro CLI)

Modified on Tue, 5 Aug at 1:13 PM

Once an Enterprise Server Edition (ESE) Agent is installed, a command-line tool called backupprocli can be used to perform basic configuration. This works on both Linux and Windows.

Options

The following options are available:

Option	Purpose
about	Display the Agent version, brand ID and Java version.
backup	Initiate a backup from the command-line (from v18.9).
full_system_backup	Configure the Full System Backup feature (from v20.5).
check_update	Check for updates.
create_account	Create a new Account. (See example below.)
show_account	Display current Account details.
remote_tunnel	Configure remote access. (See example below.)
show_remote_tunnel	Show current remote access configuration.
reconnect_account	Reconnect the current Agent to an existing Account. From v18.9, also restores the workspace (See example below.).
restore_workspace	Set to "true" will restore, set to "false" will skip the restore.
-r file	JSON file containing responses to prompts. (See example below.)
-q	Quiet option. Used in conjunction with -r when you want to fail on missing values instead of prompting the user. Useful when invoking cli from a non-interactive script.
-h	Show additional command-line arguments.
-v	Increase verbosity

Responses

By default, the user is prompted for required information. If you want to provide some or all of this information without prompting the user, specify a response file.

If the quiet option is specified and a required value is not provided in the response file, the script fails with an error. Use this if you're invoking the cli from a non-interactive script.

If the quiet option is not specified, the user is prompted for any values that are not specified in the response file. This can be used, for example, if you want to provide the Storage Platform address, Group and create key yourself, but prompt the user for the Account name and password.

The response file is a JSON file containing keys and values. Options not required by the current command are ignored, so you can use the same response file when invoking, for example, create_account and remote_tunnel.

Command	Key	Description
create_account	storage_platform_address
	group
	create_key¹
	account_name
	account_password¹
	encryption_key¹
	gen_account_password²	JSON boolean. It accepts 1, "t", "T", "TRUE", "True", true, 0, "f", "F", "FALSE", "False", false. If set to true, generate a random secure account password.
	gen_encryption_key²	JSON boolean. It accepts 1, "t", "T", "TRUE", "True", true, 0, "f", "F", "FALSE", "False", false. If set to true, generate a random secure account encryption key.
reconnect_account	storage_platform_address
	group
	account_name
	account_password¹
	encryption_key¹
remote_tunnel	remote_tunnel_enabled	JSON boolean. Integer 0 or 1, or string "y", "yes", "t", "true", "n", "no", , "f", "false"
	remote_tunnel_access_type	"platform" or "password"
	remote_tunnel_password¹	only required if access type is set to "password"

1 May be specified as either a plaintext string, or the prefix "{base64}" followed by a base64 encoded string if you wish to obfuscate the password.

2 Use Golang's crypto/rand to generate secure random numbers - convert these to printable ASCII characters in the range between 32 and 127 (excluding space and DEL).

Examples

A few typical command-line usages are illustrated below:

Creating an Account

backupprocli create_account

The user will be prompted for the following information:

No.	Value	Description
1	Storage Platform address	Use the IP or DNS of your Storage Platform.
2	Backup Group	Must be the full path, e.g.: COLLECTION\Group.
3	Account Create Key	As per the Group's setting in the Storage Platform Console.
4	Backup Account Name	Defaults to the host name of the machine - can be changed.
5	Backup Account Password	(Hidden when entered. Re-type to confirm.)
6	Account Encryption Key	(Hidden when entered. Re-type to confirm.)

Note: If you are having trouble with an installation, see Windows installation troubleshooting in Article 1311.

Reconnecting to an Account

backupprocli reconnect_account

The user will be prompted for the following information:

No.	Value	Description
1	Storage Platform address	Use the IP or DNS of your Storage Platform.
2	Backup Group	Must be the full path, e.g.: COLLECTION\Group.
3	Backup Account Name	Must be the name of the existing Account.
4	Backup Account Password	The Account's password. (Hidden when entered.)
6	Account Encryption Key	The Account's encryption key. (Hidden when entered.)

Allowing remote connections

When enabled, this allows remote connections to the current Agent from the Storage Platform Console, even from a Windows machine.

backupprocli remote_tunnel

You will be prompted to enable or disable the "remote tunnel" with a choice of access restriction:

"platform": Requires Storage Platform authentication
"password": Configures a password which will be required when connecting from a remote Agent

Using a response file

By default, the user is prompted for required information. If you want to provide some or all of this information without prompting the user, specify a response file.

The response file is a JSON file containing keys and values. Options not required by the current command are ignored, so you can use the same response file, for example, when invoking create_account and remote_tunnel.

backupprocli -r response.json create_account

A sample JSON response file with all values populated would look as follows:

{
   "storage_platform_address": "192.168.21.87",
   "group": "Dev\\Joe\\Servers",
   "create_key": "secret",
   "account_name": "myserver",
   "account_password": "password",
   "encryption_key": "password123",
   "remote_tunnel_enabled": true,
   "remote_tunnel_access_type": "password",
   "remote_tunnel_password": "stay_out"
  }

The following file would set the Storage Platform and Group, but prompt the user for the Account details (see note below):

{
   "storage_platform_address": "192.168.21.87",
   "group": "Dev\\Joe\\Servers",
   "create_key": "secret",
  }

Note: If -q (quiet) option is specified, the command will fail if there are missing keys in the response file, as per the response file above:

backupprocli -r -q response.json create_account

To prompt the user for the missing information, do not include the -q option.