Migration of settings from old Email Security appliance to a new appliance.

03/26/2020 1,173 People found this article helpful 487,422 Views

Description

Resolution

Question:

How to migrate settings from old Email Security appliance to a new appliance.

Answer:

It is recommended to backup and download each item separately due to possible large file sizes.
In some cases such as junk box that can be large, support may have to assist on importing into a new unit.
The below mentioned process is for appliance and virtual appliances. For software you can simply copy data folder to new server to migrate settings, you can find a link at the bottom of this page for instructions about software migration from one server to another.

NOTE: Importing the backup in to new appliance does not import any settings on host configuration page like ip address, host name, DNS, gateway and time zone settings. These settings needs to be configured manually. Version 8.0 per user settings is a separate checkbox.

Migration Process:

The Process to migrate all the settings from one server to another is as follows:

CAUTION: This whole process could take up to hours so plan ahead for a long downtime.

NOTE: To migrate settings from one appliance to another it is necessary for both appliance to have same hostname and same firmware versions. The last 4 numbers in firmware version will be different for different platform so you can ignore that.

EXAMPLE: Suppose that your new appliance has firmware 9.1.0.2887 and old one has 9.1.2.3763. So you need to upgrade the new one to 9.1.2.3763 before migration. You can ignore 2887,3763 as last four numbers in firmware as they represent the hardware specifics.

Backup Process:

Login to email security server (old appliance)
Go to Manage | Backup/Restore | Scheduled Backup | Backup now button
Select all the options you need to global settings , user settings , organizational settings, junk box, archive, reports data (select the required number of days)

NOTE: It is recommended to backup and download each item separately due to possible large file sizes. In some cases such as junk box that can be large, support may have to assist on importing into a new unit.

Save on the email security host and start backup . The page will refresh every 5 minutes until the backup is complete

Once the backup is complete. You can download the backup under Manage Backups | Backup Snapshots

Download the backup snapshot to the local drive by clicking on the download icon

Once the backup is done do the licensing part on your new Email Security appliance, (make sure the old appliance is offline when you do the licensing or it will not allow you to license the new appliance while the old one is still online) or import the license file manually which can be downloaded from mysonicwall.com account in my products.

NOTE: To download the license file login to your www.mysonicwall.com account, go to my products, search for the new serial number, click on it. It will show you all the details about the new hardware. Click on "Click here to download license file"

Restore Process:

Login to new SonicWall appliance for restore
Go to Manage | backup/restore|Manage backups | Restore from a Snapsshot file, and upload the snapshot from your local hard drive (You should move the snapshot files from shared drive to local drive)"
Browse the previously backed up files and start restoring one by one.

NOTE: It is recommended to import each item separately due to possible large file sizes. In some cases such as junk box that can be large, support may have to assist on importing into a new unit.

Click on 'start restoring data'.

This should migrate all your current setting to the new server.

NOTE: If the navigation or the screenshot looks different from the one mentioned above , you may be in an older firmware version and would require a firmware upgrade. Please refer the link below to upgrade the firmware to latest version.

https://www.sonicwall.com/en-us/support/knowledge-base/170504270079039