Backing up messaging users

You can back up messaging user accounts and restore them to a different IBM® MQ Appliance if required. This back up and restore feature is intended for disaster recovery.

About this task

You use a command to place a copy of the messaging user accounts in a user-accessible file area on the appliance. You then copy that file to a backup store on another system.

Backing up and restoring messaging users can be used to ensure that they are defined consistently on all the appliances in a High Availability or Disaster Recovery configuration. You create the users on one appliance, then back them up and restore them to the other appliances in the configuration to create them there.

Note: You cannot back up locally defined appliance users individually (although they are included in a secure backup - see Secure backup). When you restore a system you must re-create local appliance users and groups manually.
Note: You should take appropriate security precautions when handling the backup file.

Procedure

  1. Connect to the IBM MQ Appliance as described in Command line access.
  2. Log in as a user in the administrators group.
  3. Type mqcli to enter IBM MQ configuration mode.
  4. Type the following command to back up the messaging users: 
    userbackup -f user_backup_filename
    Where -f user_backup_filename optionally specifies a file name. If you do not specify a file name, the backup is written to a file named userbackup-date-time, for example, userbackup-20150219-132655.
  5. Type exit to leave IBM MQ configuration mode.
  6. Copy the user backup file to another system.

    To copy the file by using the command line interface:

    1. Connect to the command line of the appliance as described in Command line access.
    2. Log in to the appliance as an administrator.
    3. Type config to enter configuration mode.
    4. Copy the file by typing the following command: 
      copy mqbackup:///user_backup_filename scp://username@ipaddress/[/]directorypath
    To copy the file by using the IBM MQ Appliance web UI:
    1. Start the IBM MQ Appliance web UI, and click the administration icon shows the admin icon.
    2. Select Main > File Management to open the File Management window.
    3. Open the mqbackup folder.
    4. Select the backup file and select Download from the menu to save the file to your local system.