Administrating MarkLogic Server

For backing up and restoring a database with encryption, see Backup and Restore in Securing MarkLogic Server.

The backup files are platform specific—backups on a given platform should only be restored onto the same platform. This is true for both database and forest backups.

You can restore an individual forest using a database backup by unchecking all forests except the one you want to restore on the Confirm Restore screen (see Step 11 in Restoring a Database without Journal Archiving).

We recommend using the database-level backup/restore, not the forest-level backup/restore. If you do use the forest-level backup/restore, note that you cannot restore a backup created with the forest-level backup as a database-level restore operation; forest-level backups created with the forest backup/restore utility must be restored from the forest restore utility. For details, see Restoring a Forest.

The restore operation is designed to restore into a database that has the same configuration settings as the one that was backed up, but it neither requires nor checks that the configurations are the same. The restore operation must occur on a database that has its configuration defined. Also, the restore operation does not change the database configuration files. Because the configuration files hold all of the database configuration information such as index options, fragmentation, range indexes, and so on, the restored database will take on the configuration information of the database to which it is restored. If this configuration information is different from the database that was backed up, and if reindexing is enabled, the database will reindex to the new configuration after the restore completes.

If a database’s backup is canceled, the in-flight backup is deleted. A database backup can be canceled by clicking the cancel button for the backup in the host status page in the Admin Interface, by the host or cluster being restarted (either from the Admin Interface or from the xdmp:restart command), or by errors in the backup (such as out-of-disk space errors). The process of deleting the in-flight backup during a clean restart might take some time, which can increase the time it takes to restart MarkLogic Server. If you are restarting using the startup scripts (/sbin/service MarkLogic <command>)on UNIX systems and the control panel on Windows systems), then the script will delete as much of the backup as it can in 20 seconds; if any backup is in-flight during these types of system shutdown or restart operations, then you should manually remove them after the operation.

After you restore from an incremental backup, you can’t use the previous full backup location for ongoing incremental backups. You will need to make a fresh full backup after the restore and use that full backup location for the ongoing incremental backups. This means that after the restore of an incremental backup, any scheduled backups will need to be updated to use the new full backup location.