How to Back Up Your Axigen Mail Server

Solution

How to Back Up Axigen Mail Server Using the Full Working Directory

Performing a full backup of the Axigen Mail Server using the filesystem tool involves saving the contents of the Axigen working directory to a safe location while the Axigen service is in a stopped state. The working directory path is:

/var/opt/axigen — for Linux systems
/axigen/var/ — for Docker systems
C:\Program Files\Axigen Mail Server — for Windows systems

Note: The queue folder inside the working directory is only a temporary location for undelivered messages. You should not save it unless you know you require it. The files inside it can be saved and compressed as needed, to any location.

We recommend having at least one full backup of the Axigen working directory after making all the general and custom settings you require. This will ensure faster recovery after a severe event that would require an Axigen reinstall and full restore.

The directories that can be left out from the backup are the <work_dir>/log/ and <work_dir>/queue/, as these do not contain any critical information (persistent in time) and are not necessarily required when performing a full restore.

A minimum backup should consist in saving the Axigen <work_dir>/domains directory, the configuration file <work_dir>/run/axigen.cfg, and the <work_dir>/filters/ directory. These files contain your custom policies configured for Axigen.

IMPORTANT:

The <work_dir>/domains directory contains all the domain data, including user emails.
Please include any custom locations in your backup if you defined any of the domain storages outside the default location <work_dir>/domains/.

To restore a previously saved backup of the Axigen working directory, check out this knowledge base article: How to Restore a Backup of the Working Directory

How to Back Up Axigen Mail Server via the FTP Backup Service

Besides traditional backup methodologies, such as backing the entire Axigen configuration / domain storage data on the disc, the FTP module is designed to provide the administrators with an alternative in terms of the details that can be backed up. The FTP module provides an overview of the internal storage structure, thus permitting backup procedures to be executed for specific domain data such as accounts or even selective folders / messages.

For information on how to back up a domain using FileZilla, check out this resource: How to Backup a Domain Using FileZilla

For information on how to restore a domain using FileZilla, check out this resource: How to Restore a Domain Using FileZilla

For additional details on this topic, please refer to the following resources: Backup and Restore | The Axigen Solution — Overview & Architecture

How to Back Up Axigen Mail Server via FUSE Access

The same data that is available through the FTP Backup module, which was described above, is also accessible by mounting the Axigen domains via FUSE, which will allow much faster backup/restore operations (compared to FTP access).

For mounting a domain via FUSE on the Linux platform, please refer to the following article: How to Mount the Axigen Storage in a Virtual File System on a Linux Platform

If you’re using Axigen on a Windows platform, please consult:

Note: Considering the above FUSE access, you can use the tools usually used for file system backups. These can now be used to back up the directory under which the Axigen domain storage or objects were mounted.

How to Back Up Axigen Mail Server via Dedicated Archiving Solutions

Axigen is extremely easy to integrate with dedicated archiving solutions like MailArchiva or Piler.

For more details, you may check out this resource: How Axigen’s Email Archiving Helps You Quickly Access And Backup Your Data

Note: We strongly recommend you to first test (using a test platform) the backup procedure you will implement. Testing the backup procedures will show you if your backups are performed without errors and that the backed-up data is not corrupt, providing reliability for the backup / restore processes.

The backup procedure you choose to implement for your Axigen service should be made after considering all the above methods and being in compliance with your company’s requirements.

How to Automate the Backup Process for Axigen Mail Server

Axigen users can also use Python scripts to automate the incremental backup creation process. You can find more resources here: Admin & provisioning automation scripts via Axigen's CLI