Splunk® User Behavior Analytics

Administer Splunk User Behavior Analytics

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Back up Splunk UBA using the backup script

Perform a full backup of Splunk UBA using the /opt/caspida/bin/utils/uba-backup.sh script. View the command line options by using the --help option. The table lists and describes the various options that can be used in the script.

Option Description
--archive Create a single archive containing all of the backup data. The archive is created after the backup is completed and Splunk UBA is restarted.
--archive-only Keep the backup archive only but do not keep the backup folder.
--archive-type %FORMAT% Specity the type of archive you want to create.
  • Use gzip for good compression and good timings
  • Use bzip2 for better compression but bad timings
  • Use xz for a balance between compression and timings in gzip and bzip2
  • Use tar for the fastest timings but with zero compression and large sizes

Install a package called pigz on the management node to use multi-threaded compression when creating .tgz archives. On Oracle Enterprise Linux or Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, use the following command to install this package:

yum -y install pigz
--dateformat %FORMAT% Override the default date/time format for the backup folder name. If this option is not used, the folder name is based on ISO 8601 format YYYY-MM-DD. To specify a backup folder name in the typical format used in the United States, specify MM-DD-YYYY. Using this option also overrides the date/time format of the logging messages.
--folder %FOLDER% Override the target folder location where the backup is stored. Use this option if you configured a secondary volume for storing backups, such as another 1TB disk on the management node. Don't use NFS for performance ramifications.
--log-time Add additional logging for how long each section takes, including all function calls and tasks. Use this option to help troubleshoot issues if your backup is taking more than two hours.
--no-checksum Don't create a checksum of the archive.
--no-data Don't back up any data, only the Splunk UBA configuration.
--no-prestart Don't start Splunk UBA before the backup begins, because Splunk UBA is already running. Make sure Splunk UBA is up and running before using this option.
--no-start Don't start Splunk UBA after the backup is completed. Use this option to perform additional post-backup actions that required Splunk UBA to be offline.
--no-time Don't log the amount of time taken for each task.
--restart-on-fail Restart Splunk UBA if the backup fails. If Splunk UBA encounters an error during the backup, the script attempts to restart Splunk UBA so the system does not remain offline.
--script %FILENAME% Run the specified script after the backup is completed. Use this with the --no-start option if your script requires Splunk UBA to be offline.
--skip-freespace Skip the free space checks.
--skip-hdfs-fsck Skip the HDFS file system consistency check. This is useful in large environments if you want to skip this check due to time constraints.
--skip-start-live-ds Don't start the live data sources.
--use-distcp Perform a parallel backup of Hadoop. If the HDFS export is taking several hours, use this option to perform a parallel backup which may be faster. Use the --log-time option to examine how long the HDFS export is taking.
--validate Validate that a backup can be successfully performed, but do not actually perform the backup.

The following is an example backup:

  1. Log in to the management node of your Splunk UBA deployment as caspida using SSH.
  2. Navigate to the /opt/caspida/bin/utils folder:
    cd /opt/caspida/bin/utils
  3. Run the backup script. Below is the command and its output:
    [caspida@uba bin]$ ./uba-backup.sh --no-prestart --archive --archive-type tgz
    UBA Backup Script - Version 2.1.5
    Backup started at: Thu Oct  8 07:44:59 UTC 2020
    Backup running on: uba-backup.splunk.com
    Logfile:           /var/log/caspida/uba-backup-2020-10-08_07-44-59.log
    Script Name:       uba-backup.sh
    Script SHA:        ce57125beb8de883f8a22ed61bdb45f79a15062b74ccb4676ce4dbd1730b6c35 (sha256sum)
    Parsing any CLI args
    - Disabling UBA pre-start before backup
    - Enabling archive creation
    - Archive type: tgz
    Backup folder: /var/vcap/ubabackup/2020-10-08_07-44-59
    UBA version: 5.0.3
    Node Count:  1
    Checking hypervisor and network configuration
    > Time taken: 4.182 seconds
    Testing SSH connectivity to UBA nodes
    > Time taken: 0.323 seconds
    Retrieving system information for each UBA node
    > Time taken: 5.289 seconds
    Determining IP address of each UBA node
    > Time taken: 0.011 seconds
    Not starting UBA (pre-backup), disabled via CLI
    Checking available free space
    Space required: 18.26 GB
    Space free:     890.34 GB
    Space requirements for the backup have been met
    > Time taken: 3.816 seconds
    Checking HDFS folder structure
    > Time taken: 6.807 seconds
    Creating backup folder
    > Time taken: 0.133 seconds
    Retrieving list of active datasources
    > Time taken: 0.219 seconds
    Determining current counts/stats from PostgreSQL
    > Time taken: 2.787 seconds
    Stopping UBA
    > Time taken: 208.426 seconds
    Starting UBA (partial)
    > Time taken: 104.810 seconds
    Checking that HDFS is not in safe-mode
    > Time taken: 2.256 seconds
    Performing fsck of HDFS (this may take a while)
    > Time taken: 2.425 seconds
    Beginning parallel tasks (1)
    Creating backup of deployment configuration
    Creating backup of local configurations
    Creating backup of UBA rules
    Creating backup of version information
    Waiting for parallel tasks to finish
    > Time taken: 1.013 seconds
    Beginning parallel tasks (2)
    Creating backup of Postgres
    Creating backup of Hadoop HDFS
    Logging Redis information
    Waiting for parallel tasks to finish
    Stopping UBA
    Creating backup of Timeseries data
    Creating backup of Redis data
    Waiting for parallel tasks to finish
    > Time taken: 288.708 seconds
    Creating summary of backup
    > Time taken: 0.010 seconds
    Beginning parallel tasks (3)
    Starting UBA
    Creating backup archive
    Waiting for parallel tasks to finish
    Creating archive checksum file
    > Time taken: 268.030 seconds
    Calculating backup space usage
    > Time taken: 2.801 seconds
    Backup completed successfully
    Time taken: 0 hour(s), 15 minute(s), 2 second(s)
    

You can review the log file in /var/log/caspida/uba-backup-<timestamp>.log.

Last modified on 25 November, 2022
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This documentation applies to the following versions of Splunk® User Behavior Analytics: 5.1.0, 5.1.0.1, 5.2.0, 5.2.1, 5.3.0


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