Full system backup, exports and the Project Report

What it is

Three ways of getting your data out of CreaRack, all in the Config menu (admin only):

• Full System Backup / Restore — a complete snapshot of your organization in a ZIP.
• Export to CSV — the inventory as a spreadsheet.
• Project Report — a customer-ready printable document with your branding.

Full system backup

1. Config → Full System Backup opens a dialog with everything that is about to travel, with counts, and a checkbox on each piece: your dashboard sections (each Map, Row and Room, plus “No Map” — expand one to see its racks and their device counts) and the complete domains (Monitoring, Wireless, UPS, Digital Signage with an extra sub-option for the heavy video files, Observatory/ITSM, Terminal scripts, Cables and the Catalog of stencils and groups). Everything is ticked by default except the Digital Signage video files (that sub-option starts unticked), so a full backup is still a single click on Create Backup.
2. Untick what should stay out and you get a partial backup: its file name ends in _partial.zip and the file itself remembers it was created with a selection, so a later restore can tell you. A partial backup carries live content only (items sitting in the Trash travel only in a full backup). Selection works per dashboard section — a rack travels with its section.
3. Video files are ~97% of the weight, so they stay out unless you tick their sub-option under Digital Signage: the video entries still travel, and a restore on this same server relinks the files automatically. Include them only if the copy must work on another installation.
4. What’s included (when everything is ticked): your racks and devices, physical cable connections, maps and DCIM rooms/rows, stencil library with images, monitoring targets and alert definitions, the Observatory’s ITSM configuration (SLA policies, notification channels, escalations, maintenance windows, known issues, runbooks), Digital Signage (media entries — with thumbnails always —, playlists, schedules, players, client projects), terminal scripts, device profiles (with their page assignment, manual fields and groups) and AI prompts. What stays out, by design: stored credentials and SSH trust keys (sensitive material — relink them after a restore), public sharing tokens (regenerated on restore for safety), and activity history (logs, events, metrics).
5. Every backup verifies itself as it is created: the ZIP carries a built-in manifest (counts of everything above and a fingerprint of the data), and CreaRack re-reads the finished file from disk to check that everything declared is actually there. A backup that fails this check is discarded and the operation ends in a visible error — you will never be handed a silently broken file.
6. Keep it somewhere safe, ideally on a schedule (e.g. before big changes and monthly). The automatic nightly backup is always complete and always skips video files.

Full system restore

1. Config → Full System Restore and select the .zip.
2. CreaRack inspects the file first and shows its complete content in plain sight — the same tree as the backup dialog, built from the file: every Map, Row, Room and “No Map” with their racks, and every domain with counts. Items that already exist in your organization (same rack or map name, same device IP, same script or playlist name…) carry an “already exists” tag, and each domain shows how many of its items match — so you can tell at a glance whether a copy is complete or truncated, and what would collide. If the file is a partial backup, the summary says so.
3. Untick anything that should stay out (sections or whole domains, same scheme as when creating) and pick the mode:
   • Add as a copy — everything selected is recreated alongside your current data. Nothing is deleted; items present in both will appear duplicated.
   • Update existing — items that match the backup are overwritten with the backup’s data, new ones are added, and nothing local is ever deleted. Racks match by name and their devices pair up by name inside the rack; maps keep your local annotations; a Signage player keeps its live status. If updating would leave two devices overlapping in the same rack unit, the whole restore is rejected with the reason — nothing half-done.
4. If your organization already has data, CreaRack asks for an extra confirmation with a mode-specific message before proceeding.
5. When it finishes, the Restore Report tells the story per content block (Racks & devices · Maps, Rows & Rooms · Monitoring · Device profiles · Digital Signage · ITSM · Terminal · Cables · Catalog) with three figures each — created, updated and skipped — and a one-line verdict on top. The fine per-item-type breakdown only unfolds when something was left out. If the backup carried Digital Signage players, the report also lists each restored player with its NEW publish link: a screen configured with the old link keeps asking for it and never updates, so reconfigure each device with the link shown (it is also available later in Signage → Deploy → Setup). Close the report and the page reloads with your data.

Restore reconnects everything it brings: cables point at the restored devices, playlists at the restored media, schedules at the restored playlists, and device profiles keep their management page (Wireless/UPS/DSM), manual fields and groups. One exception, on purpose: a device profile that only ever answered a ping (no vendor, no model, never verified — the discovery could not tell what it is) is restored without a management page, so it does not show up in Wireless, UPS or Digital Signage as if it were an identified device; it stays in the network inventory and gets its page the moment the discovery verifies it. A page you set by hand on such a profile is kept. Video files that were not packed in the ZIP are relinked automatically when the backup is restored on the same server (they are copied from the source organization); a video that cannot be found anywhere is marked unavailable instead of appearing broken. Signage players come back offline, without credentials and with a new publish link (relink the credential in the player’s settings and reconfigure the screen with the new link — the Restore Report lists them), and client-portal links get fresh sharing tokens.

Restore shines on an empty organization (disaster recovery, cloning a known-good state, moving a site into its own organization) — there the report should show everything created and nothing skipped. To move a single rack, you can also use the rack export/import. If you restored over existing data by accident, the duplicated items can be sent to the Trash and recovered from there (see [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]]).

CSV export

Config → Export to CSV downloads CreaRack-Pro_Export.csv with the inventory — racks and devices ready for Excel, asset databases or invoicing. For per-rack exports, see [[crearack—racks—exportar-csv]].

Project Report

1. Config → Project Report.
2. Choose the scope: All Racks or a single rack.
3. Pick the visual style: Standard (full detail with device images) or Print-Friendly (clean, ink-saving vector outlines).
4. Click Generate Report and print or save as PDF from the browser.

The report carries the logo and contact details from [[crearack—settings—company-settings]] — set those first if you are handing it to a customer.

Troubleshooting

• “This organization already has N racks…” when restoring — that is the safety check: your organization is not empty. In Add as a copy mode the backup lands on top (duplicates included); in Update existing mode matching items are overwritten. Confirm only if that is what you want.
• The Restore Report shows items skipped — usually fine: they were left out by your selection, or already existed and the Add mode does not overwrite (shared settings deduplicate by design). Use Update existing if you wanted them refreshed.
• “overlaps … at U” error when restoring in Update mode — a device from the backup would land on a rack unit occupied by a local device that is not in the backup. Nothing was changed; move one of the two and retry.
• Wireless/UPS/DSM look empty after a restore into a test organization — make sure you used a backup made with v1.72.1 or later (older ZIPs did not carry the page classification) and restored into a clean organization; re-restoring on top of older attempts gives confusing results.
• A device is missing from Wireless/UPS/DSM after a restore, but it is in the network inventory — it only ever answered a ping in the backup, so it came back without a page. Run a discovery on it (or set the page by hand in its device card) and it takes its place.
• A restored Signage video shows as unavailable — the backup was made without video files and the original could not be found on this server. Re-upload the video, or restore from a backup made “With Videos”.
• “Backup failed integrity verification” — the finished file did not match what CreaRack expected to have written (rare; typically a full disk or an interrupted job). Nothing was harmed: the faulty file was discarded. Simply run the backup again.
• A restored Signage player shows offline — expected: players return without credentials. Open the player, relink its credential and it will reconnect.
• A restored screen never updates its content — its publish link changed with the restore (public links are regenerated on purpose). The Restore Report listed the new link; you can also read it in Signage → Deploy → Setup. Meanwhile, the Signage History tab shows a warning when a device keeps requesting a link that no longer exists.
• Restore confirmation never finishes — large media or stencil libraries take a moment; do not navigate away while the restore is running.
• Report shows no logo — upload one in Company Settings and regenerate.
• “The file is too large to upload (limit ~100 MB)” when choosing a backup to restore — the upload proxy caps files at about 100 MB, so a backup made With Videos can exceed it. Create the backup without video files (a few MB) and restore that one: on the same server the restore relinks the videos automatically; on a different server, re-upload them afterwards.

Related

• [[crearack—settings—company-settings]] — branding used by the report
• [[crearack—racks—exportar-csv]] — per-rack CSV export
• [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]] — recovering (or removing) items after an accidental restore

Véase también

• [[crearack—settings—company-settings]]
• [[crearack—racks—exportar-csv]]
• [[crearack—racks—etiquetas-qr]]