Restoring Ignition Gateway from Autobackup

In the event of a hard drive failure it may be necessary to restore your Ignition Gateway manually from an auto backup. The autobackup contains all of the files that makeup the Ignition Gateway’s internal database. This includes all of your projects, scripts, tags, and gateway settings. The only information not contained in the autobackup is license information and tags from external providers.

Auto backups are created anytime there is a change to the internal database. Changes to the internal database can be triggered by saving in the designer, editing tags, and changes to the gateway settings.

The following steps will assist you in restoring your gateway. You will need to have a third party archival tool to open the backup. There are many freeware archive tools available, such as 7Zip or WinRAR, just to name a couple. These steps can also be used to extract the internal database from a gateway backup file (.gwbk).

1. Locate the auto backup folder in the installation directory of Ignition 
\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data\db\autobackup

2. Copy the entire autobackup folder to another location. This is to ensure none of the files within are overwritten.

3. Once you have moved the folder go ahead and open it. Inside you will find five tar.gz files. Each one of these files is a backup of the Ignition internal database. Find the most recent backup, the date modified column will be a good indicator.

4. You will need to use a third party archival tool to open the file. Open the file

5. Drill down in the archive until you come to the four settings files. These files will restore the internal database. They are named:
-settings.properties
-settings.script
-settings.data
-settings.lobs

6. Before you continue the Ignition service must be stopped. You can stop the service from the GCU, Windows Services, or the command line. Once the service is stopped you may continue.

7. The four files named in step 5 will need to be copied to the db folder within the installation directory of Ignition. If prompted select "Move and Replace"
\Inductive Automation\Ignition\data\db

8. Once the files are placed into the db folder the Ignition service can be started.

9. Finally, after the service has started check the status of the Ignition Gateway.

If the Ignition Gateway fails to start, or shows signs of corruption, you will want to restore from another autobackup. You will need to go back to step 3 and use the next most recent backup.