Restoring mailboxes from backups
The Restore Options area of the Mail Data tab lets you selectively restore email users’ mailboxes from mailbox backups.
If a backup or restoration is currently in progress, this area will display the message:
Backup/Restore is busy, no restore can be started till it finishes.
If after some time the progress remains at 0%, or eventually silently reverts to an IDLE state without the restoration having finished, the operation has failed. Verify connectivity with the backup media (this is especially true with NFS, SSH, and iSCSI backup methods, where network connectivity issues can cause the FortiMail’s attempt to mount the backup file system to fail). Also verify that you have configured the backup media correctly in “Configuring mailbox backups” on page 227.
To configure restoration
- Go to Maintenance > System > Mail Data.
Figure 93:Restore Options section on Mail Data tab
- Configure the following in the Restore Options section:
| GUI item | Description | |
| Created by this device | Select to restore mailboxes from backups identified by the current fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of this FortiMail unit.
If you changed the host name and/or local domain name of the FortiMail unit, the backup files are still identified by the previous FQDN. In this case, do not select this option. Instead, use the Created by option. |
|
| Created by | Select to restore mailboxes from backups identified by another FQDN or the FQDN of another FortiMail unit. Usually, you should enter an FQDN of this FortiMail unit, but you may enter the FQDN of another FortiMail unit if you want to import that FortiMail unit’s mailbox backup.
For example, assume you are upgrading to a FortiMail-2000 from a FortiMail-400 and have used a USB disk to store a backup of the mailboxes of the FortiMail-400, whose FQDN was fortimail.example.com. Configure the FortiMail-2000 to also use the USB disk as backup media. Then import the FortiMail-400’s mailbox backup to the FortiMail-2000 by entering fortimail.example.com in this field for the FortiMail-2000. |
|
| For this domain | Mark this check box if you want to restore only the mailboxes of a specific protected domain, then select the name of the protected domain from the drop-down list.
If you want to restore only the mailbox of a specific email user within this protected domain, also configure For this user. |
|
| GUI item | Description | |
| For this user | Mark this check box if you want to restore only the mailbox of a specific email user, then enter the name of the email user account, such as user1.
This option is available only if For this domain is enabled. |
|
| Restore
(button) |
Click to restore mailboxes from the most recent full or incremental backup stored on the backup media configured on “Configuring mailbox backups” on page 227.
Time required to complete a restoration varies by the size of the backup and the speed of your network connection, and also by whether the backup was a full or incremental backup. Note: To restore from a specific full and incremental version of backup, you can use the CLI command “execute backup-restore old-restore <full_int> <increments_int> domain <domain_str> user <user_str>”. Caution: Back up mailboxes before selecting this button. Restoring mailboxes overwrites all mailboxes that currently exist. |
|
- To manually initiate restoration of mail data, click Restore.