How to perform a repository import from the System Export data? [Video]

Importing artifacts from full system export data

Video Transcript

Hi there! I'm Tim, a support engineer from JFrog. In this short video, I'll show you how to perform a repository import from the data that was generated from a system export.

Before I jump into this tutorial, I would like to share with you some of the options that are available in system export.

Okay, this is the system export page. So, the first option is to export everything, which means you will export the entire data of Artifactory, which includes binaries, artifacts, configuration, security entities, and so on. This method is not really recommended for very large environments.

Then, we have a system export exclude content. This means Artifactory will export everything that we mentioned before, except binaries. One of the main reasons why you would choose this option is when the total size of binaries or the total count of binaries is very large. Once this method is performed, then you will have to copy the filestore manually from one environment to another by using RSync, for example.

Then, we have exclude metadata. As you already understood, this excludes both the metadata, also known as artifacts, and the P (?). This method usually completes within seconds, as it only exports security entities such as permissions, users, groups, and tokens. It also exports the repositories configurations such as load balancer, custom base URL, etc.

This is recommended for very, very large environments, and I'm talking about over millions of artifacts and terabytes of data. Once this method is performed, you can then perform repository replication, which will copy both the artifacts and the binaries to the desired instance.

Okay, without further ado, let's get started.

As you can see, I have one artifact in my generic repository. Now, we are going to perform a system export from this environment. So, we are going to click on Admin, then we will go to System, and we are going to choose the path where we want to export this. This is going to be my location: Downloads, and I will click Export.

All right, the folder 2020 with the timestamp has been created successfully. Now, we are going to switch to another environment and perform a system repository import.

All right. This is our new environment. As you can see, our example repo local is empty, and we will perform repo import into this repository.

To start, you will click on Admin, then Artifactory, and then Repositories. You will scroll to the Import section. You'll pick the ones that you want to import to, and then we will go find our exported data. In my case, it's going to be here.

Once you go inside the exported data, you will select the repositories — oops! — and then you will select the repo that you want to import. In this case, I will import the generic local, and then I will click Select and Import.

All right. So, if we go back to our repository browser and expand this, we will see that file.txt is being imported successfully.

That was my video on how to perform repository import from the data that was generated by system export.

Thanks for watching, and I hope you have enjoyed it. Feel free to leave your comments, feedback, or questions in the comment section below.