Backing up is important to prevent the loss of production-critical data in the event of computer failure and/or in case something goes wrong after an operating system or software update.
For CalderaRIP users, production-critical data includes profiles and spot colors, as well as printer settings.
Context
CalderaRIP's data is either:
- Shared between all users of the same workstation, like profiles, driver configuration, and spot colors (after V17), and located in the directory
/opt/caldera- This data can be automatically backed up.
- Specific to one user of the workstation, like presets and spot colors (before V17), and located in the user-hidden directory
/Users/XXX/.cas- Must be manually backed up.
Knowing what type of backup is necessary depends not only on the items to be backed up but also on the specific case of the workstation: The simplest case is to reinstall the operating system of the same computer, in this case, an automatic backup might be sufficient. However, if you need to migrate the data from one machine to another, you must make some manual adjustments.
Warning
Caldera does not recommend migrating to another machine, even with the same operating system, but it should work if there is already an installed version of CalderaRIP software.
Good to know
If your company has a large production, it is a good practice to back up your RIP stations at certain intervals (once a month, for example). We recommend keeping each backup item in the same secure and stable location, such as a network share on a server or an external drive.
Automatic backup
For more details, please refer to the dedicated article: How to automatically backup CalderaRIP?
Caldera Snapshots (via CalderaDock)
- Saves everything shared between all users on the local machine
- It copies files from
/opt/calderato/opt/caldera_snapshots/XXXX - No need to reinstall drivers, as executables are also copied (that is also why it would not work to reinstall on a different operating system)
Save/Restore Config (via CalderaDock)
- Saves everything specific to the users in their hidden directory
- It can also copy the profiles and driver configuration files as an option (but does not include executables, they need to be reinstalled manually), plus Nexio configuration and cutter-specific files
Manual backup
For more details, please refer to the dedicated article: How to manually backup each element of CalderaRIP?
If you need to backup other elements, it is also possible to manually retrieve the corresponding files from different locations on your computer and/or different CalderaRIP modules. Click on the image to zoom:
Conclusion
Using Caldera Snapshot + SaveConfig allows backing up all the data needed for most productions.
Furthermore, using Save/Restore Config + saving manually the spot colors files is enough to move to another computer (operating system independent), but you must reinstall CalderaRIP and the drivers before restoring.