Every WISP operator knows the sinking feeling: a tower radio fails, you need to restore the config, and the last backup is three months old — if it exists at all. Manual backups don't scale, and most WISPs only back up after something goes wrong.
Why Manual Backups Fail
The typical WISP backup process looks like this:
- Open WinBox or SSH to each device
- Run
/system backup save or /export
- Download the file via FTP/SFTP
- Save it somewhere (maybe organized, maybe not)
- Repeat for every device in the network
With 100 devices, this takes 3-4 hours. So it gets done once a month at best — or only after a failure reminds you.
What Automated Backups Should Look Like
A proper backup system for a WISP should:
- Run on a schedule — daily, weekly, or custom intervals per device group
- Support both binary (.backup) and text (.rsc) exports — binary for fast restore, text for diff comparison
- Store centrally — one searchable location with version history
- Alert on failures — if a backup fails (device unreachable, disk full), you should know immediately
- Support bulk restore — push a known-good config to a replacement device in one click
Connexa's Backup Manager
Connexa connects to your MikroTik devices via the RouterOS API and automates the entire process:
- Schedule backups per device or per group (e.g., all tower radios every night, CPEs weekly)
- Binary and export formats stored with timestamps
- Compare configs between backups to see what changed
- One-click restore to the same or a replacement device
- Email alerts when backups fail
The result: what used to take 4 hours happens automatically in 15 minutes overnight, every night.
Best Practices
- Back up before changes — always trigger a backup before running bulk scripts or firmware upgrades
- Keep 30 days of history — enough to roll back past a bad change you didn't notice immediately
- Test restores quarterly — a backup you've never restored is a backup you can't trust
- Separate binary and text exports — use binary for restore, text for auditing and compliance