Backup3G/EWC/User Guide/Defining Windows Backups

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Revision as of 07:51, 21 February 2008

EWC backups are configured the same as other backup jobs:

• you define a backup item for each data object to be backed up
• you define backup jobs to back up one or more items at the scheduled time to a particular drive or drive pool

The main differences are:

• in the backup item you use a Windows specific backup method instead of one of the standard UNIX methods
• support for Windows Registry backup
• support for Windows System State backup
• backup items to control starting and stopping Windows services.

	Note
	Backup on Windows requires the NTCPIO proprietary backup format.

This guide describes the ways you can back up Windows filesystems, the Registry, how to control services and how to define backup items. Defining, scheduling, and monitoring backup jobs are described in the backup3G User Guide.

Windows Backup Methods

This topic describes the different methods for backing up Windows data. The backup facilities provided include starting and stopping services (some data cannot be backed up unless it’s associated service has been shutdown), backing up the registry, user profiles, files and directories.

What happens if a step fails

‘Exit status 2’ usually indicates a usage error in the backup command, such as an unrecognised option or an incorrect number of arguments. Other exit statuses are dependent on the backup method—check the manual page for the command that reported the error.

Any previous steps that wrote to the tape and completed successfully may be restored from, but depending on the type of backup may not be worth recovering. The System Administrator should examine the reason for failure and the type of object in the successful backup steps to see whether they can be usefully recovered.

Controlling Services

Some services have files permanently open and/or write to files while they are running. Sometimes these type of services must be shutdown before their associated files can be backed up. EWC provides methods for starting and stopping Windows services. The definition of these methods is straight forward, enter the name of the service to be started or stopped in the Object field.

	Note
	You will need to order the backup items in the backup job so that the services are stopped before their associated data is backed up. You will also need to define a backup item to restart the service on completion of the backup.

Registry Backup

backup3G performs the following steps when you back up the Windows registry using the ‘registry backup’ method.

1. Dump registry keys to temporary files.
2. Backup temporary registry files.
3. Remove temporary files.

	Note
	Only the registry keys that are not dynamic or hardware dependent are backed up. These are the keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, excluding the HARDWARE key.

Profile Backup

The profile backup method is used to back up user profiles. These are the configuration and desktop settings associated with a particular user. This information is usually stored in a directory with the same name as the user. The directory contains files and sub-directories that are used to store the information associated with that user.

	Note
	Certain profile files cannot be backed up if the associated user is logged in. All users should be logged out before performing a profile backup. The profile backup uses the NTCPIO format and files are backed up using absolute references.

System State Backup

The profile backup method is used to back up user profiles. These are the configuration and desktop settings associated with a particular user. This information is usually stored in a directory with the same name as the user. The directory contains files and sub-directories that are used to store the information associated with that user.

	Note
	Certain profile files cannot be backed up if the associated user is logged in. All users should be logged out before performing a profile backup. The profile backup uses the NTCPIO format and files are backed up using absolute references.

Data Backup

These methods are used to back up files and directories on Windows. These methods can be used on both NTFS and FAT filesystems. Objects or directories to be backed up can be specified using either the Windows format (example: C:/) or the POSIX format (Example: //C/).

Example: back up “Program Files” directory

Define an item to back up the Program Files directory on a Windows host. Exclude any dll files from the backup.

This backup will use the NTCPIO format and will keep an online index for quick recovery of files.

1. Select Backup3G configuration > Tools > Items then select Item > Add
2. Select Backup a Microsoft Windows folder or drive
3. Select the name of your host machine. You can press choose to see the list of all the available hosts at your site.
4. Type in the folder name: C:/Program Files. Alternatively you could have explored the Windows host for the folder.
5. Uncheck Multi-part?.
6. Enter in the Exclude pattern(s) field: */*.dll
7. The comment will be automatically set to “Full ntcpio backup of C:/Program Files”
8. Set On error to ‘abort’.
9. Press Accept to add this item.

You can now select this item when defining a step in a backup job.

Defining Windows Backups

You must define a backup item for each type of backup that you want to perform. Once you have defined all your backup items, you must define a set of backup jobs to back up these items at the scheduled times.

How to Define a Backup Item

A backup item describes the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of a backup. It identifies the host name, the object and the method that will be used to back it up.

Each backup method calls a driver script to back up the data. Table 1 shows the backup command and other attributes for each Windows backup method.

You can use the Options field to pass extra flags and arguments to the backup command. To see what options are supported by each method, check the manual page for that driver script.

Example: the options for the ‘registry backup method’ are described in the FSregback manual page.

Note that these options are not validated when you define the backup item, but are simply passed to the backup command to be evaluated at run time.

To define a backup item

1. Select Backup3G configuration > Maintain backup jobs .
2. Select Items > Maintain to display the list of existing backup items, then select Maintain > Add .

   Item

   Defaults to one more than the current highest item number. You can change it to any unused item number, but it is recommended that you accept the default.

   Object

   Enter the object to be backed up or acted upon. Ensure that it is correct as backup3G doesn’t check that it exists at this point.

   Host

   Select the host on which the item is to be performed. If you want to perform the same item on multiple hosts, you must define a separate backup item for each.

   Method

   Press Choose to list the backup methods.

   Index

   Select ‘yes’ if you want an index and the method you chose supports an index. An online index makes it easier to select items to be restored.

   Options

   Enter any optional flags and arguments to be passed to the backup command at run time.

   You can see what other options this backup method supports by checking the man page for the corresponding backup driver script. Table 1 shows what driver script is run by each Windows backup method.

   Note - Use double quotes around file patterns to ensure that they are parsed correctly.

   Comment

   Enter a descriptive comment.

   On error

   Should the backup job continue if this step fails? Select ‘continue’ if the job should continue after an error in this step. Select ‘abort’ if the job should not continue.

3. Press Accept to save this item.

Recovery for Windows