Backup util

[Paddy]

Now that my network is up and running i'd like to reduce the chance of loosing data by backing up certain critical components. Now my documents are easy enough thanks to synchtoy, but the mail server itself is more problematic as i can't backup all the files unless i stop certain services. SynchToy can't do this.

I'd be happy with a compromise. Say a way to schedule switching off a service for an hour and then time synchtoy to do its thing. I've googled for scheduling stopping services, but nothing useful came up.

Does anyone know of a util that would do this, or better yet, an all-in backup program?

[mmp121]

I know that via the command line function of SC you can control services.

SC \\computername stop,query,start <servicename>

I use that every now and then to stop services and such when I do video captures via a batch file. Then I start the services with another batch file when I'm done. Its not pretty but it gets the job done.

Edit:

Do a SC /? in the command prompt and you will get a boatload of info about how to use the command.

[Paddy]

cheers! That sounds very helpful.

[Taz]

can you not use the NET STOP service command and schedule it using the Windows scheduler?

[Paddy]

I've created a batch file that stops the services, xcopys the data and then restarts the service.
I have done it this way to have as minimal downtime as possible.

Now I would like to compress the directories into a single archive and date stamp the file name.

My goal is to perform a daily backup every evening. I want to keep daily backups for one week, then weekly for two months, then monthly. In order to do this, I would need to have some way of selectivley deleting the files. This sounds complicated, but I am fairly sure that I could write a series of batch files for this.

What command line based archiver should I use.
Any other suggestions, tips?

[Paddy]

Right. This is a little bit complicated as I am moving data from my DMZ into the LAN and I don't want to setup a pinhole.
I have created a batch file that stops services on the Web/Mail Server, copies data to a shared volume and then restarts the services. This happens at 0400 every night.

On the LAN file server, it maps to the shared volume on the Web/Mail Server and copies the data using xcopy. It then uses RAR to compress the archive and date stamp the file name.

Tasks remaining:
1) It would be nice for the File Server (LAN) to delete the temp files created by the Web/Mail server (DMZ), but the rmdir gives access denied. I could simply use another scheduled batch file on the Web/Mail server but we could do better than that!

2) Having got my backup folder full of daily archives, it would be nice to setup some sort of 'pruning' system. The files are stamped with DDMMMYY. Is it possible to delete files based on 'relative' date. In other words, delete files older than one week, or one month???

Cheers.

[Paddy]

Fixed 1: I had a problem with permissions. Now to move/delete files based on name or creation date...

[Paddy]

Completed! I needed to write three batch files, but It all works perfectly.
Now do i dare to kill the server and test the backup?