Backster

A simple customisable tool to backup data into a 7-Zip archive using Windows scheduled tasks. It is designed for system administrators and programmers knowledgeable about using Windows command line.

Test data, scripts and tasks are provided for trialling the system.

Predefined backup types:

full : create new archive every backup.
mirror : update the archive to reflect disk content.

Predefined schedules:

full daily, weekly, monthly.
Mirror every 10 mins, hourly.

Alert messages can be sent via a popup window or email if backup has a problem.

Installation

Unzip backster zipfile into a folder eg. C:\SOE\
Backster consists of the following:

Folder	Description
7-ZipPortable	7-Zip archiving software
doc	documentation
example	example scripts and tasks
MailAlert	send email utility.
MsgAlert	Popup and sound alert
restore	folder for test restores
save	folder for test backups
test	folder for test data

File	Description
7-Zip.cmd	7-Zip shortcut
globals.cmd	global config for scripts
readme.txt	this file
TaskScheduler.cmd	Windows Task Scheduler shortcut

Getting started

Example data and scripts provides the capability to test the operations of the tool before performing actual backups.

Copy all example files to a working directory eg C:\tools\backups or just use the files in the example folder directly.

Edit setup.com and point the globals.cmd line to your backstr installation eg:

call C:\SOE\Backster-1.0\globals.cmd

Backup

To create a daily task to perform a full backup of the test data,

Rightclick on sched_full_daily.cmd -> Run as administrator.

This will create a Windows scheduled task to run backup_full.cmd daily. The task will run every day at 18:00 by default and backup the test folder into save\test_full_daily_.7z. A log is created as test_full_daily_.log.

To run the task immediately, run TaskScheduler.cmd,

Click on Task Scheduler Library (left pane)  
Rightclick on Backup_full task (right pane) -> Run

The backup_full task will run immediately and the archive created in the save folder.

Restore

run 7-Zip.cmd,

Navigate to save folder  
Click on test_full_daily_<weekday>.7z  
Click the Extract icon and set:  
- Extract to: C:\SOE\Backster-1.0\restore  
- Path mode: Full pathnames  
- Overwrite mode: Overwrite without prompt  
Click Ok

The test data will be restored to C:\SOE\Backster-1.0\restore\

Customisation

Example: full backup of D:\Word Files*.docx into E:\archive\Word\ every day at 8:30pm.

Edit backup_full.cmd and change the lines to suit your setup:

set backup_from=D:\Word Files\*.docx  
set to_zipfile=E:\archive\Word\Word_full_daily_%suffix%.7z

Edit sched_full_daily.cmd and change the start time to:

/st 20:30

Rightclick on sched_full_daily.cmd -> Run as administrator.
Enter Y to replace the existing task.

Perform an immediate run to check E:\archive\Word\Word_full_daily_.7z exists.
Perform a restore to a temp folder to verify the files are available.

Alert notification

Alert messages can be sent using MailAlert in the event of a failure. The example below shows how to configure a gmail address.

Edit MailAlert.ini,

[CONFIGURATION]  
To=gmail_user@gmail.com        <== gmail address of receiver  
From=gmail_user@gmail.com      <== gmail address of sender  
;ReplyTo=manager@example.org  
;Cc=admin2@example.org,admin3@example.org  
;Bcc=boss@example.org  
FullName=Backster Alerts       <== informational  
SMTPServer=smtp.gmail.com  
SMTPPort=587  
Username=gmail_user@gmail.com  <== google login username  
EnableAutoTLS=yes  
EnableSMTPS=no  
Importance=High  
PlaintextOnly=no  
VerboseMode=no  
Charset=ISO-8859-1  
AlternativeSpaceEncoding=yes  
Password=gmail_user_password   <== google login password

Send a test email with the command:

MailAlert -t

Alerts are enabled by setting these variables in the backup scripts to 1 eg:

set EMAIL_ALERT=1
set MSG_ALERT=0