Backup on Windows (background information)

This document provides add-on information for the Windows program immbackup.exe. For a general information about the immbackup.exe' program, see here.

For a description of the general backup concepts please refer to this link.

The immbackup.exe program is usually used to perform backup for machines connected to the Windows domain WIN but can be used to perform backup of machines not connected to the domain. However, the setup is rather complex and is generally not a recommendable solution. Please contact itsupport@compute.dtu.dk for assistance.

Note: Throughout this section we refer to localusername which is the logon name on the local PC; type echo %username% in a command prompt to obtain it. By username we refer to the logon name to the DTU WIN domain (usually DTU initials).

More Background Information

Keywords; will simply maintain a one to one copy of the folders selected on the network share. Always have the latest copy of the files of interest in the backup share - simplified version control is obtained by placing a copy of the network share on tapes and rotating these tapes on a up to 3 months cycle.

Configuration

There is only one file to do configuration in; c:\util\localusername\immbackup.ini holds both

settings for immbackup and immbackupwrapper. The complete list of supported settings is

;; This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for Lisp evaluation.
;; If you want to create a file, visit that file with C-x C-f,
;; then enter the text in that file's own buffer.
;
; Sample c:\util\%username%\immbackup.ini file
;
; Copy this file to c:util\%username% and edit it
;
; as needed.
; This file show all the supported settings for both immbackup
; and immbackupwrapper.
;
; hc 20100825
;
; This section is only read by the immbackupwrapper program
; If the immbackupwrapper program is used both "immbackup"
; and "backuppath" must be specified while "authusername"
; is optional. "authusername" is your username on the Windows Domain
[wrapper]
immbackup=\\nas1.imm.dtu.dk\util\immbackup.exe
backuppath=\\nas1.imm.dtu.dk\Backups\%username%\%computername%
authusername=%username%
;
; This is only read by the immbackup and the values given below
; is the defaults if not specified.
[setup]
;backuppath=\\nas1.imm.dtu.dk\Backups\%username%\%computername%
;robocopypath=\\nas1.imm.dtu.dk\util\robocopy.exe
;runmanualonly=0
;userobocopy=1
;lookforunwantedprocesses=0
;
;
; List of folders to be included in the robocopy backup program.
; Acceptable environment variables are
; %username% %userprofile% %computername%
;
; Generally, it is not important what is in front of the "="
; (i.e. "dir1", "dir2", "file1", etc.)
;
[robocopyfolders2include]
dir1=c:\%username%
dir2=%userprofile%\favorites\
dir3=%userprofile%\desktop\
dir4=c:\util\%username%
dir5=d:\work
;
; List of files to exclude. Only if they are a sub-folder
; of a directory to be include will they be considered
[robocopyfolders2exclude]
dir1=c:\%username%\temp
; 
; List of files to be excluded. Only if they are a file within
; a folder to be included will they be considered.
[robocopyfiles2exclude]
file1=c:\%username%\program output\huge temp file.log 

Note; lookforunwantedprocesses simply check for a hardcoded list of programs which is known to
use file locking. If a program is running a pop up windows occurs and the user must prompt "OK"
to continue. The list of programs includes (for immbackup.exe version 2.0.12); outlook.exe,
thunderbird.exe, thunde~1.exe, mozilla.exe and msimn.exe (aka Outlook Express).

Removal of old backups:

Based on the information in \\nas1.imm.dtu.dk\backups\username\machine_name\immbackupdate.txt old backup sets will be removed automatically. Once a backup is more than 3 month old it will be removed from the backup share and archived to tape.

Command line arguments:

Immbackup.exe accepts the following command line arguments:

-1 Check if backup has been performed already today. Abort if yes.
-m Check if runmanual is set to "1" in inifile. Abort if yes.

-h Show version and usage info.
-q Don't copy logfile(s) to c:\util\....
-v Show additional debugging info.

Immbackupwrapper.exe only takes one argument:
-h Show version and usage info.

Files:

\\nas1.compute.dtu.dk\util\immbackup.exe
The main backup program. Type "immbackup.exe -h" for further usage info.

C:\util\localusername\immbackup.ini
This file is the configuration file for both immbackupwrapper and immbackup

immbackupwrapper.exe
Test whether backup should be performed and takes care of authentication to network fileserver and finally calls immbackup.exe

\\nas1.compute.dtu.dk\Backups\username\pc_name\immbackup.log
Immbackup logs various errors etc. to this file

\\nas1.compute.dtu.dk\Backups\username\pc_name\immbackupdate.txt
Immbackup logs time stamps for robocopy sessions to this file

\\nas1.compute.dtu.dk\Backups\username\pc_name\robocopy
Default location where backup files is located for robocopy sessions

\\nas1.compute.dtu.dk\util\immbackupdefault.ini
Default configuration file if C:\util\%username%\immbackup.ini is not found

C:\util\%username%\immbackup.ini
Local configuration file for immbackup and immbackupwrapper.