Hi all, Has anyone got any advice on the best way to backup Exchange mailboxes (Exchange 5.5) running on a Windows 2000 server? We already use rsync on a number of other Windows boxes for general file backup. I've read that even if you get backups of the Exchange mailbox files, then it's really tricky to get the mailboxes back into Exchange if the server dies. Anyone got any tips on this? Thanks in advance Reuben reuben@pslconnect.com
Hello Reuben, Exchange database files are lock. You have several options. 1) The easy one is to backup exchange to the local disk using ntbackup and then the rsync the backup file. 2) Stop Exchange, rsync the files and then start it. The drawback is that you will have dowm time. The command should be some thing like his: net stop MSExchangeMSMI /y net stop MSExchangePCMTA /y net stop MSExchangeFB /y net stop MSExchangeDX /y net stop MSExchangeIMC /y net stop MSExchangeMTA /y net stop MSExchangeIS /y net stop MSExchangeDS /y net stop MSExchangeSA /y rsync ... net start MSExchangeSA net start MSExchangeDS net start MSExchangeIS net start MSExchangeMTA net start MSExchangeIMC net start MSExchangeDX net start MSExchangeFB net start MSExchangePCMTA net start MSExchangeMSMI 3) Use windows shadow. More info on this page: http://www.nasbackup.com/index.php?name=Web_Links&req=viewlink&cid=1 4) Use St Bernard Software to rsync open/lock files" http://www.nasbackup.com/index.php?name=Web_Links&req=viewlink&cid=1 Please note that option 1 have other advantage, ntbackup will also truncate your exchange log files. So the log will not full your disk. Regards, Milutin Voinivich http://www.NasBackup.co.il/ Reuben Pearse wrote:> Hi all, > > Has anyone got any advice on the best way to backup Exchange mailboxes > (Exchange 5.5) running on a Windows 2000 server? We already use rsync > on a number of other Windows boxes for general file backup. > > I've read that even if you get backups of the Exchange mailbox files, > then it's really tricky to get the mailboxes back into Exchange if the > server dies. Anyone got any tips on this? > > Thanks in advance > > Reuben > reuben@pslconnect.com > >
Hi, I am not an Exchange expert, so I may have it totally wrong, but what I do is to have the ntbackup doing an online Exchange backup, then rsync this to another server over SSH. If you do a rsync of the Exchange DB, you would have to do an offline backup, which involves stopping the services. I use a program called 4files which you can search for on Google to delete old ntbackup files older than say 7 days, then you end up with 7 days worth of backups on the Exchange server and on the server you synced to. Thanks, Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: rsync-bounces+andrew=hodgsonfamily.org@lists.samba.org on behalf of Reuben Pearse Sent: Thu 03/08/2006 10:43 To: rsync@lists.samba.org Subject: Backup Exchange mailboxes using rsync Hi all, Has anyone got any advice on the best way to backup Exchange mailboxes (Exchange 5.5) running on a Windows 2000 server? We already use rsync on a number of other Windows boxes for general file backup. I've read that even if you get backups of the Exchange mailbox files, then it's really tricky to get the mailboxes back into Exchange if the server dies. Anyone got any tips on this? Thanks in advance Reuben reuben@pslconnect.com -- To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed
I do an offline copy of the exchange database, but (as you indicated) as it can be tricky to use on another server, as seconday backup I use EXMERGE to extract everyones mailbox to a PST file. I then rsync the PST files. It has some limitations, but it works ok as a secondary backup. I've used EXMERGE on Exchange 2000 & 2003. Not sure if it works with 5.5, but it might. Craig. -----Original Message----- From: rsync-bounces+craig=sbisolutions.com.au@lists.samba.org [mailto:rsync-bounces+craig=sbisolutions.com.au@lists.samba.org] On Behalf Of Reuben Pearse Sent: Thursday, 3 August 2006 7:43 PM To: rsync@lists.samba.org Subject: Backup Exchange mailboxes using rsync Hi all, Has anyone got any advice on the best way to backup Exchange mailboxes (Exchange 5.5) running on a Windows 2000 server? We already use rsync on a number of other Windows boxes for general file backup. I've read that even if you get backups of the Exchange mailbox files, then it's really tricky to get the mailboxes back into Exchange if the server dies. Anyone got any tips on this? Thanks in advance Reuben reuben@pslconnect.com -- To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html