Cerberus Secure Backup - Configure Backup Schedule (Windows Client)

Overview

In this guide we will demonstrate how to configure backup schedules. Once the schedule is configured, the client's data is backed up to the selected Backup Server.

Step 1: Open Cerberus Secure Backup and Add a new Backup.

Open the Cerberus Secure Backup Web Console from the Cerberus Secure Backup System Tray Application. Simply right-click on the Cerberus Secure Backup to configure backups for your computer.

In the top menu, select: "Backup->Add Backup"

Configure Backup Schedule

Step 2: Schedule Name

The first step in configuring a backup is to give a name for the backup schedule. The backup schedule name will uniquely identify the backup. While restoring your backup data, you will choose the data to be restored using the schedule name you set here.

Step 3: Select Files And Folders To Backup

On the left side of the "Add a new Backup Schedule" page, is the tree with a list of drives and directories in the client machine. Select the directories and (or) files that need to be backed up as part of this schedule. Don't worry if some strange files/directories appear in this tree - Cerberus Secure Backup allows you to backup hidden/system files as well, and while these may not be visible in your file explorer, they are nonetheless there!
You will also see shortcuts and icons for things you may routinely wish to backup, e.g. Outlook backup, IE/Firefox settings, Windows registry, etc.

If a file/folder is unselected under a selected drive/folder, it will be excluded from the backup by adding it to filters. These files/folders will be listed in the 'Edit Backup' page under the heading 'Files/folders excluded from the backup' in step2.

• Cross icon against a file/folder denotes that it is be excluded from the backup.
• Greyed '-' icon against a drive/folder denotes that some of the files/folders are excluded from it.

Files/Folders Filter Settings (optional): is only available if you have selected entire drive. E.g. C: / or D: /

Standard Settings

Include Only Files of Type - Using this field you can specify one or more file types that should be backed up. For example, setting it to *.doc will backup only the files with extension .doc (in the folders selected).
However, any files specifically selected for backup in the tree will be backed up even if they are not .doc files – Cerberus Secure Backup assumes that you selected these files with a reason!

You can specify multiple file types by separating them with commas (e.g. *.doc, *.xls).
Please note that these ‘filter criteria’ will not be applied for ‘shortcut backup schedules’ like IE Favorites, Outlook & Registry backups.

Exclude Files of Type - Using this field you can specify one or more specific type of files that should not be backed up. For example, setting it to *.gif will not backup any file with extension .gif for all the folders configured in the tree.
However, any files specifically selected for backup in the tree will be backed up even if they are .gif files – Cerberus Secure Backup assumes that you selected these particular files with a reason!

You can specify multiple file types by separating them with comma (e.g. *.gif, *.jpg).
Please note that these ‘filter criteria’ will not be applied for ‘shortcut backup schedules’ like IE Favorites, Outlook & Registry backups.

Exclude Sub-folders - Check this option if you want to exclude all the sub-folders under your selected folders for backup.

Advanced Settings

In advanced file/folder filters, you can either specify text patterns or enter the file/folder name you want to include/exclude.

You can specify text patterns matching specific file and folder names that you want to include or exclude. For example, you can add a filter to include only those files whose names start with the letter 'a' under the selected folders or in their immediate sub folders. As another example, you could specify a filter to exclude folders whose names contain the text 'temp'.

You can also enter the file/folder name with or without absolute path. For example, if you enter the file name test.txt, then all files with the name "test.txt" under the selected directories will be matched. If you enter the entire path C:/Document and Settings/temp/test.txt, then only that specific file will be matched.

You can specify maximum 20 filters. The filters work independent of each other; i.e., if you have a filter to include files starting with 'a' and another filter to include files starting with 'b', then the backup will include files starting with 'a' and files starting with 'b'.

Map External Drive

If you want to backup files and folders present in an external drive and if that drive is not listed in the file/folder selection tree, then you can map a drive letter to the UNC path of the external drive. Like for example you could assign letter X to an external drive's UNC path //SERVER_A/DATA. Once added, the mapped drive letter will appear in the file/folder selection tree and the files/folders in the external drive will be listed under the corresponding drive letter.

This feature is especially useful while configuring backups for files in external drives on Windows XP/2003/Vista where the mapped drives will not be listed in the file/folder selection tree if Cerberus Secure Backup is run as a service.

NTFS Backup

Cerberus Secure Backup uses a third party tool called ‘Subinacl’ to backup and restore the NTFS Permissions. Users must install Subinacl tool before using this feature. Cerberus Secure Backup uses the Subinacl tool to dump the NTFS permissions and uploads the dump file to the backup server. During restore, Cerberus Secure Backup will restore the dump file first and then using Subinacl it will restore the NTFS permissions of the files and folders automatically.

Please refer to following link for information about Downloading and Installing the Subinacl tool: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=23510

Server Side and Third party Restore are not supported with this plugin. Also, it cannot backup the permissions of the parent directory. For example if you are taking a backup of a directory called “MyWork” then the permissions of the MyWork directory will be stored, but not the directory containing the MyWork directory.

Step 4: Set Basic Configuration

Backup Type

Same Machine - You can backup this client machine to a drive attached to this client machine for the following two purposes:

1. When a large amount of data has to be backed up, it might take significant amount of time to transfer all the data to a remote backup server over WAN/Internet. You can take the backup to a local external drive connected to the client machine and then physically move the external drive to the backup server location to migrate the data into the backup server. In such cases, you can select the backup type to be 'Same Machine'. Once the data is migrated to the backup server using the Server Side Seed Backup Migration, you will have to perform Seed Backup Migration (under Backup -> Seed Backup Migration) in the client machine to make it to run its backups to the remote server directly thereafter.




2. If you want to keep a local backup copy so that you can restore quickly if needed.

Local Backup location: Enter the location/directory path where the backup is to be stored in the same machine. This location should be accessible to Cerberus Secure Backup process and should have enough free disk space for the backup data. You can copy data from this location to the backup server as seed backup data. Or, you can leave the backups in the local drive if you want to maintain a local copy of the backup that you can quickly restore from.

NOTE: Deleted File Retention policies and Time Based version file Retention policy will not apply for a local backup. Only Version-Based Retention is supported for a local backup schedule. The Retention policies configured for this backup schedule will work only if the backup data is migrated from the local backup server/external drive into a remote backup server (seed backup).

Remote Server - Select this option if you want the backup data to be transferred to a backup server directly when the backup schedule runs.

Also keep a copy locally [for System State Plugin] (optional) :

Enabling this option will backup the data to the backup server and also keep a copy of the backup data in a local location. First the data will be backed up to the backup server and on completion of the backup, the copy of the backed up data will be saved in the specified local location. The local copy will provide for faster restores and provide extra redundancy. You can always do a restore from the backup server as well.

Select Backup Server :

This is the list of peers/backup servers in which the backup data can be stored. Once the backup server is selected, you cannot change the server name. In case the backup server name or IP address is to be changed in future, you can change it from the Seed Backup Migration page. The client will run the backup to the selected backup server.

Test connectivity:

Before you select the backup server for this backup schedule, you can check the connectivity to backup server. It also checks the different settings configured in the backup server for this client and confirms if this client can backup to the chosen backup server or not.

Add Backup Server:

If you don't see a particular backup server listed, you need to first add it by following this link before you can select it for this backup schedule.

Temporary location for backup dumps

Enter the location/directory path where the System State dumps are to be stored temporarily before uploading them to the backup server. Ensure that there is enough disk space in the configured temporary dump location. The backup dumps stored in the temporary location will be deleted once they are transferred successfully to remote backup server. Please note that once configured and saved the backup, you cannot change this location.

Note: Cerberus Secure Backup does not support system root drive or mapped drive or Cerberus Secure Backup installation location to be configured as the dump location for system state backup in Windows 2008.

Encryption

Password Protect this Backup:

This option is to enable or disable encryption of the data that is being backed up. Cerberus Secure Backup uses a well-known encryption algorithm: “blow-fish”. If enabled, a password has to be specified which will be used for generating the encryption key. Encrypting data ensures that it cannot be read from the destination machine (backup server) where your backup is stored, and is especially relevant for sensitive information.

Password Protection:

This option is to enable System Generated Encryption Key or use a Customized Encryption key for encrypting the backup data.

System Generated:

The selected files and folders will be encrypted using blow-fish algorithm with a 448 bit encryption key automatically generated by Cerberus Secure Backup before being backed up. No password will be required while restoring the data. Make sure you use this option only when the backup server is setup such that the backup server requires the client machines to authenticate before accepting the backup from the client.

Custom:

This will enable the user to select the custom Encryption Technique, Encryption Key Size and the Encryption Key that needs to be used for encrypting the selected files and folders. Please don't lose the customized encryption key, as the backed up data cannot be restored without this key and Cerberus have no way of recovering lost keys.

Default Encryption Password:

The selected files and folders will be encrypted with the Default Encryption Password as provided in the "Settings -> Advanced Options -> Default Encryption Password" page. Default Encryption Password is a convenient way to use the same password for all the backup schedules created in this client machine. It saves you from having to remember a different password for each backup set.

Encryption Technique:

Cerberus Secure Backup supports encryption using Blow-fish or Triple-DES. Blow-fish is a commonly used open source encryption technique which provides encryption based on the size of the encryption key length (from 64 bits to 448 bits). The greater the number of bits stronger the resulting encryption is. Triple-DES is a block cipher formed from the Data Encryption Standard (DES) cipher by using it three times, this technique is also supported by Cerberus Secure Backup for encrypting the backup data. By default, Triple DES encryption technique is chosen.

Encryption Key Size:

Cerberus Secure Backup supports encryption using variable length (64 to 448 bits for Blow-fish and 192 bits for Triple-DES) keys. The key is generated using the password you provide. Basically the longer the key size you give the more difficult it is for someone to decrypt the encrypted files. For normal backup purposes the default 64 bit encryption should be sufficient.

Type Password:

Provide a password here to generate the encryption key. If the password is forgotten the data can never be recovered as the data cannot be decrypted without this password. So, please ensure that you keep your password in a safe place. Cerberus cannot recover lost passwords.

Retention Policies (Optional):

Cerberus Secure Backup provides the retention feature where backups of multiple versions of a file can be maintained at the backup server. Cerberus Secure Backup cleans up the version files in the backup server based on two major retention policies:

1. Version-Based Retention: - Retains multiple version files in the backup server based on the version file count.




2. Time-Based Retention: - Retains multiple version files in the backup up server based on the age of the version files.

Retention policy for backed up files:

Version-Based Retention:

Cerberus Secure Backup can retain backups of multiple versions of a file based on the version retention count specified. The number of version files to be retained can be specified as any value from 0 to 99 with a default setting of 5. The backup version count can be 0 when the Intelli-Delta Backup is disabled in Advanced Options. This option is useful when you wish to store just the complete latest version of a file.

For example, if the version file retention count is specified as 5, then Cerberus Secure Backup retains the latest five versions of the files. These files can be restored from the backup server at any point of time. When the sixth version of the file is created, Cerberus Secure Backup’s backup server automatically deletes the first version.

Note: When the Intelli-Delta option is disabled for a backup schedule, Cerberus Secure Backup will back up the entire file if the file was modified since the last backup schedule. In such a case, Cerberus Secure Backup will retain multiple versions of the entire file as per the version retention count configure for that backup.

Time-Based Retention:

Cerberus Secure Backup can retain version files in the backup server based on the age of version files. Default setting is for 5 years, meaning the version files will be retained in the backup server for 5 years and then will be removed automatically. The maximum number of versions that can be created during the retention period can also be optionally further configured. There are two options:

• Any number of versions can be created within this retention period - This is the default setting. If enabled, Cerberus Secure Backup retains all the versions created during the specified retention time period.

• Restrict the maximum number of versions that can be created within this retention period to 'n'. - If this option is enabled, Cerberus Secure Backup will clean up the version files based on both; retention time period and maximum version file count. For example, if the retention time period is set to 1 month and maximum version file count is 5, Cerberus Secure Backup will retain only the last five version files created within the last one month and versions older than one month with be deleted.

Retention policy for deleted files[for Windows only]:

If the files configured for backup are deleted at the client side after a backup schedule, then the backed up data of those files will not be deleted in the backup server. It will be just flagged as "Deleted" during subsequent backup schedule. Cerberus Secure Backup allows the user to choose whether or not to retain these "Deleted"(flagged as deleted) files in the Backup Server.

Note: This option is enabled only in Windows client machines and not supported in client machines running Linux, Mac or Free BSD operating systems.

• Version-Based Retention: Retains the specified versions(default is 5) of deleted files in the backup server.

• Time-Based Retention: Retains all available versions for the specified time period. The default setting is for 5 years, which means Cerberus Secure Backup will keep all available versions for 5 years.

• Don't retain deleted files: If files are deleted in the client machine, all backed up versions of these files will be deleted from the server as well in the subsequent backup schedules. This is not recommended as you lose the data permanently.

Step 5: Scheduling (Decide When To Backup):

This field has the following options from which any one can be chosen:

Continuous:

Choosing this option will execute an immediate backup; thereafter, Cerberus Secure Backup continuously monitors any changes to the files or directories configured for backup. When changes occur, a backup is scheduled.

Run Every Few Hours:

Choose the hours/minutes interval between each time Cerberus Secure Backup must run. If Cerberus Secure Backup is restarted in the interim, the backup will run once Cerberus Secure Backup starts. Thereafter, Cerberus Secure Backup automatically reschedules the next backup after the period you’ve set. For example, if you created a backup schedule at 10 am and set it to run every 1 hour, Cerberus Secure Backup will first run the schedule at 10am and the next scheduled time will be 11am. However, if at 10.15am, Cerberus Secure Backup is restarted, then the schedule will run once at 10.15am and the next scheduled time will now be set to 11.15am.

Additionally, you can also select the days in which this schedule should run. For example, if you do not want to run this backup schedule on Saturdays and Sundays, uncheck the check box against these days. If the "Select all days" check box is checked, then the schedule will be run on all the days of the week.

Run Daily:

Choose the time at which the backup should run daily. This will execute the backup everyday at the time you have provided. Unless you’ve selected the “Run this Backup each time Cerberus Secure Backup restarts” option in Advanced Options, Cerberus Secure Backup will run at the stipulated time only.

Run Weekly:

Choose the time and the day of the week the backup should run. Cerberus Secure Backup will execute the backup every week on the particular day and time chosen. Note that you can select multiple days of the week if you wish to run the backup on multiple days of the week. Unless you’ve selected the “Run this Backup each time Cerberus Secure Backup restarts” option in Advanced Options,  Cerberus Secure Backup will run at the stipulated time/day only.

Run Once Only:

Choosing this option will do the backup immediately and only once. The backup will then be put into ‘suspended mode’. If you wish to run this backup again, you’ll have to manually select it from the List Backup Schedules page.

Step 6: Additional Full Backups:

Typically, you would do a full backup the first time you backup your data and thereafter only do incremental backups. However, if you want to run full backups periodically and run the incremental backups in between two full backups, then you can configure the scheduling for how to run the full backups here.

For Continuous, Run Every Few Hours and Run Daily backups, the Additional Full Backup settings will allow you to configure daily/weekly/monthly additional full backups. For weekly backups, only Monthly additional full backups are possible. For Run Once Only backup, you cannot configure additional full backups.

Additionally you can specify the maximum number of full backups that need to be stored in the server. For example if you configured a weekly backup and additionally if you configure a monthly full backup, then Cerberus Secure Backup will take a full backup the first time and then weekly do an incremental backup. The next month, Cerberus Secure Backup will do a new full backup and subsequently run the weekly incremental backup over this full backup. After 6 months you will have 6 separate full backups in the backup server along with weekly incremental versions under each of the 6 full backups. If your policy is to retain only backup data for 6 months, then you can configure "Store maximum of 6 full backups" here. On the 7th month, Cerberus Secure Backup, after finishing the 7th full backup, will delete the first full backup along with its weekly incremental backups thus retaining always the last 6 month backups.

Advanced Options (Optional):

If you want to configure some additional advanced options - like, CPU utilization, Compression settings, etc. click on the Advanced Options button.

Advanced Backup Schedule Settings:

There are four options here for how the backup should be scheduled.

Run this backup each time Cerberus Secure Backup restarts:

If you enable this option by checking the check box, then this backup schedule will be run every time Cerberus Secure Backup is restarted or the machine is rebooted irrespective of the actual schedule time of this backup schedule. This is to ensure that any modified or new files created when Cerberus Secure Backup was down are backed up as soon as possible. In case of the Continuous backup or ‘Run every…’ scheduling options, backups will run each time Cerberus Secure Backup restarts – by default.

Run this backup immediately after saving this configuration (thereafter, Backups will be scheduled as per the schedule stipulated):

If you enable this option, then this backup schedule will be executed once immediately after you save this backup schedule – even if it's not yet ‘time’ as per the schedule. For example if you configure a daily backup at 10.00 AM but you configured the backup at 8.00 AM, then the backup schedule will be run once immediately (8.00 AM) and then as per schedule (e.g. daily at 10.00 AM).

Attempt to run this backup every 5 minutes in case of non-completion because of a problem (Network error etc.):

If enabled, the user can choose to reschedule this backup every 5/10/15/20/25/30 minutes, whenever an attempted backup is incomplete because of a network error, server crash etc. The number of times the backup will be rescheduled (due to an error) can be configured to be in between 1-5 or unlimited, with the default setting as 5. This is to ensure that an incomplete backup is completed as soon as possible without waiting for the next actual schedule time. Note that this option is enabled by default.

Enable Automatic Directory Monitoring:

If enabled, Cerberus Secure Backup will be automatically notified by the Windows Operating System of any file/folder changes. This will help Cerberus Secure Backup efficiently identify changed files when it does the rsync based delta backup for changed files. If this option is disabled, then Cerberus Secure Backup has to scan all the configured files/folders every time a backup is scheduled to detect changed files. So it is recommended that for Windows users this option is enabled. In Linux and Mac OS X, this option should be disabled as there is no automatic directory monitoring support in Linux and Mac OS X. Note that even if directory monitoring is disabled Cerberus Secure Backup will still do the rsync based delta back for changed files.

Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS):

If enabled, Cerberus Secure Backup will create snapshot (a read only copy) of the volume(s) corresponding to the configured folders/files and backup using the snapshot of the volume. Volume Shadow copy (Windows users only) allows Cerberus Secure Backup creation of consistent backups, ensuring that the contents cannot change while the backup is being made, avoiding problems with file locking, as Cerberus Secure Backup uses a read-only copy of the volume, it is able to access every file without interfering with other programs writing to those same files.

Requirements

1. Cerberus Secure Backup uses the Microsoft's 'Volume Shadow Copy'(installed by default when Windows XP and later versions installed) Service to create snapshot. Hence, Cerberus Secure Backup needs 'Volume Shadow Copy' Service to be configured with service start type 'Automatic' or 'Manual'.




2. Volume Shadow Copy Service needs at least 100 MB free disk space.

Backup NTFS Permissions for the files and folders configured (if applicable):

When this option is enabled, Cerberus Secure Backup backs up the NTFS file permissions along with the files. The user needs to enable the option 'Backup NTFS Permissions for the files and folders configured (if applicable).' in 'advanced option' while configuring a backup schedule. By default this option will be disabled. During restore, the files are restored along with their permissions.

Cerberus Secure Backup will not restore the NTFS Permissions during Server-Side and Third Party Restore.

Perform Synthetic Full Backup for files when the size of the incremental backup of a file exceeds certain % of the size of the initial full backup of the file:

By default Synthetic Full Backup will be run when the size of the incremental exceeds 80% of the original backup data. A very low value will lead to too many Synthetic Full Backups been run and all those versions need to be maintained in the backup server. A very large value could lead to Synthetic Backups not running at all.

Other Backup Settings:

Set CPU Utilization:

For each backup schedule, you can also specify the CPU utilization level as Low, Medium or High. When you set the CPU Utilization to high, the backup will be really fast - but the backup process may affect the speed of other active applications. If CPU utilization is set to Low, the backup will take longer but will be done in a non-intrusive manner allowing you to comfortably work on the computer as the backup continues in the background. In general for a continuous backup, it is best to set the CPU utilization to Medium or Low. For backups which are done every day or every week in ‘off-hours’, the CPU utilization can be set to High. Actual performance is obviously a function of your individual machine and your network. We encourage you to experiment with different settings to figure what works best for you.

Set Compression:

If compression is enabled, data will be compressed in the client before it is uploaded into the backup server.

Enable: Compresses the data to the maximum. It might reduce the rate at which the client can send data to the backup server but it might save significant bandwidth and time when the data is backed up to a remote server over a WAN/Internet with limited bandwidth speed. Also, this saves disk space in the backup server.

No Compression: This option is suitable (fastest) for backing up data within a local network where bandwidth is not the limitation, but occupies more space on destination machine as no compression is being done.

Intelli-Delta Backup:

When a backup schedule is executed: Cerberus Secure Backup checks if the file has changed since the last backup. If it has then Cerberus Secure Backup can either backup the whole file all over again or it can backup only the modified content (incremental). If "Intelli-Delta Backup" is set to ENABLE, only modified content in a file is backed up. If set to DISABLE, the whole file will be backed up every time the schedule runs. Needless to say, an incremental backup is faster.

Pre & Post Backup Commands (Optional):

This feature provides the ability to configure running custom actions before and after executing a backup schedule. The custom actions may include running an application or some script files.

Pre & Post Backup Commands

When is this feature useful?

If an application has exclusively locked a file and you need to close the application before Cerberus Secure Backup can backup that file, then you can run a Pre-backup command to close the application and then a post-backup command to open the application again after Cerberus Secure Backup successfully backs up the file.

How does this feature work?

Whenever a backup schedule starts, Cerberus Secure Backup will start the Pre Backup commands and wait till the timeout value. After completing the Pre Backup commands, Cerberus Secure Backup will transfer the configured files & folders to the backup server. After transferring the configured files and folders, Cerberus Secure Backup will run the Post Backup Commands. If multiple servers are configured for the backup schedule, then both the Pre and Post Backup commands will run while backing up to each of the servers.

Pre & Post Backup command settings:

You can provide maximum of 5 Pre Backup commands and maximum of 5 Post Backup commands for each backup schedule. Both the Pre and Post Backup commands are optional.

Command Name:

This filed is mandatory. This is the command that should be run. The command should be provided with full path. If the command name is in the system command path, then providing full path for the command is not necessary. The command can be an executable file such as application exe, batch files, script files etc.

Example: C:\MyTools\myzip.exe. A simple zip tool which compresses the given files or folders.

Arguments: You can provide any command line arguments for the command to be executed.

Example: For the Command C:\MyTools\myzip.exe, the arguments may be 'High Zip Replace "D:\Project" myproject.zip' [without quotes]. Here, the High may denote high compression, Zip denotes zip file format, Replace denotes replacing existing files, 'D:\Project' denotes folder to compress and 'myproject.zip' denotes the target compressed file name.

Working Path:

This field specifies the directory path from which the Command has to be run. If this field is left empty, then the command will be executed from the Cerberus Secure Backup working path [ Cerberus Secure Backup Home]

Example: 'D:\Project'. The command will be executed from the directory D:\Project.

Timeout:

This field is used to specify a timeout value, in seconds, for the command to finish execution. Cerberus Secure Backup will wait for the specified number of seconds for the Pre and post command to finish running. If the command still runs beyond the timeout period, then Cerberus Secure Backup will abruptly terminate the command and will continue with the backup schedule.

Please note that if you provide -1 value, then the command will run till completion and Cerberus Secure Backup will wait till the command completes. If command never completes, then Cerberus Secure Backup may just infinitely wait without proceeding with the backup schedule.

Example: 60. For the myzip.exe command, the myzip.exe command will compress the given project folder up to 60 seconds. If the myzip.exe completes before the timeout period, say 15 seconds, then Cerberus Secure Backup will immediately continue the next Pre Backup Command [if configured] or continue with the backup schedule.

So, the example command will look like:
Command Name : C:\MyTools\myzip.exe
Arguments : High Zip Replace
Working Path : D:\Project
Time out : 60

The whole command will be run up to 60 seconds as below:
C:\MyTools\myzip.exe High Zip Replace "D:\Project"

Saving the configured backup

Once all the directories/files to be backed up are chosen and the configuration options are set, you simply need to click on the "Configure/Save Backup” button to activate the backup as per the schedule- on to the configured backup servers.

Troubleshooting Tips / Limitations

1. The Files/Folders tree in this page is based on Java Script. So when a folder has 1000s of files, then the Java Script takes a little while to load the tree. Please be patient.




2. File/folder filters will not work for unicode files/folders in mapped network drives.




3. [For System State Plugin only] Currently you can seed the local data to the remote server only. After performing the seed migration, you can continue this backup schedule only to the remote server, not to both remote server and local backup.