Simple batch file backup
Published on August 18th, 2007 by DannyT. Filed under Best Practices, Hosting, TutorialsI’ve just setup a very simple backup system that works over FTP. Windows only I’m afraid but i’m sure the equivilent isn’t too hard on other platforms.
Tools
Firstly I used two very simple free/open source command line tools:
SSLFTP – simple FTP tool that works in passive mode or over secure connections.
and
7-zip – an open source zip file archiver.
Download and install the above on the machine you wish to backup from.
FTP Script
I then wrote the following script file to handle the FTP (saved as ftpscript.txt):
open ftpusername:ftppassword@ftp.host.address
del backup7.zip
rename backup6.zip backup7.zip
rename backup5.zip backup6.zip
rename backup4.zip backup5.zip
rename backup3.zip backup4.zip
rename backup2.zip backup3.zip
rename backup.zip backup2.zip
put c:\backupscripts\backup.zip
bye
All this is doing is taking a copy of seven days worth of backups and deleting the oldest then uploading the newest backup.
Backup Script
To decrease the time taken to FTP everything I use the following batch file to keep three days worth of backups locally, zip the files I want to backup and call the above FTP script (saved as daily.bat):
delete backup3.zip
rename backup2.zip backup3.zip
rename backup.zip backup2.zip
7z a -tzip d:\backupscripts\backup.zip d:\inetpub\wwwroot\
7z a -tzip d:\backupscripts\backup.zip d:\DB_Backup\
7z a -tzip d:\backupscripts\backup.zip d:\other_folders_to_keep\
sslftp -run ftpscript.txt
The 7z lines mean the following:
7z – execute the 7-zip exe
a – add files
-tzip – archive file type of zip
d:\backupscripts\backup.zip – archive to add to (will create if does not exist)
d:\backupscripts\backup.zip d:\other_folders_to_keep\ folder/files to add to archive
And thats it! All you do then is setup a scheduled task (Start, Settings, Control Panel, Scheduled Tasks) to run every night and you’re done!
What no FTP?
If you don’t have any FTP space you can backup across a network/internet connection and setup a PC as an FTP server using the excellent FileZilla.
UPDATE: see comments for some notes from William who suggests some alternative syntax if you have issues with the above and a more logical sequence to protect against things going wrong mid-process.
Mac
August 23rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
This is good stuff… Thanks!
srinivas
August 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am
HI, I want to creat abatch file to up load a file to ftp.
please help me
DannyT
August 27th, 2007 at 11:27 am
srinivas, the code above DOES upload a file to FTP. Re-read the section titled “FTP Script”
william
April 7th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Thanks for the pointers. Couple of notes worth mentioning.
1) Rename and Delete are really ren and del when one actually writes the script (or according to the documentation that I could find and what actually worked for me)
2) your backup script has a bit of a flaw.
I’d suggest this instead (rough draft)
create newbackup.zip
del 3
rename 1 and 2
rename new to 1
ftp 1
this way, if for some reason your backup fails, the batch will stop executing and you’ll still have something as a backup. Otherwise, you’ll be deleting and renaming before the script fails at the backup (and the subsequent upload). You’d hate to come back from a two week holiday with no backups.
Sohail
June 5th, 2008 at 10:49 am
thanx for the code.. hey man u are gr8 ..but i haev one more query?
1. can we get the backup with time stamp and remove the older files?
i mean instead of backup1.. can we have something like “backup_05june2008″
“backup_12june2008″
“backup_19june2008″
“backup_26june2008″
then
backup_05june2008 should be deleted adn replaced by backup_2july2008
can we get some suggestions