Free Brick Level backups on Exchange 2003/SBS 2003

January 25, 2010 by Paul Morgan-Roach Leave a Comment

I’ve seen so many people attempt to restore Exchange and fail using Microsofts built in tools, or come unstuck because they want to restore a single mailbox, that I thought I’d document the free method of backing up Exchange that we use, so that it will hopefully help others.

One of the tools available from Microsoft free is Exmerge.  It allows individual mailboxes to be individually exported to PST files, which can then either be re-imported back into Exchange or simply opened in Outlook.  Exmerge is available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=429163ec-dcdf-47dc-96da-1c12d67327d5&displaylang=en

Extract and save to the Exchsrv/bin directory, and when the appropriate mailboxes have been selected, destinations set save the configuration.  This will create an exmerge.ini file.

This can then be scripted in a batch file and run as a scheduled task.  I create a folder on the local disk of the Exchange server (although this can be done to a mapped drive) for each day I want the backup to run.

My exmon.bat file reads:

D:\exchsrvr\bin\exmerge.exe -F C:\scripts\exmon\exmerge.ini -B

Which runs the exmerge.exe, with the options specified in scripts\exmon\exmerge.ini and runs the script as a batch job using the -B switch.

To clean the folder prior to running, I have a separate batch file that runs earlier on the same day that runs

del /F /Q /S z:\Exchange\exmon\*.*

Subsequently to back up the PST files to a separate server I use the excellent BackupPC running on a Debian server.  Installation instructions for Debian are here: http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/backuppc.htm

The BackupPC box is confugured to access the SMB share that the PST’s are stored in, as well as additional file shares on the server.  BackupPC supports incremental backups and backups via a variety of methods (including SSH and rsync, as well as SMB).

It’s also possible to archive off historic backups for off-site using the archive functions within BackupPC.  As a free solution for backing up mailboxes and beiong able to recover easily (with version control) this is very effective…

Filed under Active Directory, Exchange, Linux, Microsoft, Windows Tagged with , , , ,

Out of the frying pan…..

September 11, 2008 by Paul Morgan-Roach Leave a Comment

Following my scathing comments about Ubuntu and the Debian OpenSSL flaw and my subsequent migration to Fedora…(http://technicalmumblings.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/goodbye-ubuntu/), I was a little concerned when I read the following:

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-announce-list/2008-August/msg00012.html

This kind of begs the question, which is the lesser of the 2 evils here?  A security breach can occur on any platform and across many platforms…..mistakes do happen.  The real trick is how these breaches and vulnerabilities are actually dealt with.  To Debian’s credit, it dealt with protecting the users as a first priority, whereas in this case Fedora/Red Hat’s first priority appears to have been covering it’s own arse, with the users put at risk being the second priority.  Maybe this is the difference between the 2 vendors outlook and corporate responsibilities….

There’s an interesting discussion on Slashdot here:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/10/029231

Filed under Linux, Security Tagged with , , ,

Goodbye Ubuntu

May 23, 2008 by Paul Morgan-Roach 6 Comments

Well, the time has come to say goodbye to Ubuntu.  It’s been a fun relationship, but alas it’s time for it to end.  That’s not to say that the problem I have is with Ubuntu – it’s actually with a variety of circumstances that have caused me a MAJOR headache.

The problem lay within Debian and the OpenSSL project.  It seems that the package maintainers for Debian fixed a bug in OpenSSL without passing the fix upstream to the OpenSSL maintainers to check.  This fix has resulted in a major insecurity in a vast number of packages that depend on OpenSSL for any distribution that sits downstream of Debian.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20801/

While there is now an official resolution for this problem, it’s shaken my confidence in the way the Debian package maintainers apply bugfixes in their haste to get new releases out the door.

For those interested, the official resolution page on the Debian site is here.

Bear in mind that I run 5 Ubuntu machines (desktops and servers, work and home) each running some of the affected programs…..it’s a phenomenal headache for me.  Now picture those with hundreds (even thousands) of servers and workstations.   I can’t begin to imagine the trauma they are going through….

It’s because of this break of confidence that I have decided to cease using Ubuntu.  If the Debian package maintainers have disregarded policy in order to add value to their distribution in this case, where else have they fixed issues that may or may not have significant consequences…

I’ve played with Fedora previously – quite liked it as a distro, but preferred the user friendliness of Ubuntu – easy to use, but with all the benefits associated with most other Linux distributions.  I could do a Ubuntu install in 15 minutes that would be suitable for most people, with full hardware support – but for more intensive server applications, all the boxes were ticked too.

So, I’m now in the process of my Fedora migration….starting with this laptop.

Filed under Linux, SSL, Security, Ubuntu, fedora Tagged with , , , , , , ,