A task can be created or modified using the Task's menu.
Task name - The name of the task. This will be used many
times on the log file and for the compressed file names. You can leave the
default name or chose an unique name to every task.
Task ID - A unique identification to every task. You
cannot modify this. ID is only used internally by the program.
Enabled - If this is unchecked, the task will be ignored
when backing up.
Group: The name of the group the task will belong to.
Groups are used to organize the list of tasks. A task can be created
without a group or you can add it to any existing (or to a new) group.
Include subdirectories - If checked, when copying
folders, it will also recursively copy all the files in the
subdirectories.
Create new separated backups - If you select this check
box, it will create a new file or directory every time the item is copied.
The date and time will be used as a part of the new file name. Example:
Item1 2002-01-11 ; 12;00.zip. If unchecked, the destination files will be
overwritten. There is one disadvantage in overwriting the backups: If the
backup fails for some reason in the middle of the operation, you could end
up having a bad backup , because the previous one will be replaced by a
bad one.
Use archive attributes: Sometimes, you cannot use the
archive attributes methods (for example, if the source is in a Linux
partition). In this case, you may want to uncheck this option. The program
will then compare the time stamps of the source and the destination when
making incremental or differential backups. This is a very LIMITED
solution: it won't work with archives or FTP files. Try to use the archive
attribute of the file whenever is possible.
Use Volume Shadow Copies: Use Volume Shadow Services to
copy locked files.
Cobian Reflector supports 4 types of tasks:
Full backups: Every single file in the source will be
copied or compressed. If you are overwriting, every file will be replaced.
If Overwrite is unchecked, you will have several copies of the same
source.
Incremental - The program will check if the source
has been changed from the last backup. If there is no need to copy the
file, it will be skipped, saving backup time. The incremental procedure
checks the Archive bit attribute of the file. You may want to manually
reset the attribute to force a full backup: use the "Set the archive
attributes" on the Task menu.
Differential: The program will check if the source has
been changed from the last FULL backup. If there is no
need to copy the file, it will be skipped, saving backup time. The
differential procedure checks the Archive bit attribute of the file. You
may want to manually reset the attribute to force a full backup: use the
"Set the archive attributes" on the Task menu.
Dummy task: This backup doesn't need a source or a
destination. It is useful to use the task just as an scheduler to execute
applications, close services, reboot the computer, etc.
Source - Enter the files, directories or/and SFTP/FTP
sources to backup. Please note that a backup FROM a FTP or SFTP must be
full. Other backup types will be ignored and the backup will made in full
mode. You must have enough space in the temporary directory to download
the whole FTP source if necessary.
Destination - Enter the destination directory, local
or/and SFTP/FTP . You can have multiple directories as destinations. A
copy of the backup will be placed on every destination directory.
Sometimes you need to add a file or a directory that doesn't exist or is not accessible
yet. You can do that by adding a MANUAL source or directory anteponing ?D? to force the
entered string to be considered as a directory or ?F? to be handled as a file. In this case
parameters cannot be used. Example:
?D?B:\NotMountedYet
Will add a not existing directory. This is useful, for example when you want to back up a mounted directory that is only available with a Pre-Backup event.
Schedule type: Select how often your backup will be
executed.
Once: basically, this copies the file or folder at the
given date and time.
Daily: backups the item every day at the given time.
Weekly: backups the item once a week at the given day of
the week.
Monthly: backups the item once a month, at the given day
and time.
Yearly: backups the task once a year, at the given day
and time.
Timer: repeatedly backups the item every X minutes.
Manual: executes only if the user click on Backup now.
Not scheduled.
Priority: A higher priority will guarantee that the task
is executed before other tasks that are waiting to be backed up in the
queue
Full copies to keep: If your backup is set to NOT
overwrite existing backups, every new backup will create a new file or
directory with the same name, but with the date and time of the backup as
a complement.
For example: If the original file is SimCity.exe, and the backup is NOT
set to overwrite, every new backup will create:
SimCity.exe
SimCity 2003-04-13 12;22.exe
SimCity 2003-04-14 12;22.exe
SimCity 2003-04-15 12;22.exe , etc
Now it's easy to maintain a limited number of FULL copies for every task
and delete the old ones. On the backup options you can set that you want,
for example, to keep only 2 full copies of the task. Note that if your
task is incremental or differential, the backup program will keep or
delete the whole set of 1 full backup plus its associated child backups
every time it deletes something.
The older backups will be deleted. You can always PARK a
backup to prevent it from being deleted. This is specially important for
incremental backups when the first backup will usually be full and the
next backup only a partial one.
Make a full backup every: If you have scheduled a
differential or incremental backup then you can program it so, that every
X backups will be made full. For example, if you enter the number 3 here,
then the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, etc backups will be full.
Differential copies to keep: Differential
backups are redundant, so now you can limit those as well.
Fixed day for full backup: You can now select one
day to force a full backup. This is a better method to use than "Make a
full backup every..." because it doesn't depend on the presence of empty
backups.
No compression: If this option is selected, the files will be copied exactly as they exist on the source.
Compress files individually: If this option is selected, every file on
the source will be stored in compressed mode.
Separated monolithic archives: If this option is selected, then every source will be compressed into one archive. This
kind of compression has some limitations:
* Only local sources can be compressed (non-ftp/sftp)
* Non-separated backups will always be changes to "full backup" (the existing archives won't be refreshed)
* Due to a limitation in the zip format, very long paths could eventually have problems being
* Only local sources can be compressed (non-ftp/sftp)
* Non-separated backups will always be changes to "full backup" (the existing archives won't be refreshed)
* Due to a limitation in the zip format, very long paths could eventually have problems being
Archive comment: Commentary to be include into the
archive
Encrypt the files: Encrypt the compressed files with a
password.
Passphrase: Enter the password to use to encrypt your
files. The standard zip format accepts only ASCII characters basically. In
newer implementations, you are able to use some other encoding, but the
implementation of this option varies from program to program. If you want
your archive to be fully compatible with any other archiver, please limit
your password to use only ASCII characters.
Compression level: How to compress the files. 0 being No compression (only storage) and 9 being maximum compression.
Here you can add a list of files/directories that you can exclude or
include into the backup. You can also use masks: Example *.txt and even
regular expressions.
Here you can exclude/include:
1) Files. Just select the file with the "Add file" button
2) Directories: Just select a directory using the "Add directory" button
3) Enter a mask. You can use simply masks like *.txt to exclude or include
all the text files or you can use a complex mask like. You can also separate several masks with commas.
*\Directory\*\*.txt
This will include/exclude all the text files in any path that
contains a folder called Directory.
When using FTP sources, only simple masks can be used. Masks by size or
date will be ignored then.
4) Regular expressions can also be entered
5) Filter by date. You can exclude or include files that are older than or newer than a selected date.
There are some special dates you can use to dynamically indicate:
Today:: 1000-01-01 (this will always be replaced by today's date
Tomorrow:: 1001-01-01 (this will always be replaced by tomorrow's date
Yesterday:: 999-01-01 (this will always be replaced by yesterday's date
5) Filter by size. You can exclude or include files that are larger than or smaller than a selected size.
Pre/Post - backup events: You can specify some events
that will occur before the backup starts and some events after the backup
ends. This can be convenient if you want to backup some file that is in
use by some application. Before backup, close the other program and after
backup, start it again, for example. You can stop/start services as well.
You can close a program using the window's caption (or a portion of it).
If you are using the events "Execute" or "Execute and wait" you can pass
as parameters the source or the destination. To do so:
* Select the event and select the executable to run.
* A dialog will be shown when you can enter some parameters. Here you can
enter any parameter you want, like a filename, etc.
The files/directories will be passed using a quoted string to avoid
problems with long file names.
You may need administrators rights to close some programs or to start/stop
services.
Cancel the task if some event fails: If some of the pre-backup events fail, then the task will be canceled
Do not execute if pre-backup events failed: If some of the pre-backup events failed to execute, do not execute the post-backup events
Clear the archive attribute: The program uses the
archive bit of the attribute of a file to decide which files must be
copied when the backup is differential or incremental. If you uncheck this
option the attributes will not be cleared. This is useful if you want to
have the same source in several different tasks, but should be
usually checked.
Mirror task: If a file is deleted in the source, it will
also be deleted from the destination. This is a VERY DANGEROUS option to
check. You should NEVER check this option if you really care for your
data. To make this operation somewhat safer, a "safe mirror" option can be
chosen in the Options dialog. If Safe Mirror is selected, files with
non-existing source counterparts will be moved to the selected directory.
Use absolute paths: When using uncompressed backup, the
backup will recreate the whole path of the original file.
Always create top parent directory: An extra top
directory will be created to store the files. In a SFTP/FTP destination,
the extra top directory will be always created regardless of this option
being unchecked.
Include backup type in the name: When creating separated backups, the type of the backup will be included in the name of the file or folder
Ignore empty directories: If checked, directories that don't contain any files will be ignored
Run the task as some other user: If your task needs to
access some resources for which you don't have permissions, just
select this option and enter the user name and password to use. When the
backup begins, the program will the try to logon as the given user and
logout when the task ends.
Cancel if impersonation failed: If the logon failed, just
abort the task and don't try to continue.
User name: name of the account
Domain: Domain name to which the user name belongs. Enter
a dot if the accounts belong to the local machine only.
Password: The password used to logon.