About

ZPAQ is an open source command line archiver for Windows and Linux. It uses a journaling or append-only format which can be rolled back to an earlier state to retrieve older versions of files and directories (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZPAQ, http://mattmahoney.net/dc/zpaq.html).

This system is intended for incremental archiving and long-term storage of archives (databases) and verification of created archives in Windows OS.

The system includes:

• Directory with "zpaq" application
• Main script "zpaq-backup.cmd"
• File containing a list of databases "dbsList.txt"
• Dynamically created directories:
  • "dbs_backup" - to store created archives
  • "dbs_extracted_for_check" to extract and check generated archives
  • "dbs_log" for logging and backup status

Installation

• On the server (Windows OS) where the backup system will be used:
  • Fill in the list of directories (bases) for backup (absolute paths are required) in the dbsList.txt file. Example:

    d:\tmp\dbs\db01
    d:\tmp\dbs\db02
    d:\tmp\dbs\db03
    

  • Change the paths directories, files and utilities in the "paths" section of the "zpaq-backup.cmd" file
  • Run "zpaq-backup.cmd"

Work algorithm

• The zpaq-backup.cmd script gets a list of directories (bases) from file "dbsList.txt"

• Actions are performed for each directory:

  • File "checkMarker.txt" containing the current date in format YYYY-mm-dd is written to the directory
  • Directory is archived along the path dbs_backup\!dbName!\ with the archive name !dbName!_???.zpaq, where ??? - sequence number of the archive (001 - full archive, the following ones are incremental)
  • Upon completion of the archiving, the status of the operation is written to the dbArchStatus variable (-ARCH_OK- | -ARCH_FAIL-)
  • The file checkMarker.txt is removed from the directory
  • The archive is extracted along the path dbs_extracted_for_check\!dbName!
  • Upon completion of the extraction, the status of the operation is written to the dbExtrStatus variable (-EXTRACT_OK- | -EXTRACT_FAIL-)
  • The dbs_extracted_for_check\!dbName!\checkMarker.txt file is checked to see if it contains the current date in YYYY-mm-dd format. As a result, dbCheckMarkerStatus is set to (-CHECKMARKER_OK- | -CHECKMARKER_FAIL-)
  • A line like this is written to the backup logging file dbs_log\dbsBackupLog.txt:

    d:\tmp\dbs\!dbName! : -ARCH_OK- -EXTRACT_OK- -CHECKMARKER_OK-
    

• As a result, the following structure is created in the dbs_log\dbsBackupLog.txt file:

d:\tmp\dbs\db01 : -ARCH_OK- -EXTRACT_OK- -CHECKMARKER_OK-
d:\tmp\dbs\db02 : -ARCH_OK- -EXTRACT_OK- -CHECKMARKER_OK-
d:\tmp\dbs\db03 : -ARCH_OK- -EXTRACT_OK- -CHECKMARKER_OK-

• Checks for the presence of a sequence of characters in the dbs_log\dbsBackupLog.txt file (_OK- | _FAIL-)
• Depending on the result, OK or FAIL is written to the final backup status file dbs_log\dbsBackupStatus.txt