How do I back-up Catalogues which are being served?

Make sure your server computer's backup strategy includes your Catalogues, screen preview folders (if used) and originals. Bear in mind that the originals may in many cases not change that regularly so consideration should be given to the merits of constant back-up of these compared to catalogue and preview data. Got large organisation with high-volume automated systems it is probably easier to backup everything but small organisations my find less regular backup of originals of benefit, relying on the fallback of CD/DVD copies of the image. Conversely, in a production environment where the image stock is likely to both vary and for images to be edited/change, more comprehensive backup will be required.

Backing up served Portfolio FDB catalogue Files
The FDB file stores all of the information about your original and preview file locations. As Catalogue files that are served are 'open' in Portfolio Server, the OS will flag them as in use; as a result most back-up routines will not copy such files. Thus, for catalogues served by Portfolio Server, all users must be logged off, and the Portfolio Service must be stopped before starting backup. If you need constant service, e.g. 24/7 operations, it may be quicker to unserve the catalogues copy them locally, re-serve and allow the backup to archive (and then delete) the copies. Either way, note that Catalogues will be unavailable whilst unserved (of course!). If loss of service is unacceptable then you will need to move to using SQL-based catalogues as the SQL repository(s) holding the Catalogue(s) can be accessed by SQL-based back-up tools designed to work with 'live' databases; detailed discussion of this is beyond the scope of the FAQ.

You can use either of the following batch files to automatically log off users and stop the Portfolio service.

Windows batch file
Use Notepad or any similar text editor to create the following batch file. Be sure to save the file with a .BAT extension.

net stop "Portfolio Server"
copy "C:\Program Files\Extensis\Portfolio Server 7.0\Catalogs\Demo1.fdb" "C:\backmeup\Demo1.fdb"
net start "Portfolio Server"

Of course, you will need to insert the appropriate file and directory locations for this to work - don't forget any catalogues being served from outside the /catalogs/ folder via shortcuts. Run this batch file by either double-clicking the icon in the Windows Explorer, or from the command line interface. The Windows Scheduled Tasks feature can be used to schedule this batch file to automatically run at a convenient time. See the Microsoft Windows documentation for detailed instructions.

Macintosh script
Use TextEdit or any other text editor to create the following shell script. Create your file as a plain text document and save your file with a .SH extension in Unicode-8 format. If your editor gives you the option, choose UNIX line endings.

#!/bin/sh
killall -HUP Portfolio\ Server
ditto -rsrcFork -v "/Applications/Extensis\ Portfolio\ 7\ Server/Catalogs" "/Path/to/backup/.les/to"
/Applications/Extensis\ Portfolio\ 7\ Server/Portfolio\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Portfolio\ Server &

After creating the script, launch the Terminal utility. Enter the following command to make the script executable:

chmod u+x /path/to/script

This script can be automated using the cron command. For more information about this command type man cron in the Terminal window. Remember, you will need to insert the appropriate file and directory locations for this to work - don't forget any catalogues being served from outside the \catalogs\ folder via shortcuts.

Question: How do I back-up Catalogues which are being served? [FAQ00343.htm]
Last Update:- 01 June 2006

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