Doug, > On 2/29/12 2:50 PM, todderamaa wrote: > > Maybe with the possibility of corruption, I should tell him to exclude > > the database files from backup entirely and only backup the gbk files > > that are created in the evening. > This is the usual way to backup Firebird databases in situations like your > clients have. Operating on the live database files is a quick way to corrupted > backup copies. If you have not experienced corruption either you have been > lucky or have not actually tried restoring from many of those backup copies. > > The client network admins should be aware of this special case when > databases are being used. For this reason some database vendors have an > API that backup software can use to ensure the database activity does not > interfere with the backup operation. The vendors of backup systems usually > charge extra for these modules that handle various databases. > Firebird, however, does not have such an API.
Actually, that is not true. The NBackup functionality allows a database file to be quiesced (with changes written to a delta file) to allow for OS level backups to be performed (thru Lock and Unlock options). Nbackup can be invoked thru a BAT or script file, as well as via SQL statements. Details on the usage of nbackup can be found at http://www.firebirdsql.org/pdfmanual/Firebird-nbackup.pdf Sean
