Welcome to rebuildXpress Forum

Welcome to the forum for rebuildXpress - Proactive Backup and Restoration Mechanism.

rebuildXpress is an add-on to Hosting Controller that provides a rigorous and proactive backup and restoration mechanism for Windows based hosting servers. It is a revolutionary tool that takes backup of business critical data (accounts, e-mails, DNS, customer data, etc) on set intervals and in case of an outage quickly restores all services and customer data to last known good state.

rebuildXpress maintains a list of tasks to control which files, folders, and critical data to back up and when to back up. It has a built-in FTP client that takes incremental backups which means that 1st time all data will be backedup and subsequently only the changed files will backup. Backup copies can be stored on local or you can tell rebuildXpress to transport backup on a remote server through FTP or UNC path.

You can use rebuildXpress either manually or automatically. If you want to back up files manually, simply right click on Backup Configuration tray icon and click on "Start Backup".

If you want automated backups, then you should make sure that "Hosting Controller Backup" service is running. Once service is running, rebuildXpress then monitors the source files and keeps the backup store updated with the source files. It runs in the background with no user interaction. So, once the service is enabled, you always have a backup copy of your data.

I downloaded it from this page:

http://hostingcontroller.com/english/addon/rebuildxpress.html

But I haven¬t not installed it. Is there anything special I should know before installing it? Will it work right away or do I need to purchase this? When I clicked on your purchase link I got the following message:

Our Sale¬s site is being updated and some features might not be available at this time. This update does not affect the entire site , but the modules being updated are temporarily deactivated........

Thanks for the information. I already use the built in Microsoft Windows 2003 backup service to conduct a full backup weekly with a differential backup nightly. However if rebuildXpress is a better alternative I would consider using that instead.

-Johnny
Windows 2003
HC 6.1
MailEnable 1.2

Thanks for selecting RBX. It is much better backup solution for hosting companies as compared to Windows backup services in a sense that it gives you variety of options for backup and automatically takes backup of important data that you need for rebuild purpose.

I recommend you to read the RBX manual Here. This will give you insight on software and has a comprehensive FAQ section included. Installation and configuration is pretty simple.

The online store is working now. Please try again and let me know if you got further questions regarding product.

Okay I read the manual feel that RBX is an excellent backup tool. Only question is the mail server support. I know in the manual that RBX supports all mail servers that Hosting Controller supports but it didn¬t expressly specify my mail server - MailEnable.

Does RBX support backup of MailEnable ?

Thanks for the information.

-Johnny
Windows 2003
HC 6.1
MailEnable 1.2

I installed RBX (haven¬t purchased it yet) and I get this error in the RBX program:

License Activation Error: Authentication server found your key marked as fraud in the database. Please contact support with your key for further assistance.

Is this because I have not purchased the product yet? How long can I TEST the backup before I have to purchase?

Thanks for the information!

-Johnny
Windows 2003
HC 6.1
MailEnable 1.2

I just completed a test backup. Very nice. I see that it copied the entire website data and all the relevant settings etc. But one thing concerns me... I looked at the databases it backed up and found it only backed up half of the live databases on the system.

See this screen shot of the databases found in the E:\RBXbackup\09-10-04-HCMetaData\Databases\MSSQL folder:

Databases backed up by RBX

And when I go into SQL Enterprise manager to get a list of live databases I see that it missed critical website databases:

Databases that exist on server created by website users

For example I know that ttportal is a live database used by an account on hosting controller (i.e. wasn¬t created separately outside of HC) - yet it¬s not found to be backed up by RBX. Why is this? Is there a setting I missed or some other configuration I missed?

My next question involves the mail backup. I noticed in the backup folder it has a file called MailAccounts.ini and when I look in there I see only about 1/10th of the accounts that actually exist on the server (account names and the hashed passwords). In addition where is the actual mail folders (i.e. users mail) backed up at? I was unable to find that anywhere. I use MailEnable.

Thanks again for reading this and providing information regarding the RBX backup system. It seems like a great system but I¬m concerned with the way it performed a backup. It¬s possible I¬m not doing something right and if so I look forward to hearing your reply.

-Johnny
Windows 2003
HC 6.1
MailEnable 1.2

Since you are in demo mode it will only backup 5 websites and I was told today that it will only backup 2 database in demo mode.

Can you tell me if you are getting errors in the event logs under application about backing up the databases when you use RBX?

Since you are in demo mode it will only backup 5 websites and I was told today that it will only backup 2 database in demo mode.

Can you tell me if you are getting errors in the event logs under application about backing up the databases when you use RBX?

**************************

Indeed many errors were logged in the Application Event log. They ranged from errors like these:

A lot of errors like this were logged:
HCBackupService unable to read backup path from registry. The system cannot find the file specified.

Then after a bunch of those we had errors like this logged:
18204 :
BackupDiskFile::CreateMedia: Backup device ¬C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\BACKUP\Files\Microsoft¬ failed to create. Operating system error = 3(The system cannot find the path specified.).

3041 :
BACKUP failed to complete the command BACKUP DATABASE [Common] TO DISK = N¬C:\Program¬, DISK = N¬Files\Microsoft¬, DISK = N¬SQL¬, DISK = N¬Server\MSSQL\BACKUP\Common¬ WITH INIT , NOUNLOAD , NOSKIP , STATS = 10, NOFORMAT

18264 :
Database backed up: Database: websites, creation date(time): 2004/01/15(13:58:24), pages dumped: 2742, first LSN: 349:373:1, last LSN: 349:377:1, number of dump devices: 1, device information: (FILE=1, TYPE=DISK: {¬C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\BACKUP\websites¬}).

So on and so on until the backup completed.

Very messy looking if you ask me. Still no word from HCSupport on this forum board (the only place I have posted about the problem thus far). I am glad to hear that perhaps the demo version is "crippled" - but nowhere on their documentation or download page does it give this information.

I have been working with support on the error issue.

One of the issues is if you have a maintenance plan setup in sql that does backups, transaction log backups, etc and use default backup directory with use "separate folder for each backup" option it will fail to backup the databases.

This is because RBX writes the backup file to the default backup folder with no extension on the file and because there is already folders with the same name it fails to write the backup file. I have gotten around this with changing the sql default folder to backup2 for the maintenance plans but still getting errors in the application logs.

In the sample of the app log that you gave you can see that it trying to write to the wrong folder path. I have not gotten a response on that issue yet.

One of the issues is if you have a maintenance plan setup in sql that does backups, transaction log backups, etc and use default backup directory with use "separate folder for each backup" option it will fail to backup the databases.

I actually suspected it had something to do with the maintenance plan - as I had some of the databases setup with one. Thanks for verifying that. I¬ll take a look at the backup location for the MP and make the same changes you made.

Thanks again for the information.

So let me ask you, redbaran. Is it worth the $200 for this product? Also, isn¬t it supposed to backup the mailboxes as well (that was my understanding based on what I gathered from the manual).

I have yet to find where that backup went - or because I had the demo version it was "crippled"?

Thanks again.

-Johnny

I think it is worth it for us. Since your customer change there accounts on almost a daily bases.

The errors we are getting are not critical. We are now getting backups of evertthing but we are using Imail and not MailEnable. So I don¬t know if it is just something with using Mailenable or not.

Hosting Controller support has been away from this forum board for a week now. Hope everything is okay.

Jorune these reported errors have been fixed and fix will be shipped in coming hotfix. You can write to support to get custom files.

What about MailEnable? Does RBX backup the mailbox¬s and account information? I didn¬t see where that was done in the demo I have.