Creating or modifying an Attix5 backup selection

After installing Attix5 Pro Server Edition (SE) and creating a Backup Account, you can tell the Backup Client which files and/or folders to back up and which to ignore by creating a backup selection.

This article describes how to select data to back up. 

It then goes on to provide the following additional information related to backup selection that some readers will find useful.

Additional information

• Using filters to specify files and/or folders to be excluded from the backup selection.
• Profiling inclusions and exclusions from the backup selection.
• Global exclusions from the backup selection.
• Determining the backup selection size.
• Extending memory allocated to the backup service.
• Exporting a backup selection report.
• The icon legend.

Selecting data to back up

You can make your first backup selection or modify an existing backup selection at any time using the Backup Selection tab as described below.

Notes:
You should exclude the Backup Client installation folder from your backup selection, as including it increases the size of your backup unnecessarily.
Some files and directories are forcefully excluded from the backup selection. On Windows machines, these are the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys files; and the Backup Client cache and toBackup folders.

Caution:
If you have limited space on the drive running the Backup Client, it is recommended that you move the Cache, Logs and Temporary folders as well as the selection database to another location.

Selecting files and folders for backup

From within the Attix5 Pro SE Backup Client GUI,

1. Click the Backup Selection tab. 

The Backup Selection tab comprises a left hand pane containing a Backup Selection tree, and a right hand pane showing selected subfolders and files.

In the Backup Selection tree,

2. Navigate to the folder or directory containing the file or folder you wish to backup.

Note:
Once a file or folder is included in the backup selection, any modifications to it will be backed up automatically.

3. Include or exclude files and/or folders, as described below.

• Include an individual file

In the right-hand pane,

• Click the file icon , or right-click the file name and then click Include. An included file is displayed with a green icon .
• To deselect a file, you can either click the file icon again or right-click the file name, and then click Deselect. A folder containing some, but not all, included files is displayed with a green tinted icon .

• Include an entire folder
  • Right-click the folder icon , and then click Include Folder.
  • Alternatively, you can select the folder in the Backup Selection tree, and then click Include Folder on the Selection menu. Included folders are displayed with a green icon . 

Note:
All files in the included folder and its subfolders will be included in the next backup. Any changes made within this folder or its subfolders will automatically be included as well.

• To deselect a folder, right-click the folder icon, and then click Deselect Folder.

• Exclude a file or subfolder
  • If an entire folder is included but you wish to exclude a particular file or subfolder, then right-click the file or folder icon, and click Exclude or Exclude Folder. Excluded files are displayed with a red icon . Excluded folders are displayed with a red folder icon . Included folders that have some files or subfolders excluded are green with a red tint .

Once you have selected all files to be included and excluded, it may be useful to check the size of your backup selection before initiating your first backup. See, Determining the backup selection size, later in this article.

Note:
You can create different backup selections for different backup sets.

Additional information

The following sections describe additional information related to backup selection.

Using filters

You can use filters to automate file inclusions or exclusions within a folder, based on file types. For example, a *.doc filter will include, or exclude, all Word documents within a folder, as well as any new Word documents that are added to that folder later.

Applying a predefined filter to a specific folder

To apply a predefined filter to a specific folder, proceed as follows,

1. In the Backup Selection tree, right-click the folder icon and point to Filters.
2. Point to one of the available filters in the list (For example, MS Office documents).
3. Click Include or Exclude.

Modifying an existing filter

To modify an existing filter, proceed as follows,

1. In the Backup Selection tree, right-click the folder icon, point to Filters, and then click Edit filters.

The Edit Filters window opens.

2. Select one of the filters and then modify its properties in the Edit filter box.
3. Click OK.

Note: 
To add a new filter from within the Edit filters dialog box, click the New button, supply a name that describes the filter, enter the file type(s), and then click OK.

Adding a new filter via the Backup Selection tree

To add a new filter via the Backup Selection tree, proceed as follows,

1. Right-click the folder icon, point to Filters, and then click New filter.

The Define new filter dialog box opens.

2. In the Filter name box, type a name to be used in the Filters menu.
3. In the Filter box, specify the file extensions to which the filter will apply.
4. Click OK.

The filter will be added to the Filters menu and you will be able to use it to include or exclude all files matching its criteria.

Removing filters from a folder

To remove filters from a folder, proceed as follows,

1. Right-click the folder icon and point to Filters.
2. Point to the name of the filter you wish to remove.
3. Clear the check mark next to the selection (Include or Exclude), or alternatively click Deselect.

Identifying files and folders selected by filters

Look at the icon state. Files and folders that are included in the backup selection by filters will display with icons containing blue tick marks, for example,  and .

Profiled inclusions and exclusions

Some inclusions and exclusions are enforced at administration level on the Storage Platform. This is called "profiling". Files and folders affected by profiling display with the following icons.

Note:
Profiled selections cannot be modified from within the Backup Client and can only be changed on the Storage Platform.

Global exclusions

Global exclusions enable you to specify files and/or folders to be excluded from the backup selection.

To add Global Exclusions, proceed as follows,

1. Click the Options button on the toolbar

The Options and Settings page opens.

2.  In the left hand menu pane, click Global Exclusions.

The Global Exclusions page opens.

3. Select the type(s) of filters to apply and then specify their values.
4. Click OK.

Determining the backup selection size

It is useful to determine the backup selection size before starting the backup process to avoid Over Limit errors.

Note:
The Backup Client compares your backup selection size with the Backup Account limit (specified by your Backup Administrator) at the beginning of the backup process. If the selection size exceeds the Account limit, the backup process will stop and an Over Limit error message will be displayed.

To calculate the backup selection size, proceed as follows,

1. On the File menu, click Calculate Size.

Alternatively, click the Size button  on the toolbar.

The Backup Selection Size dialog box that appears displays total size of your backup selection (i.e. all files included for backup).

Caution:
If a backup fails and an Out of Memory error message is recorded in the backup log, you need to increase the default amount of server memory you wish to allocate to the backup service. See Extending memory below.

Removing files from a backup selection

If you need to remove a file from the backup selection, then proceed as follows.

1. In the Size dialog box, right-click the file's green icon . The icon will turn red to indicate that it is excluded .

Note:
To exclude multiple files at once, click a file name in the list, hold down the Shift key and drag the mouse pointer to highlight the files. Right-click the selection, and then click Exclude.

2. Alternatively, on the Backup Selection tab, deselect or exclude files or folders that are currently selected for backup. For more information, see Selecting data to back up.

Extending memory allocated to the backup service

The default amount of server memory allocated to the backup service is 256MB. If an Out of Memory error message is received then it is usually resolved by increasing the allocation from 256MB to 512MB.

Note:
You must have more physical memory capacity available than the value you wish to increase to, otherwise the system may start to swap. It is recommended to increase only to about 50% of available capacity. For example, if server RAM capacity is 1GB, then use about 512MB for Java. The setting only sets an upper limit for Java and does not mean that it will constantly use the specified amount of memory. Typically the extra memory will only be used during a backup.

To increase the memory allocation on a Windows SE client, proceed as follows.

For the SE service

1. In the root directory of Backup Professional, open the service.properties file (The default root directory is C:\Program Files\Attix5 Backup Professional SE\).
2. Add the following line:

 memory=512

Where 512 is the amount of memory you want to allocate.

 Caution:
Ensure the memory entry in service.properties is added as a new line in the file and DO NOT add a semicolon at the end of the existing entry.

For the GUI

In the a5backup.properties file,

3. Add the following line:

 application.memory=512

Where 512 is the amount of memory you want to allocate.

Restart the service and GUI for the changes to become effective.

Exporting a selection report

After creating a backup selection, you can export a list of all backup inclusions and exclusions to an html file for future reference.

The selection report will specify:

• Files and folders included in the backup
• Files and folders excluded from the backup
• How each item was selected (user-selected, filters, profiling, global exclusions or mandatory patching)
• Where each item is located on the machine
• The total number of items in the backup selection

To export a selection report,

1. On the File menu, click Export Selection.

The Save As window opens.

2. Using the icons in the left hand pane, and the Save in dropdown menu, select the location in which to save the file.
3. In the File name box, type a file name.
4. Click Export.

The file will be saved to the specified location as an HTML file, and can be viewed in any Internet browser.

The icon legend

On the Backup Selection tab, each file and folder is displayed with an associated icon. The colour of the icon indicates the file or folder's backup selection status. The following icon legend lists the Attix5 Pro icons and the statuses they indicate. You can access this legend by clicking Icon Legend on the Help menu.

Icon	Status	Description
	File (not selected)	The file exists in the folder or directory but is not included in the backup selection (neither included nor excluded).
	Selected by user	The Backup Client user has included the file in the backup selection.
	Selected by user filter	The Backup Client user has applied a filter to the parent folder or directory. That filter has included the file in the backup selection.
	Excluded by user	The Backup Client user has excluded the file from being backed up to the Storage Platform.
	Excluded by administrator	The Backup or Storage Platform Administrator has excluded this file or its file type. Files displaying this icon will not be backed up to the Storage Platform.
	Included by profiling	The Backup or Storage Platform Administrator has included this file or file type. Files displaying this icon will be backed up to the Storage Platform and cannot be deselected from within the Backup Client.
	Included by profiling filter	The Backup or Storage Platform Administrator has applied a filter to the parent folder or directory. That filter has included the file in the backup selection. Files displaying this icon cannot be deselected or excluded from within the Backup Client.
	Excluded by profiling	The Backup or Storage Platform Administrator has excluded this file or its file type. Files displaying this icon will not be backed up to the Storage Platform and cannot be included in the backup selection from within the Backup Client.
	Folder (not selected)	The folder exists in the directory but it is not included in the backup selection.
	Some files selected by user	The Backup Client user has included some files in the backup selection.
	All files selected by user	The Backup Client user has included all files in the backup selection.
	All files selected by user, some excluded	The folder contains no unselected files. Each file is either included or excluded.
	All files excluded by the user	The Backup Client user has excluded all files in the folder from being backed up to the Storage Platform.
	Filter applied by user	The Backup Client user has applied a filter to the folder. The filter has included one or more files within the folder.
	Filter applied by user, some excluded	The Backup Client user has applied a filter to the folder that has included and excluded files within it.
	All files included by profiling	The Backup Administrator has included all the files contained in the folder. All files will be backed up to the Storage Platform. These inclusions cannot be changed by the Backup Client user.
	Filter applied by profiling	The Backup Administrator has applied a filter to the folder. This filter cannot be removed by a Backup Client user.
	Filter applied by profiling, all items excluded	The Backup Administrator has applied a filter to the folder, resulting in the folder being excluded from the backup selection. This filter cannot be removed by a Backup Client user.
	Filter applied by profiling, some items included by user	The Backup Administrator has applied a filter to this folder using profiling and some items have been manually included by the Backup Client user.
	Filter applied by profiling, some items included and some items excluded by user.	The Backup Administrator has applied a filter to this folder using profiling. Some items have been excluded and others included by the Backup Client user.
	Filter applied by profiling but items excluded by user.	Items in the folder have been included using filters.
	Folder excluded by Global Filter.	The folder has been excluded using Global Exclusions.
	All files excluded by profiling	The Backup Administrator has excluded all files in the folder. These excluded files cannot be included by a Backup Client user.
	Plug-in node (not selected)	The plug-in exists but is not selected for backup to the Storage Platform.
	Some items selected by user	The Backup Client user has selected some of the items in the plug-in for backup to the Storage Platform.
	All items selected by user	The Backup Client user has selected all items in the plug-in for backup to the Storage Platform.
	All items selected by user, some excluded	The Backup Client user has included and excluded items in the plug-in.
	All items excluded by user	The Backup Client user has excluded all items in the plug-in from being backed up to the Storage Platform.
	Filter applied by user	The Backup Client user has applied a filter to the plug-in; specifying that certain file types must be included for backup to the Storage Platform.
	Filter applied by user, some excluded	The Backup Client user has applied a filter to the plug-in; specifying that certain file types be included for backup to the Storage Platform but some items have been excluded either through the use of an exclusion filter or by manual exclusion.