The Design of Software

What is the best way to backup VSS? Its not backed up right now but if the server goes down, then we would be screwed.

Thanks

Developers have a local copy stored on each of their machines with VSS.  If the server goes down you can recover using the files with the most recent timestamp from each developer machine.  Almost certainly not the best way, but may help you sleep easier until you get a better solution implemented.

Every time someone commits a change, print out a copy and mail it to an abandoned salt mine in Utah.

Well, that's how my old company archived their data, more or less.

I use the vss admin tool to make an archive and then put the archive on a CD. Now I do this via the GUI tool but I believe you can script it via the command line and automate it.

Since VSS is file based you probably could get away with zipping the source directory on the server and storing that on tape or CD in the middle of the night.

Well, here is one experience I had....

The VSS server was also the development server. The hard drive on the development server died one day. That is when we discovered that the previous network admin didn't include the development server on the backup list. Oops.

digression:
Visual Studio keeps a local copy of your files. The default location is a directory under "c:\documents and settings\yourloginnamehere\X" where X is VSWebCache for vs.net and something else for version 6 (I always manually make mine different, like "c:\vc projects" and c:\vi projects") so that work won't be lost if your username changes, or other people need to get to your work when you are on vacation. Items under "c:\documents and settings\yourloginnamehere" are protected by default from evil people like (who? me?) and invisible to other (non-administrator) users of the computer...

return from digression:
I asked the entire workgroup to write on a piece of paper their username, password and screensaver password, lock their PC (don't log off) and go have a 3 hour lunch. I went to the computer store, bought a usb cd-burner (hey, I wanted one, they were somewhat new at the time, good excuse), came back and burned a copies of everyones' local copy of the visual studio workspace. Using all the copies available, and what was on the QA server (which was about 2 weeks out of date because code was moved from dev to QA about once per month), I managed to recover most of the latest work. We estimated that I saved them about 10 man weeks of lost effort. I had the code recovered before they got a new development server installed and running.

follow up:
I was let go a week later for violating the policy and procedure manual: I had other peoples' passwords.

That'll show you for doing what needed to be done.

No, wait, that'll show them for being a bunch of closed minded morons.  Losing someone who can think probably hurt them quite a bit in the long run.

To back up source safe, find the srcsafe.ini corresponding to the database and back up the whole of the folder containing it.

(Not sure how passwords interact with this -- I've never worked anywhere that had passwords for each user on the source control, bizarrely enough. I guess they get saved in the .ini files in the users/ folders, so they should stick around.)

Peter,
  You did go back and torch the building, didn't you?

Or file a lawsuit, perhaps?

there are scripts that can be run to backup your VVS

Look online for answers

==>To back up source safe, find the srcsafe.ini corresponding to the database and back up the whole of the folder containing it.


Wrong, wrong, wrong -- uless you can *guarantee* that nobody (person or batch job) will be doing any work in VSS for the entire time it takes to write and verify the backup.

You'll end up with a completely hosed, inconsistent version of the repository if someone changes files in the middle of your backup.

Works pretty AOK, as long as nobody has access during the backup window.

>You did go back and torch the building, didn't you? ...
>Or file a lawsuit, perhaps?
No thanks. I already bought a red stapler at the office supply store.  :)

Use SSARC.exe in the VSS win32 directory which creates a compressed backup of your repository.

Here's the command-line our nightly backup script ultimately uses:
ssarc.exe -d- -s"{vssPath}" -o"{logFile}" -i- -y{username},{password} -c"{comment}" "{archiveFile}" "{vssProject}"

HTH.

You could use the Shadow folders feature and set one for each of the projects (I don't know if you can just do it for the root).
I do this setting the folders to another network drive, then burn that to CD every month or so.

But you only get the most recent(checked-in, I believe) source.