Backing Up ArgoSoft Pro

You've put a lot of work into setting up your email server. I know that I have put in over a hundred hours defining domains (about 150 of them), user accounts, spam filters, autoresponders and dozens of other bits of information. I would hate to lose it all.

That's where backup comes into play. You should occasionally back your files up - otherwise, you are taking the chance that you could lose all of your work.

Backup the content files - Backing up the ArgoSoft Pro database is incredibly simple. Since there is no fancy database (no SQL, no Oracle, no DB2 or anything like that), there is no need for any special backup software. In fact, this is one of the major attractions of the ArgoSoft Pro email server - it's database is simple, easy to understand and to trivial to backup and restore.

The root directory for the database is, by default, as follows. You can use the standard Windows explorer interface to navigate to this directory to see what's there.

C:\Program Files\Argo Software Design\Mail Server

You will find the executable images, lots of data files and a few directories.

 

_logs	contains the log files, created as the ArgoSoft Pro server operates. Any errors are recorded here.
_maillist	Mailing lists.
_outbox	Messages waiting to be sent.
_users	All of the data defining domains, user accounts and any email messages that are received by those users.
images	Images for the web interface.
webtemplates	The web interface HTML and other files.

The most important directory is "_users", as this contains all of the domain definitions, account data, messages, autoresponders and just about anything else that's significant. "_maillist" is also important. You can just back those up, if you want, or you can back up everything.

What do you use to backup it all up? I use a product called Second Copy, and I've also used another called InSync. These two products are shareware and very inexpensive. Each of them allows you to perform disk-to-disk backups locally or across the network without much trouble.

You can also simply occasionally make a copy of these directories and their files to some other location (preferably a CD-R or other backup media).

Backup the registry - Some ArgoSoft Pro settings are stored in the registry. These should be backed up using a registry backup program such as ConfigSafe, or failing that, manually. A manual backup of these entries very simple and well worth doing as you may need to restore the registry if your machine bites the dust.

To create a backup of these entries, select "Run" from the "Start" menu. In the "Open" box, enter "Regedit". This will start up the registry editor. Be very careful with this program, as it allows you to change system parameters. It's very powerful and useful, but used unwisely it can render your system unbootable.

This will start up the registry editor. Navigate to the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE\ArgoSoft\Mail Server" key.

Now select "Export Registry File" from the "Registry" menu.

Save the file somewhere useful.

When you click "Save" you will have a backup of your ArgoSoft Pro registry entries for the email server. This file will be given the name you specify with a file type of .REG.

If you ever need to restore your registry, you simply double-click the .REG file. You will be asked if you want to update the registry - do so if you really want. That's all there is to the restore operation. Note, this will overwrite any existing registry entries, so be careful.