I am doing a little testing on my local machine, in preparation for some windows scheduled backups.  I am trying to understand the relationship of some of the components.  On my desktop I have DBISAM Database Server, Server Administration Utility, and Command Line DBISAM Database Server.  

When I my machine comes up after a reboot and  I try to login to the Server administration and I get an error.  This makes sense as I have not started the Server.  So I click on Database Server and then I try to login with the Administration Utility and it asks me for a password.  Again, makes sense.  So, then I go to the Command LIne DBISAM database Server and type  Quit and then enter, to shutdown the server.  And then try to login to the Server Administration, and I get asked for a password.  Does not make sense, should have been shutdown.  Also, if I execute dbsrvr.exe /uninstall from the command prompt I can still log on through server administration.  

What I am trying to do is bring up and shut down the server physically.  Eventually I want to do it with a batch file,  but it appears that once it is up it does not come down.  

An aside, I can never see the server running as a service, either through MyComputer/Manage or MSCONFIG.  I was told to run interactive services but my machine is  Windows 2008 and a message pops up that it cannot run it on a local computer.  Further google searches has proved fruitless in resolving the interactive services on a windows 2008 machine.  

Owen,

<< I am doing a little testing on my local machine, in preparation for some
windows scheduled backups.  I am trying to understand the relationship of
some of the components.  On my desktop I have DBISAM Database Server, Server
Administration Utility, and Command Line DBISAM Database Server. >>

This is your primary problem: you don't need both the DBISAM Database Server
and the command-line DBISAM Database Server.  The command-line DBISAM
Database Server was primarily for Linux and is not particularly useful under
Windows, especially since you can run the normal DBISAM Database Server as a
Windows service.

<< What I am trying to do is bring up and shut down the server physically.
Eventually I want to do it with a batch file,  but it appears that once it
is up it does not come down. >>

Forget the command-line server, and that should clear things up, at least
with running the DBISAM Database Server as a normal application.

<< An aside, I can never see the server running as a service, either through
MyComputer/Manage or MSCONFIG.  I was told to run interactive services but
my machine is  Windows 2008 and a message pops up that it cannot run it on a
local computer.  Further google searches has proved fruitless in resolving
the interactive services on a windows 2008 machine. >>

How are you installing/starting the service ?

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

How are you installing/starting the service?  

Well initially I was clicking on the DBISAM Database Server on my start menu.   So then I tried doing it through a batch file and then also from the command prompt.  Both of these options have problems.  

I tried to run dbsrvr.exe /install  through a batch file and nothing was happening.  When I run it from the command prompt, I am getting an Exception EWin32Error in module dbsrvr.exe at 00010620.  Win32 Error.  Code: 5.  Access is denied.  

So much of windows 8 has to be run as administrator so I tried     runas.exe /savecred /user:Owen "dbsrvr.exe /install"  Then it asks me for my password, which is the same password as I use to logon to the machine, but it does not like that.   I also tried it with user:administrator.  I know in XP,there is an administrator and then user(s), but I cannot find where you can reset the administrator password on windows 8.  My windows does not have a users and computers off the computer--manage and running lusmgr.msc which is kind of the same thing does not work on my installation.  

So I am not sure where to go from here.  I hope this is makes sense, but it sure seems convoluted.  

After messing with the runas for quite some time along with google searches trying to figure out why my password is not being accepted, I resorted to brute force.  I went to the dbsrvr.exe and changed the security so machine users could run the program.  Not sure this is the best method, but I could not find a solution for running it with functionality provided.  So, now I can run dbsrvr /install and dbsrvr /uninstall.  And I can see the service installed.  But there are more issues.  First, dbsrvr does install, but it is not running.  So I had to go in and manually start it for the Server Administration to give me a login.  When I try to do the command line net start dbsrvr /sp13000 /ap13001 I get - system error 5 has occurred.  Access is denied.  The other issues is that  I did not find any feature to stop the service other than uninstall.

So, I am not sure this is going to be fruitful in terms of providing and quick and dirty automated backup.  If I cannot start and stop the dbsrvr from within a batch file, then I do not think that database integrity can be insured during the copy.    

If anybody is doing this in windows 8, I sure would like some suggestions.

On 5/20/2013 6:54 PM, Owen wrote:
> I tried to run dbsrvr.exe /install  through a batch file and nothing was happening.  When I run it from the command prompt, I am getting an Exception EWin32Error in module dbsrvr.exe at 00010620.  Win32 Error.  Code: 5.  Access is denied.

You should use administrator command prompt for this as it would make
life a lot easier. Don't have a Win8 machine available at the moment
but generally right-clicking on Command Prompt shortcut (if you have
start menu using a 3rd party tool) you can select "run as
administrator".  Natively on Win8 another way is to run windows explorer
and then use "Open Command Prompt" -> "Open Command Prompt as
Administrator".

Raul

>

On 5/20/2013 11:15 PM, Owen wrote:
> After messing with the runas for quite some time along with google searches trying to figure out why my password is not being accepted, I resorted to brute force.  I went to the dbsrvr.exe and changed the security so machine users could run the program.  Not sure this is the best method, but I could not find a solution for running it with functionality provided.  So, now I can run dbsrvr /install and dbsrvr /uninstall.  And I can see the service installed.  But there are more issues.  First, dbsrvr does install, but it is not running.  So I had to go in and manually start it for the Server Administration to give me a login.  When I try to do the command line net start dbsrvr /sp13000 /ap13001 I get - system error 5 has occurred.  Access is denied.  The other issues is that  I did not find any feature to stop the service other than uninstall.

Again use either administrative prompt or the services UI to start/stop
service. When you install service it is not auto-started - you have to
do so.
>
> So, I am not sure this is going to be fruitful in terms of providing and quick and dirty automated backup.  If I cannot start and stop the dbsrvr from within a batch file, then I do not think that database integrity can be insured during the copy.
Again you can either use the admin prompt or just use the built-in
backup - no need to shut anything down.

Raul

Raul wrote:

On 5/20/2013 6:54 PM, Owen wrote:
> I tried to run dbsrvr.exe /install  through a batch file and nothing was happening.  When I run it from the command prompt, I am getting an Exception EWin32Error in module dbsrvr.exe at 00010620.  Win32 Error.  Code: 5.  Access is denied.

You should use administrator command prompt for this as it would make
life a lot easier. Don't have a Win8 machine available at the moment
but generally right-clicking on Command Prompt shortcut (if you have
start menu using a 3rd party tool) you can select "run as
administrator".  Natively on Win8 another way is to run windows explorer
and then use "Open Command Prompt" -> "Open Command Prompt as
Administrator".

Raul

>
Thanks Raul.  The whole goal of this exercise is to create a backup.bat file that I can schedule to run every night.  Currently we are only doing manual backups.  So the backup.bat will close the dbsrvr, then zip up all the database files, put them somewhere safe, then start the dbsrvr again for the next mornings processing.  I am trying to do my testing on a windows8 machine which is proving to be more work than I anticipated.  Just one security issue after another.  I am new to windows 8 so I don't have all the quirks ironed out.  I just wanted a quick and dirty then move on to the next task at hand.  

In thinking about this a bit over night, I will try to do some testing on an XP machine.  It is a bit more forgiving.  The backup.bat will run on an old windows 2000 server so it should be ok for a bit.  

Owen,

> Thanks Raul.  The whole goal of this exercise is to create a backup.bat file that I can schedule to run every night.

Yes you can do so and it's pretty straightforward:

1. run an administrator command prompt (as per previous email)

2. install EDBSRVR as a service using this prompt (e.g. edbsrvr -install)

3. start the edbsrvr using this prompt (net start edbsrvr) - this step
is here just to make sure everything works OK

4. create a batch file that stops the service, does the backup and start
the service. e.g.
net stop edbserver
<make backup of your files>
net start edbserver

5. run the backup file using the admin prompt to make sure it works OK

6. Use windows task scheduler to schedule the backup batch file and make
sure you check the "Run with the highest privileges". otherwise you can
use your own account for the task

7. test task by manually running in in task scheduler

That's all there is.

Raul

Thanks Raul, that worked just like you said it would on my windows 8 machine.  So the key to this windows 8 security glich was installing it as administrator.  Then everything else worked fine.  

> 4. create a batch file that stops the service, does the backup and
> start the service. e.g.
> net stop edbserver
> <make backup of your files>
> net start edbserver

FWIW, if the backup process itself takes more than a little time, I'd copy the
database files to an alternative location, then restart the server, and then make
the backup of the copy. That way your downtime is shortest.

And if I wanted to do it even better, I'd use the DBISAM backup option from some
place to make a file which contains the database files. I use this in a 24/7
service that I wrote, and it takes a backup every night at 3am to a suitable
location, each one named with the date. It also auto-prunes to keep only 28-days
worth.

/Matthew Jones/