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Backing Up with dbWatch -  a Guide

Posted by Lukas Vileikis on Mar 14, 2021 6:12:00 PM
Lukas Vileikis

About the Author:

Lukas Vileikis is an ethical hacker and a frequent conference speaker.

Since 2014, Lukas has found and responsibly disclosed security flaws in some of the most visited websites in Lithuania.

He runs one of the biggest & fastest data breach search engines in the world - BreachDirectory.com, frequently speaks at conferences and blogs in multiple places including his blog over at lukasvileikis.com.

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You’re probably a MySQL, Sybase or Oracle DBA which means you have things to do – some of those things might include the monitoring of your database instance(s) with dbWatch. The monitoring of your database instances might prove to be a daunting task which can be indeed made more simple by using dbWatch, but have you ever thought how to back up the dbWatch server and configuration files? You probably did – in this blog post, we will tell you how to do exactly that. Look at this blog post as an update to our older documentation regarding backups of dbWatch.

 

How do You Back Up dbWatch?

How you back up dbWatch depends on where your dbWatch Server and the dbWatch Monitor is installed. On Windows, the dbWatch directory usually is C:\Program Files(x86)\dbWatch\[dbWatch Version] and on Linux it’s /usr/local/dbWatch/[dbWatchVersion]. To back up your dbWatch Server and Monitor installation, simply make a zip of one of those directories.


Now, navigate to the dbWatchControlCenter folder. You should see something simillar to the following:

 

Now, navigate to the config folder. You should be presented with a list of files (we have highlighted a couple of the most important ones):

 

- The server_configuration.xml file is very important because it depicts the
configuration of your server.
- The authentication.xml file is important because it depicts the authentication details.
- The authorization.xml file is important because it depicts the authorization details.


Some of the other files you might want to keep are relevant to your dbWatch version:

- All (or some) of the data in the log directory (the directory is most likely located in the
ProgramData/dbWatchControlCenter folder – you might want to back up the error,
output and server logs so you could check what was going on in the older installation of
dbWatch on your system (you can rename them)):

- If you use an older version of dbWatch (i.e you‘re not using ControlCenter) consider also backing up any tasks (the tasks are located in the tasks_local folder), notes or any changed
management scripts (these are located in the admin_spesifications_local directory if an older version of dbWatch is in use).

- If you‘re using an older version of dbWatch, consider backing up the monitor.xml file in the
root directory of dbWatch – this file contains information about the dbWatch servers your
instances connect to.

- If you‘re using the ControlCenter, you might want to back up the chat folder inside of the
dbWatchControlCenter folder and any relevant resources in the resources folder
(these might consist of the specifications, reports, properties or tasks):

 

Backing Up the dbWatch Monitor & Database Schema

Simillarly to the dbWatch Server, the dbWatch Monitor is installed in a directory which is normally /usr/local/dbWatch/[dbWatch Version] on Linux and C:\Program Files (x86)\dbWatch\[dbWatch Version] on Windows if an older version of dbWatch is in use,
/usr/local/dbWatch/ControlCenter on Linux and C:\Program Files (x86)\ControlCenter on Windows if the ControlCenter is in use.

To back up the database schema related to dbWatch, navigate to your database management system of choice (it can be MySQL, Oracle, Sybase or any other) and back up the database in which you created dbWatch or the ControlCenter. The database will be usually called either dbwatch if an older version of dbWatch was in use and dbwatch_cc if you used the ControlCenter.

 

Summary

Backing up your dbWatch installation could prove to be invaluable if a disaster strikes – we sincerely hope that this blog post explained how to back up the data related to dbWatch in a quick and convenient fashion. As always, if you have any questions or concerns feel free to reach out to the team – they will be happy to help.

 

 

Other Blogs:

Monitoring MyISAM Performance with dbWatch – a Guide

Monitoring InnoDB Performance with dbWatch – a Guide

 

Topics: database operations, sql server monitoring, sql monitoring tools, database monitoring, sqlmonitor, sqlperformance, sqlmanager

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