[Samba] Save open access databases

[David Brodbeck]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Morel [mailto:david.morel at amakuru.net]

> I don't have any MSAccess on my machines, so I can't test it, and I 
> would like to backup or invalidate that claim: if i have an MS Access 
> database open by several people on a windows share (say on a w2k 
> machine), will it be a problem backing it up on a linux backup server 
> mounting the windows share (while it is still open and 
> written to by the 
> windows machines of course)? Will it cause any problem to 
> back it up if 
> it is on the samba share, still with several windows clients 
> accessing 
> and writing to it?

David,

If you back it up while clients are writing to it, there's a chance your
backup will catch an update halfway through and be corrupt.  There isn't
much you can do about this unless you can somehow ensure the database isn't
being written to while you do the backup.  (Doing it after hours was my
technique, when we had an Access database.)

Other than that, if you're trying to back it up from a Windows server,
Windows' file locking may prevent you from copying it.  There are products
to get around this (Open File Manager is one) but I haven't tried them.  On
a Linux server, locking won't be an issue.