Best practices for backing up network shares

Network shares by their nature are more complicated to backup than local drives.

Part of this is due to the way in which Windows handles sessions to the network share.

This document attempts to simplify and standardise the process of backing up a network share device using CyberSecure Standard/Advanced editions to make the backup more robust.

If the network share requires authentication

Only CyberSecure Advanced supports backup of network shares that use active directory and local NAS user authentication.

The following information will be required in order to complete the setup:

  1. Domain
  2. Username
  3. Password
  4. Hostname/IP address
  5. Sharename(s) to backup

Mapped network drives are not supported and will not work on scheduled backups – using UNC paths are the correct way to backup network shares.


Configuring CyberSecure Advanced:

  1. Create & configure the file backup set in the backup agent.
  2. Close the backup agent and login via the web console.
  3. Click “Backup set” and choose the backup set
  4. In the section entitled “Pre-backup command”, put the following 2x name, command and working directories:
    1. Pre-command #1:
      1. Name: Disconnect Share
      2. Command: net use * /delete /yes
      3. Working dir: C:\
    2. Pre-command #2
      1. Name: Connect share
      2. Command: net use \\nas /user:<local_nas_username> <password>
      3. Working dir: C:\
        Note: If the password contains special characters it may need to be encapsulated with quotes.
        eg net use \\nas01 /user:admin “hfi&&#!!”


Configuring CyberSecure Standard:

  1. On the Windows machine running the backup, perform the following
    1. Create a local account with the same username and password as the share you’re backing up
    2. Run services.msc
    3. Right click on the “Online Backup Scheduler (CyberSecure Online Backup Standard)” service and select “Properties” 
    4. Select the “Log On” tab
    5. Add the credentials of the local account you just created
    6. Click OK
    7. Restart the service

If the network share allows anonymous access

  1. If the share is anonymous, then simply put the UNC path (NOT the mapped network drive) into the backup source path.
  2. Never use mapped network drives as these will not work with scheduled backups.