The Most Important Backup Setting in Plesk 9.x that is completely undocumented!

[Tony Valenti]

Hi Everybody,
I've been having a real problem with Plesk 9.x because the backup component does not create native (.BAK) MSSQL Database Backups, but instead creates a "script export". The problem with script exports is that with complex databases, many times, they do not correctly export, and if you have a 10GB database, you really don't want to be relying on a SQL Script.

Well, after quite a bit of research (thanks ProcessMonitor!) I was able to figure out that there is a hidden option in Plesk 9.5 (it might exist for other versions as well) that will let you inform plesk that you would still like for it to take native MSSQL Backups!

I wanted to document this feature and get it posted on the forum that way everyone else can see and utilize this as well.

This requires editing a key in registry, so if you're not comfortable doing this, then don't do it:
1) Open up regedit.exe
2) Nagivate to: My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PLESK\PSA Config\Config
3) Create a new String Value named "DumpMsSqlToScript" and set its value to "false".

Poof! Plesk will now take reliable backups of your MSSQL Databases!

 

[sergius]

Hi Tony. Please keep in mind it works only for local databases.

 

[IgorG]

Tony,

Could you please specify how your MSSQL server is registered in Plesk? As 'localhost', 'localhost.localdomain' or '127.0.0.1'?

 

[deepa]

Hi

We aried this for one of our servers and it failed to create sql dump file.
is there anything else to change?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<execution-result status="warnings">
<object name="domain.com" type="domain">
<message code="InformationalException" severity="error">Cannot dump database content dbname of type mssql'</message>
</object>
<object name="domaina.com" type="domain">
<message code="InformationalException" severity="error">Cannot dump database content dbname of type mssql'</message>
</object>
</execution-result>

Hi Everybody,
I've been having a real problem with Plesk 9.x because the backup component does not create native (.BAK) MSSQL Database Backups, but instead creates a "script export". The problem with script exports is that with complex databases, many times, they do not correctly export, and if you have a 10GB database, you really don't want to be relying on a SQL Script.

Well, after quite a bit of research (thanks ProcessMonitor!) I was able to figure out that there is a hidden option in Plesk 9.5 (it might exist for other versions as well) that will let you inform plesk that you would still like for it to take native MSSQL Backups!

I wanted to document this feature and get it posted on the forum that way everyone else can see and utilize this as well.

This requires editing a key in registry, so if you're not comfortable doing this, then don't do it:
1) Open up regedit.exe
2) Nagivate to: My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PLESK\PSA Config\Config
3) Create a new String Value named "DumpMsSqlToScript" and set its value to "false".

Poof! Plesk will now take reliable backups of your MSSQL Databases!