Running Backups from Command Line

BackupChain offers an easy to use command line interface (CLI) that allows external scripts and applications to control backups.

The following are examples for the command line and batch scripts.

Start a backup task

start /wait /d "c:\Program Files\FastNeuron Inc\BackupChain" BackupChain.exe "START-TASK" "Name of My Backup Task"

echo %errorlevel%
 1 = means success
-1 = means request failed
any other errorlevel indicates an error.

The echo command is only needed to display the error. In scripts you can use %errorlevel% directly. In applications you will need to wait for the process to finish and check on the exitcode of the BackupChain.exe application.

Check if a backup task is running

start /wait /d "c:\Program Files\FastNeuron Inc\BackupChain" BackupChain.exe "IS-TASK-RUNNING" "Name of My Backup Task"

echo %errorlevel%
1 = means task is running successfully, no errors encountered yet
2 = task is running but errors were encountered
3= task is not running and no errors were logged
4 = task is not running and errors occurred

Stop a backup task

start /wait /d "c:\Program Files\FastNeuron Inc\BackupChain" BackupChain.exe "STOP-TASK" "Name of My Backup Task"

echo %errorlevel%
 1 = means success
-1 = means request failed
any other errorlevel indicates an error.

Error Log

In this case of errors please check the log file CLIRequestLog.txt in C:\ProgramData\BackupChainService.

This file will only log errors related to the CLI interface. Backup errors and additional backup related information is logged in each task’s backup log separately.

PowerShell Example

$process = Start-Process -FilePath 'c:\Program Files\FastNeuron Inc\BackupChain\BackupChain.exe' -Wait -PassThru -ArgumentList '"IS-TASK-RUNNING"','"My Backup Task Name"'

# Retrieve the exit code
$exitCode = $process.ExitCode

Write-Host "The BackupChain CLI call finished with $exitCode"
Write-Output $exitCode