Fortunately, domain controllers can be backed up while online, which makes the process relatively easy. And since Active Directory is included as part of the System State on domain controllers, you are required to back up only the System State, although you can back up other folders and drives as necessary. On a domain controller, the System State includes the following:

• Boot files
• Registry
• COM+ class registration database
• Active Directory files
• System Volume (SYSVOL)
• Certificates database (if running Certificate Server)

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The DHCP Server service automatically performs a backup of the DHCP database and DHCP Server registry configuration key every 60 minutes (and overwrites the previous back up). You can also perform a manual backup as outlined in the GUI solution. Backup files are stored in %SystemRoot%\system32\dhcp\backup by default, but you can change that location as described in the CLI solution. You should change this path to another drive so that a disk failure doesn’t impact both the active database and the backup files.

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Related to the task of backing up entire file systems is the user-centric task of taking a snapshot of a specific directory or directory tree. This simple script allows users to easily create a compressed tar archive of a specified directory.

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