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Accepted
Josiah
Asked: 2009-07-17 18:14:15 +0800 CST

How do you backup a database within SQL Server 2005 from the command line?

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I need to create a scheduled task that will backup a database within a SQL Server 2005 instance.

Is there a command line argument that I can use to achieve this?

sql-server sql-server-2005 backup

2 Answers

  1. Actually better here is to use SQLCMD instead of OSQL. OSQL is considered deprecated as of SQL Server 2005, though it's still around in SQL Server 2008.

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  2. Best Answer
    OSQL -E -Q "BACKUP DATABASE database_name TO DISK = 'path and filename'"

    As in:

    OSQL -E -Q "BACKUP DATABASE master TO DISK = 'C:\master.bak'"

    Be sure you're running that as a user who has rights to backup that database (or, alternatively, use the "-U" and "-P" arguments to supply a username/password on the command line... not a good idea, thought.)

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