System and method for managing group policy backup

• US 7,752,487 B1
• Filed: 08/08/2006
• Issued: 07/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Original Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Inventors: Feeser, Colin Lee, Marks, Ryan Sean
• Primary Examiner(s): GUYTON, PHILIP A
• Application Number:
  US11/463,152
• Time in Patent Office: 1,428 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/15, 709/223, 707/9, 719/316
• US Class Current: 714/4.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1435 using file system or storage system metadata
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1451 by selection of backup contents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1464 for networked environments
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/20 for managing network security; network security policies in general filtering policies H04L63/0227
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3242 involving keyed hash functions, e.g. message authentication codes [MACs], CBC-MAC or HMAC
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 involving digital signatures

Abstract

A method, system and program product for group policy backup management in an enterprise network having a plurality of domains. A list of group policies for a domain is retrieved and a digital signature is determined for each policy on the list of policies for the domain. The digital signature for each policy in the domain is compared with a corresponding previous digital signature for the same policy. If the current digital signature for each policy matches the corresponding previous digital signature for the same policy, no backup is performed. Each policy having a current digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature for the same policy is backed up. The preceding steps are repeated for each domain in a plurality of domains within the enterprise network computing environment. Individual policies can also be backed up or restored upon user request. The system contains a group policy backup component for automatically backing up each modified policy in each domain, and a group policy backup manager component for backing up and restoring individual policies in a domain.

Claims

1. A method for group policy backup management in an enterprise network having a plurality of domains, comprising the steps of:

retrieving a list of group policy objects for a domain;

generating a configuration initialization file including a domains section

identifying a plurality of domains that are to be backed up and a setup section specifying a plurality of values that control the backup of each policy object in each domain;

determining a digital signature for each policy object on a list of policies for the domain;

comparing the digital signature for each policy object with a corresponding previous digital signature for each policy;

determining if a current digital signature for each policy object matches the corresponding previous digital signature for each policy;

backing up each policy object having a current digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature; and

repeating the steps of retrieving, determining a digital signature, comparing, determining policy object matches and backing up for each domain in the plurality of domains.

2. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 further comprising the step of storing each policy object that does not have a corresponding previous digital signature.

3. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 wherein the step of backing up each policy is performed only for each policy object having a current digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature.

4. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 wherein the step of determining a digital signature for each policy object is performed by running a hash function on each policy.

5. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a report containing the changes found in each group policy object that has been modified.

6. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a difference report for the domain after each successful policy backup, the difference report including both a current report and a backed up report for each policy object in the domain.

7. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 further comprising the step of generating a log file of the backup of each policy object.

8. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 further comprising the step of selecting a time and frequency for running a backup of each policy object in the domain.

9. The method for group policy backup management of claim 1 further comprising the step of creating a globally unique identifier for each policy object in the domain.

10. The method for group policy backup management of claim 9 further comprising the step of accumulating backups for each policy object in the domain in a folder identified by the corresponding globally unique identifier.

11. A method for managing a group policy in an enterprise network having a plurality of domains, comprising the steps of:

generating a configuration initialization file including a domains section

identifying a plurality of domains that are to be backed up and a setup section specifying a plurality of values that control the backup of each policy object in each domain;

receiving a user selection of a domain from the domains section;

receiving a user selection of an individual policy object from a displayed list of policy objects;

displaying each policy backup for the selected individual policy object; and

receiving a user request that the individual policy object should be modified.

12. The method for managing a group policy of claim 11 further comprising receiving a user request that the individual policy object should be backed up.

13. The method for managing a group policy of claim 11 further comprising receiving a user request that the individual policy object should be restored from a previous backup of the individual policy object.

14. The method for managing a group policy of claim 11 wherein the displayed list of policies in the selected domain is displayed by policy name.

15. The method for managing a group policy of claim 11 wherein the displayed list of policies in the selected domain is displayed by a globally unique identifier for each policy object in the list.

16. The method for managing a group policy of claim 12 wherein backing up the individual policy object comprises determining a digital signature for the individual policy object.

17. The method for managing a group policy of claim 13 wherein restoring the individual policy object comprises replacing a current digital signature for the individual policy object with the digital signature of a previous backup of the individual policy object.