System and method for managing group policy backup

• US 7,984,322 B1
• Filed: 05/03/2010
• Issued: 07/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 08/08/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Original Assignee: Open Invention Network LLC
• Inventors: Marks, Ryan Sean, Feeser, Colin Lee
• Primary Examiner(s): GUYTON, PHILIP A
• Application Number:
  US12/772,475
• Time in Patent Office: 442 Days
• Field of Search: 714/4, 714/15, 709/223, 707/9, 719/316
• US Class Current: N/A
• 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 a network having a plurality of domains including components and modules for 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 a policy, and backing up a policy object having a current digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature.

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; and

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

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 system for managing group policy backup in a network having a plurality of domains, comprising:

a group policy backup component operating on a computer for automatically backing up each modified policy in each domain;

the group policy backup component including;

a module for retrieving a list of group policy objects for a domain;

a module for 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;

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

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

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

a module for backing up each policy object having a current digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature.

12. The system for managing group policy backup of claim 11, further comprising a group policy backup manager component operating on the processor, and cooperative with the group policy backup component, for backing up and restoring individual policies in a domain.

13. The system for managing group policy backup of claim 11, wherein the group policy backup component further comprises a module for storing each policy that does not have a corresponding previous digital signature.

14. The system for managing group policy backup of claim 11, wherein the group policy backup component further comprises a module for determining a digital signature for each policy performs a hash function on each policy.

15. The system for managing group policy backup of claim 11, wherein the group policy backup component further comprises a module for generating a report containing the changes found in each group policy that has been modified.

16. A non-transitory computer program product for group policy backup management in an enterprise network having a plurality of domains comprising a computer readable medium having computer readable code embedded therein, the computer readable medium comprising:

program instructions that retrieve a list of group policy objects for a domain;

program instructions that generate 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;

program instructions that determine a digital signature for each policy object on a list of policies for the domain;

program instructions that compare the digital signature for each policy object with a corresponding previous digital signature for each policy;

program instructions that determine if a current digital signature for each policy object matches the corresponding previous digital signature for each policy; and

program instructions that back up each policy object having a digital signature that does not match the corresponding previous digital signature.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, further comprising program instructions that receive a user request that an individual policy should be backed up.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, further comprising program instructions that receive a user request that an individual policy should be restored from a previous backup of the individual policy.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the list of policy objects in a selected domain is displayed by policy name.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the list of policy objects in a selected domain is displayed by a globally unique identifier for each policy in the list.