Win 10 File History Monitoring

[geranium]

One of my clients is a non-profit with 5 Windows 10 machines backing up to an Ubuntu machine acting as a file server. The backups are handled by the built-in File History. That's fine, but as far as I can see, File History doesn't give the end users any notification of success or failure, and I don't have any easy way of monitoring it either. I can remote into the Ubuntu machine and look in the File History folder of each user to see when the last backup occurred, but that's not a feasible way to operate.

Does anyone know of an efficient way to monitor File History? At a minimum, I would like the end user to be notified of a problem if it hadn't backed up for a day or two. I would love it if there was a way to have email notifications for failures.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Markverhyden]

How is the Ubuntu server file share setup?

 

[jflitney]

If you can find out which event IDs are errors (log here: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2165277&seqNum=4 )
O&O Syspectr could use a powershell script, I use one to check Server Backup logs although I've only tested it briefly.
Or maybe a scheduled task could do the same thing.

 

[HCHTech]

I get that their budget is probably $0, but that sounds like a risky backup plan. Surely TechSoup offers some kind of backup software?

 

[geranium]

@Markverhyden Each Windows machine has its own user account on the Ubuntu machine and has its own Samba shared folder to receive the backup.

@jflitney I just find it hard to believe that a piece of backup software is designed to fail silently. Even Event Viewer has precious little to say unless there's an actual error with File History. It's great to know about errors, but a confirmation of success is essential. I'm probably just flogging something that I should drop...

@HCHTech Yes, I see that TechSoup does have O&O backup software now - they didn't have anything affordable for these folks the last time I checked. It might be an option.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Affordable? Techsoup gives you MICROSOFT, E1 O365 subs are ZERO DOLLARS. (E3 is $4.25 / user / month) Zero excuses to not be on 365 if you're a nonprofit.

And with that... Onedrive... configure the personal sync and move on.

 

[geranium]

Oooh, sweet! I guess I should have known about that, but I was unaware. Thanks.

 

[Markverhyden]

I think part of the OP is knowing if the backup is good or not. To be honest I've never heard of a backup program that actually tests files to see they work. As far as I know it's just CRC'd.

Couple of things come to mind. You could create a script on the the server to monitor and report changes. Ton's of ways to do that. I did a little looking around and File History has it's own predefined log in event viewer.

Event Viewer>Applications and Services>Microsoft>Windows>File History - Engine>File History backup log

You can attach a task to it. Problem is emails are deprecated. But the link below describes how to create a PS script to create an email and then schedule a task to open that script.

https://www.netwoven.com/2017/04/28...012-task-scheduler-deprecated-feature-solved/

 

[geranium]

Thanks, that's interesting and helpful. I am mostly interested in having confidence that the backup is occurring on schedule - I do manual test restores occasionally when I check the system. However, I'll probably shift them to Office 365 if I can get it for them for free through Techsoup - that would work well for them and for me.

 

[Markverhyden]

Thanks, that's interesting and helpful. I am mostly interested in having confidence that the backup is occurring on schedule - I do manual test restores occasionally when I check the system. However, I'll probably shift them to Office 365 if I can get it for them for free through Techsoup - that would work well for them and for me.

I'm all about generating revenue for my services. But being non-profit you know they aren't rolling in dough. So what ever results in the less billable time works. One drive has it's own built in backup system and you can add folders so that's the nickel solution to the dime problem.