Daniel Nashed's Blog

Customizing Domino Backup mail notifications

Domino Backup offers to send e-mails depending on the status of your backup.
By default you are getting an e-mail in case of error or warning.

I am rarely getting error messages from my servers.
In this case here I updated my server to a new kernel and ZFS drivers failed to build.
I rei-compiled the ZFS kernel drivers to make ZFS available again.hBut I did not re-start the Podman container. So the ZFS volume mount was not available in the container.
It's great to see that it works and you are getting an error mail immediately.

The error reporting is build directly into the backup servertask.
The default report is on purpose designed like this.
It's intended to look good on mobile devices.


My failed backup as an example:


Status: Error
Server Name: notes.nashcom.de/Srv/NashCom-Net
Node: notes.nashcom.de
Mode: FULL
Backup Name: default
Backup Ref Date: 20220722100013
Backup Start: 22.07.2022 12:00:13 CEDT
Backup End: 22.07.2022 12:01:13 CEDT
Runtime (minutes): 1,0
Total Size (GB): 0

Databases: 281
Processed: 0
Errors: 281

Not Modified: 0
Excluded: 0
Skipped due to Compact: 0
Compact Retries: 0

-->Link


Most admins don't know that you can customize the report and have you own rules how and in which cases you want to be notified.

• The basic configuration is defining Error/Warning/OK.
• The target address on purpose is a formula and not a fixed address.
• The formula is executed on the backup log document
• So you can build any kind of special logic -- even time based to send messages to different addressed depending on status, time etc.
• You can also override the backup status formula, set the report sender and sender internet address (default the server name).
• In addition you could specify an agent, which should run on the log document for further customization.

On top of that the Advanced Tab allows you to specify an alternate form (Notification form:) if you want a different look & feel for for you backup report.
The report is rendered with the form. And there is also a hidden alternate form for reference and to be copied for customization.

It has been all built into Domino 12.0 backup to allow admins to fully customize notification.
I almost forgot about this flexibility and my failed backup, lead to this blog post.

Have  great weekend!

Daniel

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