Better monitoring required for Time Machine on Lion Server

[shaitan667]

Hi all.

I have recently setup a Mac mini server at work for basic iOS device management (using Profile Manager to create config profiles, and Apple Configurator to install the profiles and apps to the devices), and as a Time Machine server for the Managing Directors iMac and MacBook Air.

I had an issue a couple of weeks ago where, for what reason I don't know, the iMac hadn't been backing up for a week and half. I just needed to reselect the target, and away it went.
The biggest problem is that I have no way of knowing this without actually going to the Mac and seeing when the last backup was done.
If I go to the console and filter results for items containing "backupd", it only shows me when the server has backed itself up.
Is there anyway to to be alerted as to when a backup occurs or fails? I haven't really been able to find any info. I need some sort of monitoring system/application as the built in monitoring seems to be severely lacking.

 

[John Kotches]

See if anything is in syslog on the clients.

I haven't dug for the file, but check to see if it is /var/log/messages (rhel location) /var/adm/messages (Solaris location).

 

[shaitan667]

I can check on the clients by filtering the log for backupd, but I don't want to/shouldn't have to do it on the clients.
I would have thought being a Server product there would be some sort of monitoring/alerting system built in.

 

[throAU]

I can check on the clients by filtering the log for backupd, but I don't want to/shouldn't have to do it on the clients.
I would have thought being a Server product there would be some sort of monitoring/alerting system built in.

I suspect the server only knows what the client sends to it, if your client is broken all it knows is that no contact was made, not that there was necessarily an error - the machine may have been offline for all it knows.

Might need to write a shell script or something to deploy to the clients and report errors back via email?