Monitoring the backup process

Once you are done automating the backup process, you'd probably want to monitor it. See what it does, check if it works well or maybe even fix errors. That's a good idea, simply because a failed backup is totally useless.

There are several ways to monitor the WABAC Machine, mostly depending on how you did automate it.

• Using journalctl (if you are using systemd on Linux)
• Using legacy tools

Using journalctl

If you are using systemd to run the WABAC Machine, you can use journalctl to monitor it. To do so, run :

journalctl -f -u WABACMachine

to see what's happening in real time.

Note that only root and users who are members of the systemd-journal group are able to read these logs.

Using legacy tools

If you are not running systemd, the WABAC Machine is most likely configured to output in a regular file. So monitoring it should be just a matter of :

less +F /path/to/log_file

Obviously, /path/to/log_file should be replaced with the actual path to the WABAC Machine log file.

If you set it up via launchd, you have probably set a value for the StandardOutPath and StandardErrorPath keys in your property list file. That's the file(s) you will have to monitor.

If you set it up via cron, you have probably redirected the outputs to some specific files. That's the file(s) you will have to monitor.

Going further

If you don't want to monitor the WABAC Machine in real time, if you don't have time to check the logs, if you are allergic to Terminal, ... but you still want to be notified and/or warned if something fails, remember that you can use a postflight script to achieve your goals (eg. send an e-mail with a log extract, display a notification, ...).

See the preflight/postflight scripts for further help.