The native backup software with Windows is useful to use when no paid-alternatives are available and in many ways remains the arguably most reliable method for backing up Exchange, however it cannot natively send emails notifying a system administrator whether or not a backup has completed. Even in well-funded environments it is recommended to have a secondary backup contingency in case the primary setup fails upon restore.

Email notifications for NTBACKUP are achieved by using a VBS script which is scheduled to be run straight after the backup has finished. This utilises a command-line SMTP mailer programme to send an email from the most recent NTBACKUP log file.

Setup

1. Install the command line email Blat: http://www.blat.net/ Its location can be anywhere but the path already in the VBS script is C:\\BackupNotify\\full\\blat.exe\

  1. Setup initial details for blat: blat -install ` ` For example:`blat exchange.company.local [email protected]`\

  2. Save the below script to the PC where backups are performed as NTBackupNotify.vbs and adjust the variables as necessary:

    ‘NTBackupNotify.vbs ‘Adapted from a script by Gary Thorne http://www.halsys.com/help/default.htm ‘www.rogerrabbit.net/wiki/Email_notifications_for_NTBACKUP ‘ ‘Schedule this script to run straight after an NTBACKUP finishes, uses Blat www.blat.net to send out emails. ‘ Const strLogDir = “C:\Documents and Settings\schedadmin\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows NT\NTBackup\data\” Const strMailSender = “[email protected]” Const strMailRecipient = “[email protected]” Const strBlat = “C:\BackupNotify\full\blat.exe” Const strBlatLog = “C:\backupnotify
    tbackuphandler.log” Const strsubject = “Backup report”

    Sub Main() Dim fso, WshShell, fldLogs, filLog, strCmd, sFileBuffer, strfail

     Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
 Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
 Set fldLogs = fso.GetFolder(strLogDir)
 For Each filLog In fldLogs.Files
     If DateDiff("n", filLog.DateLastModified, Now) < 5 Then
         strCmd = "cmd /c type " & Chr(34) & filLog.Path & Chr(34) & "|" & strBlat & " -subject " & Chr(34) & strsubject & Chr(34) & " -f " & strMailSender & " -to " & strMailRecipient & " -log " & strBlatLog
         Wscript.echo strCmd

         WshShell.Run strCmd

     End If
 Next
            
 Set fldLogs = Nothing
 Set WshShell = Nothing
 Set fso = Nothing  End Sub

    Main

4. Create a new BAT file which runs the command line that was previously scheduled to be run by itself followed by the NTBackupNotify.vbs script. For instance:

@echo off
rem BAT script to run NTBackupNotify.vbs script after previous command has completed.
<NTbackup command here>
cscript NTBackupNotify.vbs

NTBACKUP will cause the shell to wait until it has finished as the process is not run in the background; always ensuring that the VBS script is run after NTBACKUP has finished.\

  1. Create schedule as required.

Category:Windows Category:Disaster Recovery