How can I keep me informed about BiT-actions and -results?

Asked by buhtz

I am new to BiT.

I setup a backup-job and I can see in (ana)cran that there will something be started.

But the question is what happens? There is no gui or tray-icon popping up and give me informations about a running job and its result.
Can BiT send me an email, give me infos over the gui (tray-icon, message-box), a log file I can monitor?

Opening the gui and selecting the logs for the job is to manual and to much work. I don't want to do something about it explicite. The informations need to come to me and not the other way.

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Germar (germar) said :
#1

Sounds like you're using an old BIT from Ubuntus official sources which doesn't show systrayicons (due to Ubuntu prevents systrayicons which doesn't use a specific API). Please upgrade to the current version from our PPA to have a systrayicon again

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bit-team/stable && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

BIT writes logs to syslog. By default you can see them in /var/log/syslog

You can also add additional notifications and even email with plugins.

You can find other examples in:
https://code.launchpad.net/~bit-team/backintime/user-callback
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~fabrizio-marana/backintime/user-callback/view/head:/user-callback.notify

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buhtz (buhtz) said :
#2

I am still using this PPA with Ubuntu Trusty (14.04.2). So I use BiT 1.1.4.

There is no TrayIcon with KDE4. But this doesn't matter really.

Because the scheduled actions of BiT are done by the non-gui-BiT (the one executed by (ana)cron). So how can this one keep me informed about results?

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buhtz (buhtz) said :
#3

Currently there is a backup-job setup in my BiT. I can see it runs when looking in the crontab and in the snapshot-destination folder.

But I know nothing about when or how it works. I have no log file to monitor, no email from BiT, no message-dialog or even a simple Beep/Sound. I would never be informed if something doesn't work with the backup.

And a backup-system need to bring the informations to the user and not the other way. Is there a way to setup BiT like that?

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Germar (germar) said :
#4

If there is no trayicon in KDE it will be a bug. I'll check that.

Like I said, you can get informed through user-callback plugins. Take a look at http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~fabrizio-marana/backintime/user-callback/view/head:/user-callback.notify for a good example.

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buhtz (buhtz) said :
#5

Ok, can you give me feedback about the bug-check. Maybe I did something wrong.

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buhtz (buhtz) said :
#6

The Callback-Links you postet are just code. There is no docu about it and the concept.
This link would be better for that http://backintime.le-web.org/documentation/usercallback/.

Sounds like a workaround because it is not integreated in the gui. It should be. The gui should tell the user about the callback possibility, maybe create a simple example/template callback-script (bash, python, ...) in there.

Does all the other users really trust BiT so that they don't need to keep informed about the actions of BiT? Or do they waste their time and check manually (in the snapshot folder) if everything was done?
This isn't how I understand a backup software.

But I will get into it and maybe will do some work to make BiT more ergonomic and talkable. ;)

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Germar (germar) said :
#7

Integrated eMail feedback is on the wishlist. But nothing done yet (more complicated than I thought).

If there was an error BIT will of course inform you through notifications. So yes, by now users trust BIT that it will do its job. You normally see every now and than the systrayicon and I'd suggest to take a look into BIT it self from time to time, too.

But for sure, this needs to be improved! Contributions are very welcome! I started the same as you. I was missing some features on BIT, added them and asked Dan to merge. Now I'm the only one who is working on it.

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buhtz (buhtz) said :
#8

But you know the day only has 24 hours and I have some other projects with more priority.
But I am still checking to use BiT in productive mode and if I can contribute something.

But (referencing to my other quetion) without documention it will waste my time. So if you want contributers you first should update the documentation.

The worker should document its own work. When someone do or update the documentation of the work form a foreign person... :)