Is there a way to search the Veeam database to see if a particular file is in a backup and which backup/s its stored in? I was taught to just go to disk, search the server name and then hunt & peck through backup dates until I find the backup that has that file in it.
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File Recovery Question
Best answer by Scott
I have Enterprise Manager running on all of my file servers. File servers that are 20-60TB of data for the most part, and about 25 of them. The first time may take a bit, but with the size of my jobs, initial backups of servers takes a long time anyways. In my daily incremental using forever forward, there is almost no difference on the source server.
EM is amazing for file and email restores when we had it with onprem exchange. Searching multiple backups and points for a file is the way to go. Especially when you are unsure when it was deleted etc.
If you want to raise a feature request head over to the R+D forums. If you are looking at file level changes and recovery with versioning, the easiest way would be to use NASBackup, but the price can go up quit a bit as it uses VUL for data size. It won’t work in my environment when Socket based licenses have been grandfathered in, or I could use 1 VUL per server where a single file server in my case could be over 60VUL.
Try it out, EM is really great for what you are asking.
+21You cannot search the DB for this detail. You are doing it the correct way as the files you are looking for are in the VBK/VIB files for the backups.
+21Interesting question
Best.
+21Also if you are looking for a file in an OS then you can turn on file indexing within the job to make searching easier. VM Guest OS File Indexing - User Guide for VMware vSphere
Thanks! Just wanted to make sure I wasnt missing something and we have file indexing turned on too.
+21Good share there Chris. I guess with Indexing on...he could then search for a given file in the manner in which the he wanted via Enterprise Manager. But then….he would need to be using Ent Mgr to be able to do this. 😉
+21Thanks! Just wanted to make sure I wasnt missing something and we have file indexing turned on too.
Great to hear it is working as you expected.
+11Hi
just to add my 2 cents...
As per Chris reply you cannot find desired information on Veeam DB, but you need to mount backup point and browsing the folders.
I assume two scenarios for your search request
- user accidentally deleted that file he cannot remember when, but he knows the path where it was located
- You are looking for a file created by someone else without any other information than the server that contained it.
In the first case, the user should at least try to remember last viewed the file, and from this information, you can search for the backups closest to that date.
In the second case, however, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack, especially if we are talking about a file server with millions of files.
In the second case, once the restore point has been mounted, the PowerShell command Get-ChildItem or even simply the DIR /s command may be useful. When a restore point is mounted on the mount server (usually the VBR), a folder c:\VeeamFLR is created and contains the entire disk.
At this point, you could do two things:
Open a dos prompt and digit
dir /s C:\VeeamFLR\*.* > c:\filelist.txt
or in a powershell mode:
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\VeeamFLR -Recurse | Export-Csv "C:\temp\filelist.csv"
I suggest to use DOS command…
+11Another little bit:
Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager allows you to search for guest OS files in all machine backups with guest indexing enabled. After you find necessary files, you can select them to perform file restore.
You can check here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/em/searching_vm_backups.html?ver=120
+9It depends on backup type as well I think. A VM backup vs file level backup.
If you turn on indexing on the file servers, using Veeam Enterprise manager is a great way to do this and search multiple backups for specific files. You can search any of your backups and even tape backups without having to restore them.
This is one of the things I pull my hair out over. I’m aware of EM but like Tommy said it needs guest indexing on and then loads the source server which is a pita. Wouldn’t it be nice it guest indexing could be a post processing activity, as in Veeam mounts the backup and walks the file system outside of backup hours. This would then allow me do do all sorts of fancy stuff for file recovery like searches (similar to EM) and even have a browse window that showed me what was on the server on a specific date and allow me to move backwards and forwards in time, select the files I want to restore and then Veeam can do the rest. This would be gorgeous.
Can I raise this as a feature request?
+9I have Enterprise Manager running on all of my file servers. File servers that are 20-60TB of data for the most part, and about 25 of them. The first time may take a bit, but with the size of my jobs, initial backups of servers takes a long time anyways. In my daily incremental using forever forward, there is almost no difference on the source server.
EM is amazing for file and email restores when we had it with onprem exchange. Searching multiple backups and points for a file is the way to go. Especially when you are unsure when it was deleted etc.
If you want to raise a feature request head over to the R+D forums. If you are looking at file level changes and recovery with versioning, the easiest way would be to use NASBackup, but the price can go up quit a bit as it uses VUL for data size. It won’t work in my environment when Socket based licenses have been grandfathered in, or I could use 1 VUL per server where a single file server in my case could be over 60VUL.
Try it out, EM is really great for what you are asking.
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