Screenshot verification settings
Topic
This article describes the configuration process for screenshot verification on a Datto appliance.
Environment
- Datto SIRIS
- Datto ALTO
Description
You can configure screenshot verification on a per-agent basis from the Protect page of your Datto appliance. To do so:
- Access the GUI for your Datto device.
- Click the Protect tab.
- Find the agent that you wish to configure.
- Click Configure Agent Settings for that agent.
- From the Configure Agent Settings page, scroll to the Screenshot Verification section.
Figure 1: Screenshot verification settings
- From the Schedule Options drop-down, select a verification interval. The available options are:
- Last point of the day: Your Datto appliance will perform a verification test of the last scheduled backup of the day. If the device misses the last scheduled backup point, it will not perform an automatic verification test until the following day.
- First point of the day: Your Datto appliance will perform a verification test of the first scheduled backup of the day. If the device misses the first scheduled backup point, it will not perform an automatic verification test until the following day.
- All Offsite Points: This is the default verification setting. Your Datto appliance will perform a verification test for all backup points scheduled for offsite replication. Datto recommends using this setting to ensure that, in the event of a disaster recovery scenario, the backups you replicate to the Datto Cloud are bootable. If the device has no backup points marked for offsite replication, it will not perform verification tests. Do not use this option if your Datto appliance does not replicate offsite.
- Custom Schedule: Your Datto appliance will run a verification test of the backup points you specify. Selecting this option will populate a grid which allows you to choose scheduled backups to test against. Note that you cannot schedule verification for times with no backups scheduled.
- Choose your additional wait time. If the login screen is not showing in your screenshots, try increasing this wait time.
Setting up Error Notifications
This reporting feature will send an error email if a screenshot is failing within a time window. Setting the error threshold determines how much time is allowed to pass without a screenshot running for this agent.
Figure 2: Screenshot error notification settings
- Set your error threshold. Enter "0" to disable the alert.
- Click Apply to apply this setting to this agent. Click Apply to All if you want to use this setting for all agents on this device.
- If you'd like to receive screenshot success and failure notifications via email, in the Set Email Notifications card, enter the recipient addresses which should receive them. To add more than one email address, click the Add Email Recipient button. Then, select the Success or Failure boxes in the Screenshot Notifications field.
- Click Apply to apply the settings to this agent. Click Apply to All to use these settings for all agents on the device. Click Send a Test Email if you'd like to get a sample screenshot.
Recommended Scheduling for Backups and Screenshots
The following section provides recommendations for scheduling backups and screenshots. The configurations described are best-practices only; yours may require different scheduling based on your environment. For more information, see the Screenshot Verification Best-Practices article.
Scheduling Backups
The default backup schedule on Datto appliances follows an hourly interval, from 8 AM to 6 PM, Monday through Friday, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Local backup schedule interval
Datto recommends scheduling backups to run during the hours that the protected machine is in production. For example, if a server is operational between the hours of 8 AM and 8 PM, you should have 12 backups in that day, as we would want to take 1 backup every hour.
Using the Last point of the day screenshot option as an example, under this backup configuration, the verification would run right after the last recovery point of the day - 8 PM.
Datto recommends using the default screenshot scheduling option of All Offsite Points to ensure that you have more than one bootable recovery point available in the Datto Cloud.
