Feature request: Delete Logs/Job History

[Poweruser]

If you try sth. the logs grow and grow. lets say you have 10 failed backup jobs for test, you may want to delete your tries from the log window, so you just see what is really important instead of every experiment.
if you say you cant delete because it would destroy traceability, then it should be hidden.

to keep it clean clear

[Dima P.]

Poweruser.

You can right click backup job and hit 'Delete' to erase all the information from Jobs > Backup view. History view is designed to keep job history despite the job deletion for audit purposes. That said, History view does not keep sessions forever and will drop the retired entries by built-in retention logic. If you are worried about debug logs, they are affected by built-in retention logic too. Thanks.

[Poweruser]

yes, i prefer to not have audits... i prefer the allmighty admin ;-)
so it would be good if it could be removed or at least be marked as acknowledged.
if i see a yellow questionmark in my logs it drives me mad.
normally i delete all errors and warnings if i solved or noticed them.
so its much easier to see if there is a new error or an old one i already noticed.
hp switches have an "acknowledged" function. if you press ack, then the message is not that bright and a check appears.
maybe you should add sth like this.
like unread emails..

[zadrian]

I do not see this as a bad request or if there are any workarounds.
Sometimes we just try "test backups" to see if it is possible and do not want to keep that pr even want to wipe out the logs to prevent auditors asking too much questions on failures.

1. Is there a way to remove logs from certain jobs or remove logs from deleted jobs (my VBR 9.5 keeps all logs even if I have recreated ALL jobs and deleted old ones).
2. Is there a way to reset all the logs (history and logs etc) ?

[Dima P.]

Hi folks,

It's not possible to modify or adjust the historical log information. It will rotate out eventually by the built in retention mechanism. I've already noted an improvement request based on your posts. Thanks!

[Poweruser]

Yes thats it. You do a test run and want to remove this.
Or you noticed, that an operator forgots to change the tape and its acknowledged.. just deleting the error makes it easier to handle.
if i see an error i have to check it again and again. but if it is okay for me i just delete it.
another possibility would be an option to archive or acknowledge the message. a green checkmark should be shown next and it should be filtered maybe or archived.

[veremin]

We keep this information for audit purposes - thus, the remove history option is not there. Thank you for the feature request, though; appreciated!

[zadrian]

Hi Eremin, But there should be something to clear logs and history for certain jobs like :
1. Test jobs, like we want to see if VBR can backup only files within a VM (gave agent not found error)
2. Pre-live or demo jobs....we had a demo with Veeam which turned into a "sales-live"...so for the first 12 months, the first 3 mths were full of errors, evaluation tests, change of storage (thus failures) and we do not want that showing up.
3. Audit usually for certain periods like 1 Jan 2017-31 Dec 2017, so we do not want to see errors in 2016, this want to flush logs on 31st Dec (or as per a certain date).

[Poweruser]

At least flag them as acknowledged or set hidden.

[foggy]

As Dima has already mentioned, your request regarding this is noted. Thanks for the feedback!

[zadrian]

At least flag them as acknowledged or set hidden.

I would prefer removed as "set hidden" would mean that they can still be shown and looks as if we got something to hide....if auditors discover "hidden" objects especially if it have so many tests and failures, they may flag it as some discrepancy.

[Poweruser]

then call it filtered for filter/tag "test" or sth else.
so its grouped out.

[zadrian]

Who knows that such a simple requirement would be left out....

[HumbleSage]

Being able to reset logs should be a standard feature, especially if you're a service provider trying to present a fresh start to clients. +1 this ALL the way. This is LONG overdue for such a robust product like Veeam.

[elizabethg]

Is this feature still unavailable?

[Gostev]

Yes - too few requests, and too big security implications. We did reduce the default retention policy in v10 though.

[Poweruser]

Hiding or at least ackknowledge entries wouldnt be a security risk.
its easy to realize in a minute. just add one table column to the sql database with a binary flag: ack or nack.
also read or not read could be added.

[soncscy]

Just my small input:

This request for all of you is a mild inconvenience; for me, it's a legal obligation to avoid this.

I certainly hope Veeam does not pursue this, as the mild convenience you might get opens me up to dozens, if not hundreds of legal obligations with clients who decide to prune the log files, and now we have no way of proving activity.

If Veeam were to implement some feature for centralized logging (e.g., some syslog server), maybe I'd be more open to this. But right now the suggested ideas give me mini panic attacks just thinking about it.

Service Providers are a thing -- SMBs and anything less than Enterprise businesses will always be outsourcing their IT, and that outsourced support will ultimately be on the line for any non-sense someone local does. I want an audit trail of everything. Don't let the users easily do this via the application.

[Poweruser]

maybe its wanted to have an undeleteable log, in some cases it would be better to have a delete option.
like panama papers :-P

but dont discuss on evidence basis.. just add a flag for: read/acknowledge and maybe a flag to hide entries.

so everyone will be fine

[soncscy]

As long as I can have a copy, users can delete whatever they want @Veeam, please allow for Syslog server copies Everyone will be happy after that it seems

[Poweruser]

what do you mean by "copy"?

syslog is just for big companies. no small one will or can use this especially in a one machine setting.
also syslog does not include direct access to all jobs, data, etc, so its just a read only log.

[soncscy]

Call me paranoid (because in this case I am), but having been involved in legal scuttles with US based clients who made awful decisions and tried to blame it on my employees (we do professional services), yes, 1:1 copy. Any log that their environment produces, I want a copy of, because people do crazy things to save their skin. Without revealing specifics, I've had legal discussions on:

- Billing DB rolled back by local employee to hide illegal transactions. Restore was blamed on my employees as "only we had access to restores" (not true)
- Customer facing App was deleted by out-sourced support causing a 48 hour outage due to lack of space on production datastore, blamed on my employees instead of the out-sourced support
- Client in health sector ignored errors/warnings about transaction log backups after refusing to send email reports to us and fell in violation of their legal requirements for log backups, blamed us for "not acting on the failed backups" and that "we absolutely were added to these reports"

I can go on with probably dozens more examples. So yes, based on my experience, I want syslog support Small companies don't need it for themselves, but these companies don't handle their own support. If you have honest clients/honest employees, so be it, but as I see it, it's a minor inconvenience to tweak some log retention settings. For me, it's months of legal procedures that could be curbed on day 1 or 2 if my team just had access to the logging independent of the clients.

[Poweruser]

iam no serviceprovider. iam standalone. whom trust most when not me? ;-)
anyway add syslos, add hide and add delete etc. if delete is enabled let log: delete enabled or add password protection to enable/disable delete.
if a customer wants it he will get it. you need to lecture your customers and send a snail mail to him or let him sign an information about the backup plan.
otherwise you need an mail to your employees if backups run wrong if the customer does not want to do this.
in many cases customer does not want to pay for this service but will blate if you dont care. in this case you should inform him on paper..
anyway if things go wrong you will lose him, but in this case syslog wont help.
email on errors/warning is important.
syslog is a nice to have feature and important for big installations.
please add a new topic for syslog, this goes offtopic ;)

[milo]

Yes - too few requests, and too big security implications. We did reduce the default retention policy in v10 though.

I also miss this functionality !!!

I really like Veeam-One, especially the Data Protection Dashboard - unfortunately I always see a few warnings in it, which I have to remember about being deleted, very old backup jobs.

It doesn't make life easier, it does nothing, it just makes it harder to see the real problems.

There should definitely be an "acknowledge" option here for such warnings or errors. Alternatively, there may be a button like "also show information from deleted / old tasks"

I don't know how long the retention period is, but it's still very long in v10 and it definitely doesn't fix the problem.

I am surprised that the topic goes on for so many years

[Mildur]

Hi Milo

Thanks for the request. Counted as +1.
Default Retention for Job History is 13 weeks.

Thanks
Fabian

[dinglin]

+1
An abnormal VM machine could produce 4 error log (1 backup job + 3 retry) which is very troubling for administrator

[zadrian]

Poweruser.

You can right click backup job and hit 'Delete' to erase all the information from Jobs > Backup view. History view is designed to keep job history despite the job deletion for audit purposes. That said, History view does not keep sessions forever and will drop the retired entries by built-in retention logic. If you are worried about debug logs, they are affected by built-in retention logic too. Thanks.

This was one reason why I think a lot of people including myself just posted once or read and thin this was not a good reply....to delete the history or purge the history, the "reply was to delete the anckup job(s) ?"

Most Audit is usually past 12 months or within the Financial year, but the logs can go almost 5yrs to 8 yrs (taking that we have been using VBR for a long time, way before VBR 9.x).