File Level Restore Script - Exclude System Reserved Volume

[dmeddock@techgen.com]

I have a script I created to run through all jobs and restore a specified file to test the backups of every VM in every job for every volume.
I'm trying to find a way to exclude the system reserve volume, but so far the best thing I could think of was to exclude Volume0 which is usually the system reserve volume. This works but I'm worried about servers that might not have that the system reserve volume. I'd rather have this setup to exclude volumes that are like 20GB or less, so it will skip the system reserve volume and any USB volumes. Maybe skipping Volume0 is the way to go in this scenario, idk. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

If you have your testfile always in the same path, then I would just scan all volumes and throw an error if nothing was found for a machine. As everything is mounted to c:\veeamflr, it does not take any time to check all volumes.

Best regards,
Hannes

[dmeddock@techgen.com]

But is there a way for me to check the volumes or check the volume space or some way to exclude the system reserve volume? Currently I have it skipping Volume0 to accomplish this. But once I have to scale the script that might become and issue. So I want to find a way to check each volume. The testfile part is working just fine. I just want the script to recognize the system reserve volume and skip trying to do a FLR. So my script works fine currently just trying to future proof it a bit.

[oleg.feoktistov]

Hi Dan,

Can you, please, share the script part where it runs for the jobs and excludes Volume0?

Thanks,

[dmeddock@techgen.com]

Code: Select all

# Script to do File Level Restore Testing for Veeam Backup jobs.
Add-PSSnapin VeeamPSSnapin
New-Eventlog -LogName Application -Source "File Restore Testing"

# Get a list of all jobs in Veeam
foreach ($job in Get-VBRJob)
{
		
	$vms = Get-VBRJobObject -job $job.name
	foreach ($vm in $vms)
	{
		$WFLR = Get-VBRRestorePoint -Name $vm.name | Sort CreationTime -Descending | Select -First 1 | Start-VBRWindowsFileRestore
		#Split string into an array of drives 
		$driveArrays = $WFLR.drives -split ', '
		# FLR testing report directory
		$restoreDir = "C:\Special Restores\report.txt"
		# Get today's date
		$todaysDate = (get-date).ToString("yyyyMMdd")		
		
		#Iterate through all drives, one at a time     
		Foreach ($drive in $driveArrays) 
		{     
			# Splits drives string up into an array to extract Volume name and VM name
			$volumeArray = $drive -split '\\' 	
			# Get volume name
			$volume = $volumeArray[3]	
			# Clean up VM name
			$vmArray = $volumeArray[2] -split '_'	
			# Get VM name
			$virtualMachine = $vmArray[0]	
			# Set file path to variable
			$restoreFile = "$drive\restoretesting.txt"	
			# Check if file exists
			$FileExists = Test-Path -LiteralPath $restoreFile
			# Get date from one week ago
			$lastWeek = (get-date).AddDays(-7).ToString("yyyyMMdd")
			
			# Skips checking Volume0 since that is usually the System Reserve Partition
			If($volume -notmatch 'Volume0')
			{			
				#If it exists then restore file and log results into log file
				If($FileExists -eq $True) 
				{
					# Pull the date from the first line of the restore file
					$rstFileDate = Get-Content -Path $restoreFile -TotalCount 1
					# Verify the restore file date and ensure its within the past week
					If($rstFileDate -gt $lastWeek)
					{				
						$eventType = "Information"
						copy-item -path $restoreFile -destination "C:\Special Restores\restoreFile-$virtualMachine-$todaysDate.txt"
						$testLog = "[$(Get-Date -format 'u')] [SUCCESS] [$virtualMachine] $volume - Restore file is current and testing completed successfully"
					}
					# If the file exists but the first line containing the date is older than a week; throw warning
					Else 
					{
						$eventType = "Warning"
						copy-item -path $restoreFile -destination "C:\Special Restores\restoreFile-$virtualMachine-OUTofDATE.txt"
						$testLog = "[$(Get-Date -format 'u')] [WARNING] [$virtualMachine] $volume - Restore file is out of date - ($rstFileDate)"
					}	
				}
				# File doesn't Exist in specified directory
				Else 
				{
					$eventType = "Error"
					$testLog = "[$(Get-Date -format 'u')] [FAILED] [$virtualMachine] $volume is missing $restoreFile"
				}
			# Write results to log file and append post results
			Add-Content -Path $restoreDir -Value $testLog
			# Write results to event log
			Write-EventLog -LogName Application -Source "File Restore Testing" -EntryType $eventType -EventId 6969 -Message $testLog
			}
						
		} 
		#End the file level restore
		Stop-VBRWindowsFileRestore $WFLR
	}	
}

Here is a basic version of my script. I want to be able to exclude system reserve volumes. Since the FLR in the Veeam GUI doesnt show the system reserve partition so I figure we should be able to exclude it a better way. Or if we could only run it against partitions with a drive letter. Ive been searching for a solution but unable to find anything useful. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[oleg.feoktistov]

Hi Dan,

I would say, you can verify if a particular file, which actually belongs inside "system reserve partition" volume, exists on every drive you are parsing through
and then treat the drive accordingly.
Have a try playing around with the line:

Code: Select all

test-path -path ($drive + '\BOOTSECT.BAK') 

I took BOOTSECT.BAK as a part of System Reserved Partition volume as an example. (guess, you can also specify Boot folder, bootmgr file and etc.).

As per your code:

Code: Select all

	foreach ($vm in $vms)
	{
		$WFLR = Get-VBRRestorePoint -Name $vm.name | Sort CreationTime -Descending | Select -First 1 | Start-VBRWindowsFileRestore
		#Split string into an array of drives 
		$driveArrays = $WFLR.drives -split ', '
		# FLR testing report directory
		$restoreDir = "C:\Special Restores\report.txt"
		# Get today's date
		$todaysDate = (get-date).ToString("yyyyMMdd")		
		#Iterate through all drives, one at a time     
		Foreach ($drive in $driveArrays) 
		{     
                       # Splits drives string up into an array to extract Volume name and VM name
			$volumeArray = $drive -split '\\' 	
			# Get volume name
			$volume = $volumeArray[3]	
			# Clean up VM name
			$vmArray = $volumeArray[2] -split '_'	
			# Get VM name
			$virtualMachine = $vmArray[0]
=====================================================================
                        # Test if the system file exists within a parsed volume
			$systemDrive = test-path -path ($drive + '\BOOTSECT.BAK')	
=====================================================================
			# Set file path to variable
			$restoreFile = "$drive\restoretesting.txt"	
			# Check if file exists
			$FileExists = Test-Path -LiteralPath $restoreFile
			# Get date from one week ago
			$lastWeek = (get-date).AddDays(-7).ToString("yyyyMMdd")
==========================================================================================
			#  Continue checking  if the drive doesn't contain the System Reserve Partition drive file.
			If($systemDrive -eq $False)
			{ 
                                ##Restoration actions
}
==========================================================================================

All the best,
Oleg

[dmeddock@techgen.com]

If I can just check if the volume size is less than say 15GB, it would skip the volume. I just cant figure out how to pull that information.

[oleg.feoktistov]

I don't see it as a way to go since volumes are not being physically extracted to a Mount Server under 'C:\VeeamFLR', but mounted. Thus, Windows File Explorer treats Volume0, Volume1 etc. as symbolic links to the folders (volumes) rather than the folders themselves.
So, parsing their sizes in the way, which would normally work, doesn't resolve the case:

Code: Select all

PS C:\VeeamFLR> $fso = New-Object -ComObject "Scripting.FileSystemObject"
>> $drives = get-childitem -path "C:\VeeamFLR\Macchina-WD10-01_d73d6708" -directory -recurse -Depth 0 |
>> foreach {
>> $size = ($fso.GetFolder("$($PSItem.FullName)")).Size
>> $folder = @{ Name = $PSItem.Name; SizeMB = [math]::Round( ($size / 1mb), 2)}
>> write-host $folder.Name 'has' $folder.SizeMB 'mb'
>> }
Volume0 has 0 mb
Volume1 has 0 mb
PS C:\VeeamFLR>

Hence, I would recommend testing if a particular "boot" file exists in every drive as an easier method.