Hello,
Please bear with me as I'm a Veeam B&R newbie. I have two questions related to e-mail notification, but first, here's a summary of my configuration.
Configuration Summary
Under Options, E-Mail Settings, I have enabled e-mail notifications and successfully tested them. I have set up notifications for everything except "Notify on success". In my backup job, under Storage, Advanced, Notifications, I checked "Send e-mail notifications to the following recipients", entered the address, and clicked "Use global notification settings".
Questions
On page 318 of the Users Guide for vSphere, it says "Make sure that you specify the necessary email address once: either in the To field in general notification settings or in the job notification settings. If you specify the email twice, Veeam Backup & Replication will send two identical notifications to this email address when the job completes." The problem with this instruction is twofold. If I remove the email address from the job notification settings and click "OK", I get an error indicating I must enter an address. If I uncheck "Send e-mail notifications" all other options are grayed out, including the option to use global notification settings. Can someone explain these settings so I can configure them correctly?
Despite the configuration summary I described above, I keep getting a "success" email every morning when (apparently) discovery re-runs on my protection group. It's the same report I see when clicking the protection group and choosing "Report" from the toolbar. I didn't see another notification option in the protection group wizard. Any ideas on how to turn this off?
If I uncheck "Send e-mail notifications" all other options are grayed out, including the option to use global notification settings. Can someone explain these settings so I can configure them correctly?
Are you suing the email address for both global notifications and granular notifications within the specific job?
Despite the configuration summary I described above, I keep getting a "success" email every morning when (apparently) discovery re-runs on my protection group. It's the same report I see when clicking the protection group and choosing "Report" from the toolbar. I didn't see another notification option in the protection group wizard. Any ideas on how to turn this off?
That's a known issue and we will address it in upcoming version. Thanks!
Thank you Dima! Yes I am using the email address for both global notifications and granular notifications within the specific job. However, notice what I said: if I remove the email address from the specific job, I get an error saying I must include an email address. If, instead, I uncheck the box to send e-mail notifications, it grays out the option to use global notification settings.
Basically, there are two sets of options: one is universal and applies to all the jobs created in a single B&R instance, while the second set of options is job-specific. Both of these sets of options require an email address to be configured in the corresponding section of the B&R UI.
Also, there is a Protection Group Rescan job that is currently partly affected by the general set of settings.
Keeping that in mind, here are the answers to your questions:
1. You are not allowed to leave the "Send e-mail notification to the following recipients" field in the job settings blank because this is a partly separate type of notifications (partly separate sending process) and it requires an email address to be set. However, those job-specific notifications require the email notifications to be generally enabled in under the General Options, E-mail Settings tab.
2. "Use Global/Custom notification settings" setting in the jobs only applies to the email sending logic (Subject template, "Notify on" settings, Suppression). Basically, you can configure "Notify on" settings for ALL the jobs on the global scale using General Options and apply these settings (mirror them) to some jobs where you'd like more than one person to be notified while also having a different notifications configuration for a few particular jobs. Use case: a virtualization administrator requires to be getting all of the notifications (general setting is used), while an operations person would like to stay updated on job failures for the most business-critical applications (custom settings in some jobs).
3. The Protection Group Rescan jobs are created automatically by B&R and you are only able to enable/disable them by changing the general universal setting "Enable e-mail notifications" in the General Options, E-mail Settings tab. Please note, that disabling this setting will also affect ALL the notifications ever configured in a given B&R instance. Another option is to disable the Protection Group Rescans completely (Right click on the group, then choose Disable) but this is NOT recommended, especially in production environments.
Hope this helps and let me know if you have any additional questions.
Wishr, that is helpful! Thank you. I am still not following how the comment I quoted from the User Guide applies. It appears to be saying "don't put an email address under General AND in the job, or you'll get two emails." But, as I noted and you confirmed, I can't remove the email address from the job properties unless I uncheck that I want to receive notifications, which also grays out the global settings option. Any ideas?
Correct, you'll get two separated notifications in case of having both general and job settings activated.
The email address field in the job options sets a target for email delivery using partly separated from the general options mechanism, so you should set an email address, otherwise, the delivery won't be possible, however if you specify an email address here, you'll be getting two sets of emails (one generated by the general mechanism and another one by job-specific settings).
Please let us know if an additional information is required or you have any other questions.
Thanks wishr! So it sounds like you are saying this is by design in a sense - if you specify an address in both places you get two emails. However, the page I quoted above makes a point of encouraging you NOT to enter an address in both places, so you don't get twice the emails. And, of course, I'd rather not get twice the emails if I can help it.
Foggy, thanks for your comment. That makes sense, however I'm not using custom notification settings. In the job properties, I have it set to use global notification settings.
I'm starting to think the documentation has a gap on this point.
Yes, currently it's by design, there is an underlying logic in this notifications scheme which should be kept as of now, however, we always look for possible improvements and might apply changes later on.
In the User Guide, It's just a note to make our users aware of the reason for getting two emails, it's not a strict rule.
Thanks wishr. I should note the documentation says this (emphasis mine):
--------------------------------------- Make sure that you specify the necessary email address once: either in the To field in general notification settings or in the job notification settings. If you specify the email twice, Veeam Backup & Replication will send two identical notifications to this email address when the job completes.
---------------------------------------
So it is not merely informing, but directing the reader to not enter an email address in both places. That's where the confusion is coming in. As for Foggy's comment, it makes sense that you would get one email if the subjects match, but I'm not using custom settings on the job, I'm using global settings.
In fact, it's not a strict rule and you may apply any settings that fit your use case at best (of course keeping in mind the behaviour they would cause - please refer to my huge post above). We'll see how the documentation article can be improved to better communicate an intended message to our customers.
If you use "Global notification settings" in the job options and have the same email address specified here as in the general options, and both notification mechanisms are active (general, job-specific) you'll get a single email once an event is triggered.
I've checked the docs here (the latest version) and do not see the confusing phrase here. Anyway, we'll check if it still exists in any other docs we have.
Currently, the only ways to get a doubled notification is to configure a custom Subject differing from the default one in any of the sets of settings or have two different notification addresses lists both including one same user. By default, the subject templates are the same.
wishr, thank you very much! I think that explains it. As for documentation, I have the most recent PDF version of the page you linked to. It never occurred to me that the online version would be different at times, i.e. more up to date. Thanks again for the help!
Just checked the other section of the web article and the phrase also exists here... I'll report that internally for a possible improvement.
Speaking about the Web vs PFD guides, I can confirm that in some rare cases Web versions can be updated slightly faster in comparison to PDF versions, but the differences should not be significant and you are welcome to stick with any type.