[MAC]What is saved with the agent?

[yathus]

Hello,

We are currently testing the Veeam Agent for Mac.

We have the impression that the backup is not at system level but only at user level.

Are the passwords saved?

Are the applications installed on the Mac backed up?

Can a Mac be fully restored with the Veeam agent as it can be on Windows platform ?

Thanks

Yathus

[Mildur]

Hi Yathus

Mac Agent can do backups on File/Folder Level and protect your user profile.
https://www.veeam.com/veeam_vaw_val_vam ... son_ds.pdf

You can't use it for restoring the entire Mac machine (bare metal) like in Windows.

Thanks
Fabian

[yathus]

Hi Fabian,

Thanks for the link, we read it, specially this :

Simply enable "back up entire user profile" to ensure no important files are missed

We are not Mac experts. Do you have any information on what a user profile contains? What is important files for Veeam ?

We can deploy Veeam Agent for Mac but if at the first restore we discover that what is backed up does not contain what we thought it is problematic...

[HannesK]

Hello,
yes correct, the backup methodology is different than with Windows / Linux agent. It's file-based backup and if the user profile is not enough, then dedicated paths need to be specified.

A user profile contains all files in /users/<username>

What did you expect to be backed up? What was missing?

Best regards,
Hannes

[yathus]

As I said, we are not Mac experts.

We are, however, Veeam Agent users on Windows.

One of our customers asked us if it was possible to backup his Macs so we thought of using the Veeam Agent for Mac...

[RuslanG]

Hey Yathus,

the links below may give answers to your questions.

The backup scope options of Veeam Agent for Mac depend on its operating mode. If you use it in the managed mode, you can configure a policy that will back up home folders of all users on the machine by selecting the User data backup mode - https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110.

With Veeam Agent for Mac 1.0 operating in the standalone mode, you cannot backup user profiles, only individual folders. Here's an overview of Veeam Agent for Mac backup capabilities - https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=10.

[PTide]

Hi @yathus

The backup scope options of Veeam Agent for Mac depend on its operating mode. If you use it in the managed mode, you can configure a policy that will back up home folders of all users on the machine by selecting the User data backup mode - https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110.

This is the correct answer. In case the whole machine is just damaged beyond repair, you will need to order a fresh one and restore User files there from your backup.
If the machine is still alive, but it's the operating system that is dead (with modern macOS you need to try very hard to bring your Mac to such state), then you can use one of several Mac's built-in options to recover the OS first, and then restore files using Veeam.

I would like to suggest you to check Beta versions of VBR v12 which includes a new VAM 2.0 (with some new features, including an ability to back up user profiles in a standalone mode). Please reach out to your sales rep to do request a demo build.

Thanks!

[BlakeR]

Bare metal backups are no longer a thing for Mac's since the implementation of the T2 security chip.

@Yathus if you find items are being backed up as expected try a custom scope and specify /Users/

That will cover anything inside the top level users folder, you need to also make sure that you have allowed Veeam agent full disk access in the security and privacy settings.