Reading the guestindexdata ifd files

[Peejay62]

I wonder, is there a way to read the guestindexdata files to produce a readable format? I am looking into a method of reading the indexed data and throw it into a file. This file should then be used for input for a VMguest file restore request.
So, do not use the EM to perform a guestfile restore but in the end run it with a startvbrwindowfilerestore powershell cmdlet (populated with the info provided out of the parsed index file).
Why like this you'd might ask? We now have some kind of automated file restoreprocess that restores individual files from any moment in time. What (the name of the file) or to which point in time is not always clear. Performing this by browsing in a UI is not always convenient and time consuming.
The thing we built now is working very good, downside is It's using another backuptool... Getting this to work within Veeam will provide me with a means of migrating this off to Veeam.

Thanks, Peter

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Peter,

I doubt that there is any public method to do that, probably it would make more sense to have APIs for querying the data you need and then locating the restore point.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Peejay62]

If there would be an API available that would be fine too. Wouldn't that be a lot of effort though for just reading the content of the files? Maybe it's an option, while generating the ifd file, to also just write it as a plain text file? the data is there anyway..
Honestly, I think it's a miss not to be able to generate a list of the content of the complete file-index or to search inside it. What I mean is : get me a list out of the complete index to see what files I have or even find a file named "thisfile.txt" and show the backupdates and backuplocation. (not using the gui). I presume the gui also parses the ifd files to display al list?
I think some functionality might be added in that perspective as Veeam lacks on this one and this functionality is a common one in most other backuptools (I know by experience). For me personally this is giving me a headache as I don't know now how to get Veeam replacing that other tool we are using for that process..

thanks, Peter

[Vitaliy S.]

Peter, thanks for your feedback and FR.