Help seeing what users are currently running time machine backups in environment

[jrogersnh]

Hi All -

Does anyone know of a way to see if a user is / has been running a time machine backup from their mac? I know I can get various info using tmutil, but to my knowledge all I'm getting from that is when it's actively backing up, and would just show client ID and running = 0 when it's not actively running a backup.

Any ideas?

[shaquir · Accepted solution]

There are a variety of Time Machine reporting options that can be configured as Extension Attributes.

You can go to Computer Management> Extension Attributes
Then "New From Template"

If you filter by "Time Machine", you can see some EA templates.

Once you create the EA, you can create Smart Groups or select the EA from the "Display" section of Advanced Computer Searches.

[jrogersnh]

incredible info on that, thank you so much for the assist !

[hepvd]

Hi, thanks a lot for the tip ! Sadly the "Last Backup Completed" does not seems to work properly here.

[k3vmo]

I see the same issue - I'm wondering - is this dependent on whether the Time Machine volume is accessible when it checks?

[hepvd]

Had to return on this project, in fact the Extension Attribute "Last Backup Enabled" is outdated, it try to check a file that's not here anymore.

Here is a working one : an almost working one : It works if run as a separated shell script but sadly I cant make it report the data as an extended attribute. 

#!/bin/sh
if [ -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist ];then
lastBackupTimestamp=`/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Print :Destinations:0:SnapshotDates" /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist | grep ":" | tail -n1 | sed 's/^ *//g'`
echo "<result>$lastBackupTimestamp</result>"
else
echo "<result>Not enabled.</result>"
fi