How to tell if Time Machine is being used

[#1]

Hey Guys-

Anybody have an idea on how we could tell, using Casper, if Time Machine is
being used on a system? We have switched everyone over to using Crashplan
want to find anyone who might still be using Time Machine and turn them off.

Thx
Jon

-- Jonathan H. Smith | Sr. Systems Engineer | Genentech Informatics| office:
650-225-4968| mobile: 650-302-6985 | smith.jonathan at gene.com |

[lance_ogletree]

If you're running 7.2 of the JSS you could utilize the Extension Attributes in Inventory to display the Time Machine status.
Incidentally you can leverage the attributes for CrashPlan as well for policy decisions.

[#3]

Thanks Lance, I'll look into that. We are still testing 7.2 but good to know
when we make the switch. Anyway to do that in 7.1?

Thx
Jon

[milesleacy]

dummy packages. :)

Extension attributes are better, and this is Mr. Dummy Package talking.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,
Miles

[tlarkin]

Why not just turn it off?

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.timemachine AutoBackup -bool false

Manage it with a 1 liner or MCX

[#6]

Hey Tom-

That is the ultimate goal but right now we are just being asked for the
number of systems that still have Time Machine enabled. Things are very "1
step at a time around here". I'll keep that command though for when we need
to do the deed.

Jon

[tlarkin]

Well, if you turn it off you can then just log your help desk calls of those who can't use it and voila you got your numbers right there hahahahaha

Just kidding....

[a_holley]

I know I'm bumping a very old thread, but I've found part of the answer I was looking for, and I'm hoping someone can answer the second part.

We are looking to use the JSS to give us an idea of which machines don't have Time Machine enabled. I now see that it's listed under Extension Attributes for the individual machines, but I'm wondering if there is some criteria in the Smart Groups that may allow us to get an overview of how many and which ones?

I've got a Smart Group that tells us which ones haven't backed up in over 30 days, but that doesn't report on which machines have never had Time Machine set up in the first place.

[a_holley]

Ok, I worked it out

Because the EA was set as reporting a date, rather than a string, I was unable to set a smart group based on the result 'not enabled'.

I duplicated the EA, just so I didn't lose my other smart group, and changed the duplicated one to reporting a string. I was then able to set the criteria in my smart group to being 'not enabled'. Once I did that, I started to get the results we were looking for.

[csmith122]

I don't have any machines on my network running with time machine right now but id imagine you would be able to do some thing with

tmutil latestbackup
tmutil listbackups

[Look]

This to..

tmutil destinationinfo

If it's not configured it returns "tmutil: No destinations configured." If it was configured it might be useful to awk || grep for the name or path to the backup location.