Hello Dawn to Dusk,

I recently stumbled upon QRecall after getting fed up with Time Machine. So far I'm VERY impressed!!!

I love being able to define a capture schedule, but what I'd REALLY like is the ability to set up a capture action upon logout or shutdown.

I currently have two actions set up. One captures my home folder every hour to my Thecus N4100 Pro NAS (awesome box, FYI, silent, fast, and very Mac-friendly).

The second action captures my entire hard drive, minus the home folder. This is one I want to run every time I logout or shutdown. Is this possible? Is there any way you could add this feature?

Loving the app. Will definitely be recommending it to my Mac friends!

Thanks,
Rob

D'oh!

Just found the run at logout option. SWEET!

Now, how about the ability to run an action upon shutdown? I'd really like to be able to select Shutdown and go to bed knowing that QRecall is going to execute my scheduled action(s), then shut down my Mac. That would make me very happy!

Rob Wyatt wrote:Now, how about the ability to run an action upon shutdown?

I would love to implement something like that, but it's darn near close to impossible. When you select Shutdown, the system proceeds to stop every running process. That includes QRecall.

There's no way to suspend or hold a shutdown request until something finishes. If a process doesn't quit within a reasonable amount of time (about a minute), the operating system forcibly terminates it. The OS certainly wouldn't wait for something as time consuming as a capture to complete.

GUI applications can refuse to quit, which will cancel the shutdown request. But canceling the shutdown defeats the purpose.

Having said that, I've considered a feature that would send a shutdown request to the OS after an action had finished.

James Bucanek wrote:There's no way to suspend or hold a shutdown request until something finishes.

Having said that, I've considered a feature that would send a shutdown request to the OS after an action had finished.

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure how the system handles shutdown requests. I can now appreciate why such a feature would be very hard to implement!

How about this...add a condition that allows QRecall to request a shutdown after the user logs out AND the backup action is finished? It's a little confusing, maybe, but that way when I logout at the end of the day, QRecall runs, then tells my machine to shut down. Selecting "Shut Down" would, obviously, bypass this.

Another option might be to alert the user upon logout that QRecall is going to run a backup and then ask if the user wishes to shut down when the backup is complete?

Could something like that work?

Rob Wyatt wrote:How about this...add a condition that allows QRecall to request a shutdown after the user logs out AND the backup action is finished? It's a little confusing, maybe, but that way when I logout at the end of the day, QRecall runs, then tells my machine to shut down. Selecting "Shut Down" would, obviously, bypass this.

That's, more or less, what I had in mind. But just to give you some idea of the potential pitfalls, imagine scheduling a capture that runs at night and then shuts down. But then you shutdown manually. After restarting the next day, the capture runs immediately because it's overdue and then ... shuts down. Probably not what you want to happen.

Another option might be to alert the user upon logout that QRecall is going to run a backup and then ask if the user wishes to shut down when the backup is complete?

I agree that any shutdown option should include some sort of user interaction, just to avoid the situations like the one I just mentioned.

Thanks for the additional feedback. I'm glad this issue is on your radar. I have no doubt that you'll come up with some clever way to implement it!

Rob Wyatt wrote:I currently have two actions set up. One captures my home folder every hour to my Thecus N4100 Pro NAS.

The second action captures my entire hard drive, minus the home folder (when I log out).

Rob, in our discussion of features I forgot to mention that this is probably not a good idea.

I'm sure you are skipping your home folder by excluding it in the filters second of the capture action. When you exclude an item, QRecall treats that item as if it did not exist. What you end up with is a layer containing your entire volume, without a home folder. If you were to restore that layer it would not contain your home folder.

In the action that captures your entire hard drive, it's best to include your home folder. Besides the reason just mentioned, that's the best time to capture your home folder because it's very stable while you're logged out.

There's little or no extra work involved (especially if you're using OS 10.5). Only changes made since you last captured your home folder will be captured.

Thanks for the feedback, James.

I chose to split it into two capture actions so that I could backup my home folder every hour, but only backup the system when I felt like it (ie: after installing new software, at the end of the day, etc). I figured this might be faster than trying to capture my entire hard drive every hour. Maybe not?

Perhaps I need to rethink that.

Thanks!

-Rob

Speaking of capturing while logged out...

Since I'm backing up to a NAS, when I log out, the capture action doesn't run. Is there any way to keep the volume mounted after logout? Or should I switch from AFP mounts to NFS? Wouldn't auto-mounted NFS shares stay mounted even when the user logs out?

Thanks!

Rob Wyatt wrote:Since I'm backing up to a NAS, when I log out, the capture action doesn't run. Is there any way to keep the volume mounted after logout?

For networked volumes, I don't know of any way of keeping them mounted after logging out.

QRecall will attempt to remount local volumes when logged out, allowing the action to run. Mounting network volumes, however, depends on system services (like the key chain) that are only available when you are logged in. This is mentioned the notes in QRecall Help > Automation > Scheduling Actions.

Or should I switch from AFP mounts to NFS? Wouldn't auto-mounted NFS shares stay mounted even when the user logs out?

I don't know. It's worth a try.

Rob Wyatt wrote:I chose to split it into two capture actions so that I could backup my home folder every hour, but only backup the system when I felt like it (ie: after installing new software, at the end of the day, etc). I figured this might be faster than trying to capture my entire hard drive every hour. Maybe not?

You're correct in that a recapture of your home folder will be faster than trying to recapture the entire volume every hour.

This is exactly what I have set up on my main development system: Capture entire volume once a day, capture my home folder once an hour.

The problem is that when you capture the entire volume you excluded your home folder. Instead of creating a new layer that just picks up any changes made on the volume, you create a new layer that acts as if you deleted your entire home folder before capturing the volume. I',m sure that's not what you wanted.