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QNAP Hybrid Backup Sync

Monitoring QNAP Hybrid Backup Sync backups

Hybrid Backup Sync (HBS 3) hands its notifications to the QTS Notification Center, which can send them by email. That tells you when a job fails. It tells you nothing when the job never starts: the NAS is off, the schedule is disabled, the app stopped after an update. This guide shows how to turn on notifications and have Mail Monitor check that the email arrives, every time.

1. Connect the mail server in QTS

Open Notification Center and, in the section for service accounts and device pairing, add an SMTP service for email: Gmail, Outlook or a custom SMTP server.

  • Choose the sender address: with several NAS units, a recognisable name for each helps tell them apart.
  • Send a test email and check that it arrives.

2. Create the notification rule for HBS 3

In Hybrid Backup Sync open Settings, then Notifications, and create a rule: Notification Center opens.

  • Pick the Hybrid Backup Sync events.
  • Under severity levels tick Error, Warning and Information too: completed jobs are usually reported there. Check with a test run that the success email arrives as well: its absence is what triggers the alert.
  • If you want fewer emails, use the keyword filter, for example with the job name.
  • Choose email as the method, the sender set up in step 1 and, as recipient, the mailbox Mail Monitor will read.

3. Create the check in Mail Monitor

One check per job: if one goes missing, you know which.

  • Connect the mailbox over IMAP, read-only.
  • Sender: the address the NAS sends from. Subject or body contains: the NAS or job name.
  • The exact wording of HBS 3 emails depends on QTS’s language and version: test the rules on the last 50 emails and pick the words that really appear in your NAS’s emails.
  • Expected: the job’s own schedule (daily, some weekdays, every N hours) with a cut-off time and a tolerance.

4. What happens when something goes wrong

  • The job fails: the error email arrives and the check turns ERROR.
  • The job never starts or the NAS is off: nothing arrives, and at the cut-off time the check turns MISSING.
  • The alert goes to you and, if you want, to your customer, from your SMTP and with your logo.

5. Scripts and the NAS’s other backups

Other NAS apps that use Notification Center are checked the same way: one rule, one check. For scheduled scripts on the NAS you can use an API check instead (Premium plan), adding a call to the check URL at the end of the script.

curl -fsS -m 10 --retry 3 <check-URL>

Try it on your QNAP NAS

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