Vorta: Notifications for Linux desktop

[brokenpip3]

Hi,

i really like vorta! works great.
It's possible to add a features for a mail report for each backup?

Thanks

[m3nu]

I think adding all the mail settings and libraries (SMTP, etc) to Vorta would be overkill. For macOS we already have notifications sent to the notification center. For Linux I don't know of a unified mechanism so far.

I do know that Linux sends many notifications to a local mailbox. So one option would be to regard those "local mails" as notifications in Linux.

In general I think that notifications for failed backups are more useful than the other way round. If you run Vorta on a server and want general monitoring on the client-side, filtering the logs would be another way. For server-side monitoring, one could look at the remote repo there, as we do for BorgBase.com alerts.

In short, some more infos about your use case would be helpful. Then maybe we see a universal need for the feature or find a simpler solution. After all we want to do one thing well and not build another email client.

[brokenpip3]

Hi, thanks for you kind reply

In general I think that notifications for _failed_ backups are more useful than the other way round.

yep, failed, success, general error etc

If you run Vorta on a server and want general monitoring on the client-side, filtering the logs would be another way.

yep, maybe one great feature is settings option for "log path"?
So server-side i can put it on /var/log/vorta/something and parse with external tool

In short, some more infos about your use case would be helpful. Then maybe we see a universal need for the feature or find a simpler solution.

I don't have a personal case, i wrote only to give a general suggestion for vorta. I want just to know my backup job result.

After all we want to do one thing well and not build another email client.

Yes i understand, but i don't think add smtplib module is so heavy :)
Maybe the best things is a general notification configuration?

example:

settings --> notification ---> select you notification method

• system (notify-send on linux, mac??)
• logfile
• standard output
• send as script argument (this is the best option because people can use it for sending mail, pushbullett notification, slack etc; in my case i can use it for sending me telegram notification)

As i said, it's simply nice-to-have, vorta just work great right now. :)

Sorry for bad english

[ThomasWaldmann]

not sure whether sending emails is appropriate for a desktop app...

but if you do it, there must be the option (and it better be the default option) to send email in any case.

if you only send email on a failed backup, first your email setup will fail, then your backup will fail, and nobody will notice. if you also send mails for successful backups, you positively know that the backup was ok and you will also likely notice when the email sending stops working for some reason.

[m3nu]

Also not too happy about emailing. That's more for servers, as I said. A server shouldn't run Vorta at all. It should run borg directly or borgmatic to wrap it. The latter has a simple way to run commands (like emailing) before and after.

I'd rather find a standard way to send notifications on Linux too. Like the mentioned libnotify. (same thing for Ubuntu)

So instead of emails, I'd rather do this:

• [ ] Add libnotify for Linux notifications
• [ ] Have option to globally enable/disable notifications. "Display notifications when background tasks fail."
• [ ] Additional sub-option to notify about successful backups as well: "Also notify about successful background tasks."

[brokenpip3]

Also not too happy about emailing. That's more for servers, as I said. A server shouldn't run Vorta at all. It should run borg directly or borgmatic to wrap it. The latter has a simple way to run commands (like emailing) before and after.

you convinced me, for a desktop app does not make sense the email, much better than the simple notification. (i have my simple borg bash script before found vorta, i'll try borgmatic instead on my server)

So instead of emails, I'd rather do this:

* [ ]  Add `libnotify` for Linux notifications

* [ ]  Have option to globally enable/disable notifications. "Display notifications when background tasks fail."

* [ ]  Additional sub-option to notify about successful backups as well: "Also notify about successful background tasks."

Very nice, ty!

i can try some PR later then

[m3nu]

Good we agree. For Borgmatic, I have an Ansible role and when using BorgBase.com, it will give you a pre-filled template. Quite easy to set up really.

A PR for Linux notifications would be welcome. I only have Ubuntu set up in a VM and don't use it daily.

[m3nu]

This could be used for Linux notifications? https://notify2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

[m3nu]

Are you working on this, @brokenpip3 or should I go ahead and just implement the above library?

[ThomasWaldmann]

I would really suggest NOT to add email sending to vorta.

email is just a big PITA to configure. and even if you did that right, the server might still reject your mails if it thinks they look strange or it doesn't like your IP or whatever and reject them or put them into spam/junk folder where nobody will read them.

[m3nu]

I didn't mean adding email, but desktop notifications. This lib seems to be used in most Linux desktops.

[brokenpip3]

@ThomasWaldmann we agree for desktop notification

@m3nu i posted before with github work account, so i re-posted.
So i want to implement the notification on linux but I'm very busy at work these days (end of years sucks).
Maybe i can close this issue and open a PR when i'm ready to test it, for sure not in 2018.
Sorry

[bpereto]

Somebody working on it?
something to learn with desktop nitifications :)

I will do a PR:

• [ ] Add notify2 for Linux notifications
• [ ] Have option to globally enable/disable notifications. "Display notifications when background tasks fail."
• [ ] Additional sub-option to notify about successful backups as well: "Also notify about successful background tasks."

[brokenpip3]

Very nice! ty :+1:
I definitely spy on your PR so i can learn by comparing my coding idea of this specific feature with someone else :)