Shutdown after connection failure to network volume

[rmichael-sd]

I schedule Macs to wakeup and SuperDuper to run overnight, storing the sparseimage to a network volume.

When a laptop wakes up off our network (on the road), and tries to connect to the network volume to access the sparseimage, it understandably fails. However, it displays an error window "Connection failed" warning, and waits for user interaction (to dismiss the warning window).

I would like SuperDuper to fail gracefully and shut the Mac down (so it doesn't remain turned on needlessly for the rest of the night) without running the backup, obviously.

Should I write my own network volume mounting script and handle the failure myself in the script?

(Aside, if I click "OK" to dismiss the "Connection Failed" error, SuperDuper runs anyway. As the network volume is not available, it then pops up the "Scheduled Copies" window -- presumably to indicate there was an error? Although, the scheduled backup name is not written in red to indicate an error. I must open the log (Show Log) to see the error (in the log viewer the error is red); after which the schedule copy name also turns red in the "Scheduled Copies" window behind the log I'm reading. This is not terribly elegant, will errors be better addressed and indicated in the next version of SuperDuper?)

Thanks for advice!

Regards.

[dnanian]

Well... the "connection fails" window isn't being put up by us -- it's actually being displayed by the OS, and we can't dismiss it.

Perhaps turn off your schedules while on the road? You don't have to delete them, just "Edit..." each entry and uncheck the "automatically copy"... checkbox.

[rmichael-sd]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Well... the "connection fails" window isn't being put up by us -- it's actually being displayed by the OS, and we can't dismiss it.

Yes, I can tell it's being displayed by MacOS. Although, looking into SD! a bit, it looks like part of these operations are scripted calls to the OS. Can't SD! do something such as:

"if <ask OS to mount/access location of DMG> ; then <do stuff> ; else <warn DMG not found> ; fi", catching the error; instead of just punting to the OS?

Will it be possible

Perhaps turn off your schedules while on the road? You don't have to delete them, just "Edit..." each entry and uncheck the "automatically copy"... checkbox.

Ok, but.. this isn't a workable solution.

As a system administrator, I need these types of things as simple as possible, I don't want people tinkering with the settings; nor should they have to. If I ask them to remember to turn on and off their backups every time they travel and/or take their laptop on the road, backups won't happen at all.

"Set it and forget it" is exactly how this should work, and SD! should just notify me when an unexpected error (where "not connecting to the server while away" is expected) occurs.

Aside, I'd also like the Mac to wakeup and run while the lid is closed. In an ideal world, the Mac simply wakes, runs SD! (which either succeeds or fails) and shuts down again, even when sitting in a bag on a hotel room floor.

Thanks for the reply though. Any other suggestions? A custom mount script?

[dnanian]

Well, you could modify our scheduling applescript, which is in the bundle, to not run in situations of your own choosing.

As far as "want it to wake with the cover down", that's not something your Mac'll do.

[rmichael-sd]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Well, you could modify our scheduling applescript, which is in the bundle, to not run in situations of your own choosing.

As far as "want it to wake with the cover down", that's not something your Mac'll do.

Thanks, I'll take a look at your script.

As for waking, the Mac will definitely wake with the lid closed, I've tried it. But it seems to be sleeping immediately (presumably because the lid is closed). Perhaps this can turned off in the PROM or by software. The insomnia.kext from SleepLess looks helpful, or the free InsomniaX wrapper around the kext.

Thanks again Dave. I'm looking forward to next version SD!.