Scheduling Veeam Backup Free Edition backups for all VMs

Question

I would like to use the free fersion of Veeam to backup my VMs on a Windows Hyper-V 2016 server. The free version of the tool does not provide a tool to do regular backups, so I have been looking at a way to use its API in combination with task scheduler.

In my search for a solution I came across this post, which pretty much details all I need:

https://blog.mwpreston.net/2015/04/29/scheduling-veeam-backup-free-edition-backups/

Param(
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$VM,
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$Destination,
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateSet(0,4,5,6,9)][int]$Compression,
  [bool]$DisableQuiesce=$true,
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][ValidateSet("Never","Tonight","TomorrowNight","In3days","In1Week","In2Weeks","In1Month")][string]$Autodelete
)
#Load Veeam Toolkit
& "C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Backup\Initialize-VeeamToolkit.ps1"
#Validate any parameters
$vmentity = Find-VBRViEntity -Name $VM 
if ($vmentity -eq $null)
{
  Write-Host "VM: $VM not found" -ForegroundColor "red"
  exit
}
if (-Not (Test-Path $Destination))
{
  Write-Host "Destination: $vmname not valid" -ForegroundColor "red"
  exit
}
if ($DisableQuiesce -eq $true)
{
    Start-VBRZip -Entity $vmentity -Folder $destination -Compression $Compression -AutoDelete $Autodelete -DisableQuiesce
}
else
{
    Start-VBRZip -Entity $vmentity -Folder $destination -Compression $Compression -AutoDelete $Autodelete
}

However, the sript on this page only supports backing up a single VM. I could create many of these scripts, but having a single script that loops through the VMs would be preferred.

I suppose this is as easy as looping through all the VMs, but as I have no experience powershell scripts, nor with Veeam, I am looking for some help/assitance in modifying the script to backup all VMs. There are some talks about this in the comments on that page, but it appears the blog post have been updated since, so it does not directly apply.

For instance something like this:

(get-vm -ComputerName YOURSERVERFQDN | foreach { $_.Name }) -join "`",`"" | Tee-Object -Variable VMNames | Out-Null

A bonus would be adding some sort of email notification on failure, but that's a little outside the topic of this question.

Answer 1

Resurrecting an old question, but apparently the Q had a number of views, so I thought I should share the final version of the script that I had working. This is based on a different version of the original script I found somewhere, modified for my purposes.

It is not super-elegant, but it gets the job done, and it sends some handy error messages by email if it fails.

Param(
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)][string]$hostname = 'yourhostname',
  [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)][string]$BackupDestination = '\\yourdestination',
  [ValidateSet(0,4,5,6,9)][int]$CompressionLevel = 5,
  [bool]$DisableQuiesce=$false,
  [ValidateSet("Never","Tonight","TomorrowNight","In3days","In1Week","In2Weeks","In1Month")][string]$Autodelete = "Tonight",
  [bool]$EnableNotification=$true,
  [string]$SMTPServer = 'smpt.yourmailserver.com'
)

##################################################################
# Notification Settings
##################################################################

# Email FROM
$EmailFrom = "veeam@domain"

# Email TO
$EmailTo = "you@domain"

# Email subject
$EmailSubject = "Veeam backup failed!"

##################################################################
# Email formatting
##################################################################

$style = "<style>BODY{font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;}"
$style = $style + "TABLE{border: 1px solid black; border-collapse: collapse;}"
$style = $style + "TH{border: 1px solid black; background: #dddddd; padding: 5px; }"
$style = $style + "TD{border: 1px solid black; padding: 5px; }"
$style = $style + "</style>"

try{

    #Load Veeam Toolkit
    & "C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Console\Initialize-VeeamToolkit.ps1"

    #Gather VM list dynamically
    #Different methods of getting the vmlist
    #$Script:VMList= (Get-VM -ComputerName $hostname -Credential $currentUser)
    $script:VMList =  Find-VBRHvEntity | Where-Object {$_.Type -eq 'Vm' -and $_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn"}

    #Add the hostname to the path in case you use some generic path
    #$BackupDestinationWithHostName = Join-Path $BackupDestination $hostname

    #Get the NAS credentials. This may not be needed depending on your setup. I am using active directy, but still found this to be the least painful solution
    $NASCredentials = Get-VBRCredentials -Name "veeam@domain"

    #Perform backup task for each identified VM
    foreach ($vmentity in $VMList) {
        #Perform the actual backup
        $ZIPSession = Start-VBRZip -NetworkCredentials $NASCredentials -Entity $vmentity -Folder $BackupDestination -Compression $CompressionLevel -DisableQuiesce:($DisableQuiesce) -AutoDelete $Autodelete
        #$ZIPSession = Start-VBRZip -Entity $vmentity -Folder $BackupDestination -Compression $CompressionLevel -DisableQuiesce:($DisableQuiesce) -AutoDelete $Autodelete

        $TaskSessions = $ZIPSession.GetTaskSessions().logger.getlog().updatedrecords
        $FailedSessions = $TaskSessions | where {$_.status -eq "EWarning" -or $_.Status -eq "EFailed"}

        If ($EnableNotification) {
            if ($FailedSessions -ne $Null) {
                $sendFailedEmail = $true
                $thisMessage = ($ZIPSession | Select-Object @{n="Name";e={($_.name).Substring(0, $_.name.LastIndexOf("("))}} ,@{n="Start Time";e={$_.CreationTime}},@{n="End Time";e={$_.EndTime}},Result,@{n="Details";e={$FailedSessions.Title}})
                $MessageBody += $thisMessage
            }
        }
    }

    If (($EnableNotification -eq $true) -and ($sendFailedEmail -eq $true)) {
        $Message = New-Object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage $EmailFrom, $EmailTo
        $Message.Subject = $EmailSubject
        $Message.IsBodyHTML = $True
        $message.Body = $MessageBody | ConvertTo-Html -head $style | Out-String
        $SMTP = New-Object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($SMTPServer)
        $SMTP.Send($Message)
    }
} catch{
    $ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message
    $Message = New-Object System.Net.Mail.MailMessage $EmailFrom, $EmailTo
    $Message.Subject = "Unexpected error in Veeam powershell script"
    $Message.Body = $ErrorMessage
    $SMTP = New-Object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($SMTPServer)
    $SMTP.Send($Message)

    echo $_.Exception.Message
} finally { 
    # Any cleanup you need to perform. I am shutting down the server as it restarts on an automatic cycle when the task has to run again.
    Stop-Computer
}