What is the Real Time Scanner?

The Real Time Scan is an engine tightly connected to the Mailbox, which intercepts all the transactions that take place on each user’s mailbox and records them with the purpose of maintaining the whole history of an item for its entire lifetime.

Thanks to the Real Time Scan, it is possible to recover any item at any point in time.

How Does it Work?

The Real Time Scanner reads all the events of the mail server almost real-time, then it 'replicates' the same operations on its own data structure, creating items or updating their metadata. No information is ever overwritten in the backup, so every item has its own complete history.

Managing the Real Time Scanner

Enabling the Real Time Scanner

Via the Administration Zimlet

  • Select the Zextras Backup Tab.

  • Under Real Time Scanner, press the Enable button.

When the Real Time Scanner is enabled for the first time or re-enabled after a stop, a SmartScan is required. A warning will be displayed after enabling the Real Time Scanner, and you will be prompted to start the SmartScan.
Via the CLI

To enable the Real Time Scanner via the CLI, the ZxBackup_RealTimeScanner property of the Zextras Backup module must be set to true:

zxsuite config server set $(zmhostname) attribute ZxBackup_RealTimeScanner value TRUE

Disabling the Real Time Scanner

Via the Administration Zimlet

  • Select the Zextras Backup Tab.

  • Under Real Time Scanner, press the Disable button.

Via the CLI

To disable the Real Time Scanner via the CLI, the ZxBackup_RealTimeScanner property of the Zextras Backup module must be set to false:

zxsuite config server set $(zmhostname) attribute ZxBackup_RealTimeScanner value FALSE
Why Should I Disable the Real Time Scanner?

The only time you should disable the Real Time Scanner is while performing an External Restore of multiple domains. This is a safety measure to avoid high load on your server. After the import, re-enable the Real Time Scanner and perform a SmartScan when prompted.

Limitations and Safety Scan

The main limitation when restoring data acquired via the Real Time Scanner is:

  • Emptied Folder - when a user uses the Empty Folder button in the right-click context menu

In this case, and any time Zextras Backup cannot determine the status of an item by reading the metadata saved by the Real Time Scan, an Account Scan on the given account is triggered BEFORE the restore.

This fixes any misaligned data and sanitizes the backed up metadata for the mailbox.