Monitor a single file's Last Modified date

Question

Hi!

I'd like to create a SCOM monitor that checks a given single file's last modified date.

For example: if "C:\backup\backup.bak" last modified date is over 2 days ago (or 24 hours ago) I'd like an alert. Is this possible to do with vbscript or in any other way? I've googled a bit now but I can't find anything suitable...

Many thanks!

Answer 1

Hi @jg ,

You can achieve this by creating a monitor that triggers a script, easiest most likely with PowerShell, you'll find many scripts by using your favorite search engine.

Here's one example:
SCOM – Watching a log file for changes w/ PowerShell

Here's what you're looking for with VBscript:
Simple Script Which Checks The Modified Time (Hours) Of A Log File

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote or accept as answer, thank you)

Best regards,
Leon

Answer 2

Hi @jg ,

here is a simple piece of code, which will return since when a file has not been modified and also in will return something if it has been modified within the last day.

$lastDay = (Get-Date).AddDays(-1)  
$monitoredFile = "C:\Temp\123.txt"  
    if ((Get-ItemProperty -Path $monitoredFile -Name LastWriteTime).LastWriteTime -gt $lastDay) {  
        write-host "File has been modified within the last day"  
    } else {  
        write-host "File has not been modified since " (Get-ItemProperty -Path $monitoredFile -Name LastWriteTime).LastWriteTime  
    }  
    New-TimeSpan -Start (Get-ItemProperty -Path $monitoredFile -Name LastWriteTime).LastWriteTime -End (Get-Date)  

It is pretty simple, but it also calculates the difference since the file has been edited the last time.
You can play with it as you want, you can remove the once-day modification and just calculate the Time span.
When you have it exactly as you want, just put it in a PowerShell monitor (Example the PowerShell MP from cOOKDOWN) and you are ready to go.

Here also a link to the PowerShell MP:

PowerShell Monitoring Management Pack
https://www.cookdown.com/scom-essentials/powershell-authoring/

The MP is free and there is a video that shows you how to cretae a PoSh based monitor.

So you have the script now and a MP that you can use, you just need to put those together.

I hope I could help!

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(If the reply was helpful please don't forget to upvote or accept as answer, thank you)
Regards,
Stoyan