Chat

The M365 Plugin Chat module is able to protect any chat where a given user is participating.

Please, note that this module needs Delegated permissions to work, so you will need to login using the Device Auth Flow

in order to have enough permissions to get the data: Delegated permissions.

The information protected with this module is detailed below:

• For Users:

  • Chat metadata

  • Chat tabs metadata

  • Chat installed apps metadata

  • Chat messages

    • Hosted contents

Chat module includes the following features:

• Incremental/Differential backup

• It is possible to exclude tabs or applications from the backup

The catalog stores the information with the following structure:

• /@m365/tenantName/user/userName/chats/

  • chat1/ - chatName.chat

    • apps/

      • app1.chatapp

      • app2.chatapp

      • …

    • tabs/

      • tab1.chat.tab

      • tab2.chat.tab

      • …

      • 2021-04-19 10.58.52..J-123.1.chat.msg

      • 2021-04-19 09.58.52..J-123.2.chat.msg

      • 2021-04-19 09.58.52..J-123.2.file.1.host.cnt

      • 2021-04-19 09.58.52..J-123.2.file.2.host.cnt

      • …

  • chat2/ - …

Backup parameters

The list below shows the specific backup parameters that can be set up in order to control the behavior of the chat module.

In order to select the chat module, the common service parameter must be or contain the value chat.

Option	Required	Default	Values	Example	Description
chat_topics	No		Valid topics associated to existing chats from the selected user(s) to backup separated by’,’	ProjectA, Important	Backup only selected chats of the included users
chat_topics_exclude	No		Valid topics associated to existing chats from the selected user(s) to backup separated by’,’	Fun Channel	Backup all chats of the included users except the ones listed in this parameter
chat_topics_regex_include	No		Valid regex	*.corp	Backup matching chats (by topic)
chat_topics_regex_exclude	No		Valid regex	^Private.*	Exclude matching chats (by topic)
chat_apps	No	Yes	0, no, No, false, FALSE, false, off ; 1, yes, Yes, TRUE, true, on	No	Backup chat apps from selected user chats
chat_tabs	No	Yes	0, no, No, false, FALSE, false, off ; 1, yes, Yes, TRUE, true, on	No	Backup team chat tabs from selected user chats
chat_exclude_empty	No	No	0, no, No, false, FALSE, false, off ; 1, yes, Yes, TRUE, true, on	Yes	Exclude any chat that has no messages inside
chat_exclude_type_group	No	No	0, no, No, false, FALSE, false, off ; 1, yes, Yes, TRUE, true, on	Yes	Exclude chats of type ‘group’
chat_exclude_type_one_on_one	No	No	0, no, No, false, FALSE, false, off ; 1, yes, Yes, TRUE, true, on	Yes	Exclude chats of type ‘one_on_one’

Restore parameters

The list below shows the subset of restore parameters that can be used to control the behavior of teams module restore operations:

• destination_user -> User that will be used to restore chats to it. Usually, it should be the same owner user of the messages to restore

• send_report, debug -> Common restore parameters

• chat_topic -> Control destination chat (add a new one)

Use cases

Depending on the chat type, it is possible to:

• Group chats:

  • Restore chats as new ones, specifying a new topic with the restore variable ‘chat_topic’ (group chats)

  • Restore chat messages inside original chats (if they where deleted)

• One on one chats:

  • One on one chats can have only one instance per pair of users. Therefore, the restore can only create chat messages with the implied user in case they were deleted before

As with any other plugin, local filesystem restore is possible too and we would get all objects (chat, chatMessages…) as json files, except hosted contents that will be restored as the original files.

Please note that restore to M365 service function is not able to restore messages in the exact form that they were generated because of Microsoft security policy around this service. It is not possible to create a chat message with a different date or user than the real ones that are being used for the current connection. Therefore when the restore is performed what Bacula M365 Plugin does is to add a little header for each message containing that information, but the messages will be all generated using the ‘destination_user’ or the original user in case that variable was not used. Example:

Fileset examples

Backup all chats of a user:

Fileset Example

FileSet {
        Name = fs-m365-peter-chat
        Include {
                Options { signature = MD5 }
                Plugin = "m365: service=chat tenant=57uia43-d107-17a2-a2g2-aa53c10tdahc objectid=56ddf1h9-eb5d-42nf-bac7-7b019fd284g5 user=\"peter@mycompany.com\" "
        }
}

Backup chats of all users, but do not backup tabs or installed apps:

Fileset Example

FileSet {
        Name = fs-m365-peter-chat-noimages
        Include {
                Options { signature = MD5 }
                Plugin = "m365: service=chat tenant=57uia43-d107-17a2-a2g2-aa53c10tdahc objectid=56ddf1h9-eb5d-42nf-bac7-7b019fd284g5 chat_apps=no chat_tabs=no"
        }
}