3 Bacula Projects Roadmap
4 Status updated 18 August 2007
5 After removing items completed in version
11 Item 1: Accurate restoration of renamed/deleted files
12 Item 2: Allow FD to initiate a backup
13 Item 3: Merge multiple backups (Synthetic Backup or Consolidation)
14 Item 4: Implement Catalog directive for Pool resource in Director
15 Item 5: Add an item to the restore option where you can select a Pool
16 Item 6: Deletion of disk Volumes when pruned
17 Item 7: Implement Base jobs
18 Item 8: Implement Copy pools
19 Item 9: Scheduling syntax that permits more flexibility and options
20 Item 10: Message mailing based on backup types
21 Item 11: Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
22 Item 12: Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
23 Item 13: Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
24 Item 14: Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types
25 Item 15: Implement more Python events and functions
26 Item 16: Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
27 Item 17: Automatic promotion of backup levels based on backup size
28 Item 18: Better control over Job execution
29 Item 19: Automatic disabling of devices
30 Item 20: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
31 Item 21: Include timestamp of job launch in "stat clients" output
32 Item 22: Implement Storage daemon compression
33 Item 23: Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management
34 Item 24: Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
35 Item 25: Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
38 Item 1: Accurate restoration of renamed/deleted files
39 Date: 28 November 2005
40 Origin: Martin Simmons (martin at lispworks dot com)
41 Status: Robert Nelson will implement this
43 What: When restoring a fileset for a specified date (including "most
44 recent"), Bacula should give you exactly the files and directories
45 that existed at the time of the last backup prior to that date.
47 Currently this only works if the last backup was a Full backup.
48 When the last backup was Incremental/Differential, files and
49 directories that have been renamed or deleted since the last Full
50 backup are not currently restored correctly. Ditto for files with
51 extra/fewer hard links than at the time of the last Full backup.
53 Why: Incremental/Differential would be much more useful if this worked.
55 Notes: Merging of multiple backups into a single one seems to
56 rely on this working, otherwise the merged backups will not be
57 truly equivalent to a Full backup.
59 Note: Kern: notes shortened. This can be done without the need for
60 inodes. It is essentially the same as the current Verify job,
61 but one additional database record must be written, which does
62 not need any database change.
64 Notes: Kern: see if we can correct restoration of directories if
65 replace=ifnewer is set. Currently, if the directory does not
66 exist, a "dummy" directory is created, then when all the files
67 are updated, the dummy directory is newer so the real values
70 Item 2: Allow FD to initiate a backup
71 Origin: Frank Volf (frank at deze dot org)
72 Date: 17 November 2005
75 What: Provide some means, possibly by a restricted console that
76 allows a FD to initiate a backup, and that uses the connection
77 established by the FD to the Director for the backup so that
78 a Director that is firewalled can do the backup.
80 Why: Makes backup of laptops much easier.
83 Item 3: Merge multiple backups (Synthetic Backup or Consolidation)
84 Origin: Marc Cousin and Eric Bollengier
85 Date: 15 November 2005
88 What: A merged backup is a backup made without connecting to the Client.
89 It would be a Merge of existing backups into a single backup.
90 In effect, it is like a restore but to the backup medium.
92 For instance, say that last Sunday we made a full backup. Then
93 all week long, we created incremental backups, in order to do
94 them fast. Now comes Sunday again, and we need another full.
95 The merged backup makes it possible to do instead an incremental
96 backup (during the night for instance), and then create a merged
97 backup during the day, by using the full and incrementals from
98 the week. The merged backup will be exactly like a full made
99 Sunday night on the tape, but the production interruption on the
100 Client will be minimal, as the Client will only have to send
103 In fact, if it's done correctly, you could merge all the
104 Incrementals into single Incremental, or all the Incrementals
105 and the last Differential into a new Differential, or the Full,
106 last differential and all the Incrementals into a new Full
107 backup. And there is no need to involve the Client.
109 Why: The benefit is that :
110 - the Client just does an incremental ;
111 - the merged backup on tape is just as a single full backup,
112 and can be restored very fast.
114 This is also a way of reducing the backup data since the old
115 data can then be pruned (or not) from the catalog, possibly
116 allowing older volumes to be recycled
118 Item 4: Implement Catalog directive for Pool resource in Director
119 Origin: Alan Davis adavis@ruckus.com
123 What: The current behavior is for the director to create all pools
124 found in the configuration file in all catalogs. Add a
125 Catalog directive to the Pool resource to specify which
126 catalog to use for each pool definition.
128 Why: This allows different catalogs to have different pool
129 attributes and eliminates the side-effect of adding
130 pools to catalogs that don't need/use them.
132 Notes: Kern: I think this is relatively easy to do, and it is really
133 a pre-requisite to a number of the Copy pool, ... projects
134 that are listed here.
136 Item 5: Add an item to the restore option where you can select a Pool
137 Origin: kshatriyak at gmail dot com
141 What: In the restore option (Select the most recent backup for a
142 client) it would be useful to add an option where you can limit
143 the selection to a certain pool.
145 Why: When using cloned jobs, most of the time you have 2 pools - a
146 disk pool and a tape pool. People who have 2 pools would like to
147 select the most recent backup from disk, not from tape (tape
148 would be only needed in emergency). However, the most recent
149 backup (which may just differ a second from the disk backup) may
150 be on tape and would be selected. The problem becomes bigger if
151 you have a full and differential - the most "recent" full backup
152 may be on disk, while the most recent differential may be on tape
153 (though the differential on disk may differ even only a second or
154 so). Bacula will complain that the backups reside on different
155 media then. For now the only solution now when restoring things
156 when you have 2 pools is to manually search for the right
157 job-id's and enter them by hand, which is a bit fault tolerant.
159 Notes: Kern: This is a nice idea. It could also be the way to support
160 Jobs that have been Copied (similar to migration, but not yet
165 Item 6: Deletion of disk Volumes when pruned
167 Origin: Ross Boylan <RossBoylan at stanfordalumni dot org> (edited
171 What: Provide a way for Bacula to automatically remove Volumes
172 from the filesystem, or optionally to truncate them.
173 Obviously, the Volume must be pruned prior removal.
175 Why: This would allow users more control over their Volumes and
176 prevent disk based volumes from consuming too much space.
178 Notes: The following two directives might do the trick:
180 Volume Data Retention = <time period>
181 Remove Volume After = <time period>
183 The migration project should also remove a Volume that is
184 migrated. This might also work for tape Volumes.
186 Item 7: Implement Base jobs
187 Date: 28 October 2005
191 What: A base job is sort of like a Full save except that you
192 will want the FileSet to contain only files that are
193 unlikely to change in the future (i.e. a snapshot of
194 most of your system after installing it). After the
195 base job has been run, when you are doing a Full save,
196 you specify one or more Base jobs to be used. All
197 files that have been backed up in the Base job/jobs but
198 not modified will then be excluded from the backup.
199 During a restore, the Base jobs will be automatically
200 pulled in where necessary.
202 Why: This is something none of the competition does, as far as
203 we know (except perhaps BackupPC, which is a Perl program that
204 saves to disk only). It is big win for the user, it
205 makes Bacula stand out as offering a unique
206 optimization that immediately saves time and money.
207 Basically, imagine that you have 100 nearly identical
208 Windows or Linux machine containing the OS and user
209 files. Now for the OS part, a Base job will be backed
210 up once, and rather than making 100 copies of the OS,
211 there will be only one. If one or more of the systems
212 have some files updated, no problem, they will be
213 automatically restored.
215 Notes: Huge savings in tape usage even for a single machine.
216 Will require more resources because the DIR must send
217 FD a list of files/attribs, and the FD must search the
218 list and compare it for each file to be saved.
221 Item 8: Implement Copy pools
222 Date: 27 November 2005
223 Origin: David Boyes (dboyes at sinenomine dot net)
226 What: I would like Bacula to have the capability to write copies
227 of backed-up data on multiple physical volumes selected
228 from different pools without transferring the data
229 multiple times, and to accept any of the copy volumes
230 as valid for restore.
232 Why: In many cases, businesses are required to keep offsite
233 copies of backup volumes, or just wish for simple
234 protection against a human operator dropping a storage
235 volume and damaging it. The ability to generate multiple
236 volumes in the course of a single backup job allows
237 customers to simple check out one copy and send it
238 offsite, marking it as out of changer or otherwise
239 unavailable. Currently, the library and magazine
240 management capability in Bacula does not make this process
243 Restores would use the copy of the data on the first
244 available volume, in order of Copy pool chain definition.
246 This is also a major scalability issue -- as the number of
247 clients increases beyond several thousand, and the volume
248 of data increases, transferring the data multiple times to
249 produce additional copies of the backups will become
250 physically impossible due to transfer speed
251 issues. Generating multiple copies at server side will
252 become the only practical option.
254 How: I suspect that this will require adding a multiplexing
255 SD that appears to be a SD to a specific FD, but 1-n FDs
256 to the specific back end SDs managing the primary and copy
257 pools. Storage pools will also need to acquire parameters
258 to define the pools to be used for copies.
260 Notes: I would commit some of my developers' time if we can agree
261 on the design and behavior.
263 Notes: Additional notes from David:
264 I think there's two areas where new configuration would be needed.
266 1) Identify a "SD mux" SD (specify it in the config just like a normal
267 SD. The SD configuration would need something like a "Daemon Type =
268 Normal/Mux" keyword to identify it as a multiplexor. (The director code
269 would need modification to add the ability to do the multiple session
270 setup, but the impact of the change would be new code that was invoked
271 only when a SDmux is needed).
273 2) Additional keywords in the Pool definition to identify the need to
274 create copies. Each pool would acquire a Copypool= attribute (may be
275 repeated to generate more than one copy. 3 is about the practical limit,
276 but no point in hardcoding that).
283 Copypool = OffsiteCopy2
286 where Copy1 and OffsiteCopy2 are valid pools.
288 In terms of function (shorthand):
289 Backup job X is defined normally, specifying pool Primary as the pool to
290 use. Job gets scheduled, and Bacula starts scheduling resources.
291 Scheduler looks at pool definition for Primary, sees that there are a
292 non-zero number of copypool keywords. The director then connects to an
293 available SDmux, passes it the pool ids for Primary, Copy1, and
294 OffsiteCopy2 and waits. SDmux then goes out and reserves devices and
295 volumes in the normal SDs that serve Primary, Copy1 and OffsiteCopy2.
296 When all are ready, the SDmux signals ready back to the director, and
297 the FD is given the address of the SDmux as the SD to communicate with.
298 Backup proceeds normally, with the SDmux duplicating blocks to each
299 connected normal SD, and returning ready when all defined copies have
300 been written. At EOJ, FD shuts down connection with SDmux, which closes
301 down the normal SD connections and goes back to an idle state.
302 SDmux does not update database; normal SDs do (noting that file is
303 present on each volume it has been written to).
305 On restore, director looks for the volume containing the file in pool
306 Primary first, then Copy1, then OffsiteCopy2. If the volume holding the
307 file in pool Primary is missing or busy (being written in another job,
308 etc), or one of the volumes from the copypool list that have the file in
309 question is already mounted and ready for some reason, use it to do the
310 restore, else mount one of the copypool volumes and proceed.
313 Item 9: Scheduling syntax that permits more flexibility and options
314 Date: 15 December 2006
315 Origin: Gregory Brauer (greg at wildbrain dot com) and
316 Florian Schnabel <florian.schnabel at docufy dot de>
319 What: Currently, Bacula only understands how to deal with weeks of the
320 month or weeks of the year in schedules. This makes it impossible
321 to do a true weekly rotation of tapes. There will always be a
322 discontinuity that will require disruptive manual intervention at
323 least monthly or yearly because week boundaries never align with
324 month or year boundaries.
326 A solution would be to add a new syntax that defines (at least)
327 a start timestamp, and repetition period.
329 An easy option to skip a certain job on a certain date.
332 Why: Rotated backups done at weekly intervals are useful, and Bacula
333 cannot currently do them without extensive hacking.
335 You could then easily skip tape backups on holidays. Especially
336 if you got no autochanger and can only fit one backup on a tape
337 that would be really handy, other jobs could proceed normally
338 and you won't get errors that way.
341 Notes: Here is an example syntax showing a 3-week rotation where full
342 Backups would be performed every week on Saturday, and an
343 incremental would be performed every week on Tuesday. Each
344 set of tapes could be removed from the loader for the following
345 two cycles before coming back and being reused on the third
346 week. Since the execution times are determined by intervals
347 from a given point in time, there will never be any issues with
348 having to adjust to any sort of arbitrary time boundary. In
349 the example provided, I even define the starting schedule
350 as crossing both a year and a month boundary, but the run times
351 would be based on the "Repeat" value and would therefore happen
356 Name = "Week 1 Rotation"
357 #Saturday. Would run Dec 30, Jan 20, Feb 10, etc.
361 Start = 2006-12-30 01:00
365 #Tuesday. Would run Jan 2, Jan 23, Feb 13, etc.
369 Start = 2007-01-02 01:00
376 Name = "Week 2 Rotation"
377 #Saturday. Would run Jan 6, Jan 27, Feb 17, etc.
381 Start = 2007-01-06 01:00
385 #Tuesday. Would run Jan 9, Jan 30, Feb 20, etc.
389 Start = 2007-01-09 01:00
396 Name = "Week 3 Rotation"
397 #Saturday. Would run Jan 13, Feb 3, Feb 24, etc.
401 Start = 2007-01-13 01:00
405 #Tuesday. Would run Jan 16, Feb 6, Feb 27, etc.
409 Start = 2007-01-16 01:00
415 Notes: Kern: I have merged the previously separate project of skipping
416 jobs (via Schedule syntax) into this.
419 Item 10: Message mailing based on backup types
420 Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
421 Date: January 6, 2006
424 What: In the "Messages" resource definitions, allowing messages
425 to be mailed based on the type (backup, restore, etc.) and level
426 (full, differential, etc) of job that created the originating
429 Why: It would, for example, allow someone's boss to be emailed
430 automatically only when a Full Backup job runs, so he can
431 retrieve the tapes for offsite storage, even if the IT dept.
432 doesn't (or can't) explicitly notify him. At the same time, his
433 mailbox wouldnt be filled by notifications of Verifies, Restores,
434 or Incremental/Differential Backups (which would likely be kept
437 Notes: One way this could be done is through additional message types, for example:
440 # email the boss only on full system backups
441 Mail = boss@mycompany.com = full, !incremental, !differential, !restore,
443 # email us only when something breaks
444 MailOnError = itdept@mycompany.com = all
447 Notes: Kern: This should be rather trivial to implement.
450 Item 11: Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
451 Origin: Bill Moran <wmoran@collaborativefusion.com>
454 What: Cause Bacula daemons (dir, fd, sd) to always use the ip address
455 specified in the [DIR|DF|SD]Addr directive as the source IP
456 for initiating communication.
457 Why: On complex networks, as well as extremely secure networks, it's
458 not unusual to have multiple possible routes through the network.
459 Often, each of these routes is secured by different policies
460 (effectively, firewalls allow or deny different traffic depending
461 on the source address)
462 Unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult or impossible to
463 represent this in a system routing table, as the result is
464 excessive subnetting that quickly exhausts available IP space.
465 The best available workaround is to provide multiple IPs to
466 a single machine that are all on the same subnet. In order
467 for this to work properly, applications must support the ability
468 to bind outgoing connections to a specified address, otherwise
469 the operating system will always choose the first IP that
470 matches the required route.
471 Notes: Many other programs support this. For example, the following
472 can be configured in BIND:
473 query-source address 10.0.0.1;
474 transfer-source 10.0.0.2;
475 Which means queries from this server will always come from
476 10.0.0.1 and zone transfers will always originate from
480 Item 12: Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
481 Date: 28 October 2005
483 Status: Partially coded in 1.37 -- much more to do.
485 What: Allow users to specify wild-card and/or regular
486 expressions to be matched in both the Include and
487 Exclude directives in a FileSet. At the same time,
488 allow users to define plug-ins to be called (based on
489 regular expression/wild-card matching).
491 Why: This would give the users the ultimate ability to control
492 how files are backed up/restored. A user could write a
493 plug-in knows how to backup his Oracle database without
494 stopping/starting it, for example.
497 Item 13: Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
498 Origin: Eric Bollengier
502 What: The goal of this project is to be able to restore only rights
503 and attributes of files without crushing them.
505 Why: Who have never had to repair a chmod -R 777, or a wild update
506 of recursive right under Windows? At this time, you must have
507 enough space to restore data, dump attributes (easy with acl,
508 more complex with unix/windows rights) and apply them to your
509 broken tree. With this options, it will be very easy to compare
510 right or ACL over the time.
512 Notes: If the file is here, we skip restore and we change rights.
513 If the file isn't here, we can create an empty one and apply
514 rights or do nothing.
518 Item 14: Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types
520 Origin: Chad Slater <chad.slater@clickfox.com>
523 What: Adding a FullStorage=BigTapeLibrary in the Schedule resource
524 would help those of us who use different storage devices for different
525 backup levels cope with the "auto-upgrade" of a backup.
527 Why: Assume I add several new devices to be backed up, i.e. several
528 hosts with 1TB RAID. To avoid tape switching hassles, incrementals are
529 stored in a disk set on a 2TB RAID. If you add these devices in the
530 middle of the month, the incrementals are upgraded to "full" backups,
531 but they try to use the same storage device as requested in the
532 incremental job, filling up the RAID holding the differentials. If we
533 could override the Storage parameter for full and/or differential
534 backups, then the Full job would use the proper Storage device, which
535 has more capacity (i.e. a 8TB tape library.
538 Item 15: Implement more Python events and functions
539 Date: 28 October 2005
543 What: Allow Python scripts to be called at more places
544 within Bacula and provide additional access to Bacula
547 Implement an interface for Python scripts to access the
548 catalog through Bacula.
550 Why: This will permit users to customize Bacula through
558 Also add a way to get a listing of currently running
559 jobs (possibly also scheduled jobs).
562 to start the appropriate job.
565 Item 16: Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
566 Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
567 Date: January 11, 2006
570 What: In the vein of the Wild and Regex directives in a Fileset's
571 Options, it would be helpful to allow a user to include or exclude
572 files and directories by creation or modification times.
574 You could factor the Exclude=yes|no option in much the same way it
575 affects the Wild and Regex directives. For example, you could exclude
576 all files modified before a certain date:
580 Modified Before = ####
583 Or you could exclude all files created/modified since a certain date:
587 Created Modified Since = ####
590 The format of the time/date could be done several ways, say the number
591 of seconds since the epoch:
592 1137008553 = Jan 11 2006, 1:42:33PM # result of `date +%s`
594 Or a human readable date in a cryptic form:
595 20060111134233 = Jan 11 2006, 1:42:33PM # YYYYMMDDhhmmss
597 Why: I imagine a feature like this could have many uses. It would
598 allow a user to do a full backup while excluding the base operating
599 system files, so if I installed a Linux snapshot from a CD yesterday,
600 I'll *exclude* all files modified *before* today. If I need to
601 recover the system, I use the CD I already have, plus the tape backup.
602 Or if, say, a Windows client is hit by a particularly corrosive
603 virus, and I need to *exclude* any files created/modified *since* the
606 Notes: Of course, this feature would work in concert with other
607 in/exclude rules, and wouldnt override them (or each other).
609 Notes: The directives I'd imagine would be along the lines of
610 "[Created] [Modified] [Before|Since] = <date>".
611 So one could compare against 'ctime' and/or 'mtime', but ONLY 'before'
615 Item 17: Automatic promotion of backup levels based on backup size
616 Date: 19 January 2006
617 Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
620 What: Amanda has a feature whereby it estimates the space that a
621 differential, incremental, and full backup would take. If the
622 difference in space required between the scheduled level and the next
623 level up is beneath some user-defined critical threshold, the backup
624 level is bumped to the next type. Doing this minimizes the number of
625 volumes necessary during a restore, with a fairly minimal cost in
628 Why: I know at least one (quite sophisticated and smart) user
629 for whom the absence of this feature is a deal-breaker in terms of
630 using Bacula; if we had it it would eliminate the one cool thing
631 Amanda can do and we can't (at least, the one cool thing I know of).
634 Item 18: Better control over Job execution
639 What: Bacula needs a few extra features for better Job execution:
640 1. A way to prevent multiple Jobs of the same name from
641 being scheduled at the same time (ususally happens when
642 a job is missed because a client is down).
643 2. Directives that permit easier upgrading of Job types
644 based on a period of time. I.e. "do a Full at least
645 once every 2 weeks", or "do a differential at least
646 once a week". If a lower level job is scheduled when
647 it begins to run it will be upgraded depending on
648 the specified criteria.
653 Item 19: Automatic disabling of devices
655 Origin: Peter Eriksson <peter at ifm.liu dot se>
658 What: After a configurable amount of fatal errors with a tape drive
659 Bacula should automatically disable further use of a certain
660 tape drive. There should also be "disable"/"enable" commands in
663 Why: On a multi-drive jukebox there is a possibility of tape drives
664 going bad during large backups (needing a cleaning tape run,
665 tapes getting stuck). It would be advantageous if Bacula would
666 automatically disable further use of a problematic tape drive
667 after a configurable amount of errors has occurred.
669 An example: I have a multi-drive jukebox (6 drives, 380+ slots)
670 where tapes occasionally get stuck inside the drive. Bacula will
671 notice that the "mtx-changer" command will fail and then fail
672 any backup jobs trying to use that drive. However, it will still
673 keep on trying to run new jobs using that drive and fail -
674 forever, and thus failing lots and lots of jobs... Since we have
675 many drives Bacula could have just automatically disabled
676 further use of that drive and used one of the other ones
679 Item 20: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
680 Origin: Dmitriy Pinchukov <absh@bossdev.kiev.ua>
684 What: When I do update -> Volume parameters -> All Volumes
685 from Pool, then I have to select pools one by one. I'd like
686 console to have an option like "0: All Pools" in the list of
689 Why: I have many pools and therefore unhappy with manually
690 updating each of them using update -> Volume parameters -> All
691 Volumes from Pool -> pool #.
694 Item 21: Include timestamp of job launch in "stat clients" output
695 Origin: Mark Bergman <mark.bergman@uphs.upenn.edu>
696 Date: Tue Aug 22 17:13:39 EDT 2006
699 What: The "stat clients" command doesn't include any detail on when
700 the active backup jobs were launched.
702 Why: Including the timestamp would make it much easier to decide whether
703 a job is running properly.
705 Notes: It may be helpful to have the output from "stat clients" formatted
706 more like that from "stat dir" (and other commands), in a column
707 format. The per-client information that's currently shown (level,
708 client name, JobId, Volume, pool, device, Files, etc.) is good, but
709 somewhat hard to parse (both programmatically and visually),
710 particularly when there are many active clients.
714 Item 22: Implement Storage daemon compression
715 Date: 18 December 2006
716 Origin: Vadim A. Umanski , e-mail umanski@ext.ru
718 What: The ability to compress backup data on the SD receiving data
719 instead of doing that on client sending data.
720 Why: The need is practical. I've got some machines that can send
721 data to the network 4 or 5 times faster than compressing
722 them (I've measured that). They're using fast enough SCSI/FC
723 disk subsystems but rather slow CPUs (ex. UltraSPARC II).
724 And the backup server has got a quite fast CPUs (ex. Dual P4
725 Xeons) and quite a low load. When you have 20, 50 or 100 GB
726 of raw data - running a job 4 to 5 times faster - that
727 really matters. On the other hand, the data can be
728 compressed 50% or better - so losing twice more space for
729 disk backup is not good at all. And the network is all mine
730 (I have a dedicated management/provisioning network) and I
731 can get as high bandwidth as I need - 100Mbps, 1000Mbps...
732 That's why the server-side compression feature is needed!
735 Item 23: Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management
736 Date: 8 November 2005, November 11, 2005
737 Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton at sinenomine dot net>,
738 Arno Lehmann <al at its-lehmann dot de>
741 What: Make Bacula manage tape life cycle information, tape reuse
742 times and drive cleaning cycles.
744 Why: All three parts of this project are important when operating
746 We need to know which tapes need replacement, and we need to
747 make sure the drives are cleaned when necessary. While many
748 tape libraries and even autoloaders can handle all this
749 automatically, support by Bacula can be helpful for smaller
750 (older) libraries and single drives. Limiting the number of
751 times a tape is used might prevent tape errors when using
752 tapes until the drives can't read it any more. Also, checking
753 drive status during operation can prevent some failures (as I
754 [Arno] had to learn the hard way...)
756 Notes: First, Bacula could (and even does, to some limited extent)
757 record tape and drive usage. For tapes, the number of mounts,
758 the amount of data, and the time the tape has actually been
759 running could be recorded. Data fields for Read and Write
760 time and Number of mounts already exist in the catalog (I'm
761 not sure if VolBytes is the sum of all bytes ever written to
762 that volume by Bacula). This information can be important
763 when determining which media to replace. The ability to mark
764 Volumes as "used up" after a given number of write cycles
765 should also be implemented so that a tape is never actually
766 worn out. For the tape drives known to Bacula, similar
767 information is interesting to determine the device status and
768 expected life time: Time it's been Reading and Writing, number
769 of tape Loads / Unloads / Errors. This information is not yet
770 recorded as far as I [Arno] know. A new volume status would
771 be necessary for the new state, like "Used up" or "Worn out".
772 Volumes with this state could be used for restores, but not
773 for writing. These volumes should be migrated first (assuming
774 migration is implemented) and, once they are no longer needed,
775 could be moved to a Trash pool.
777 The next step would be to implement a drive cleaning setup.
778 Bacula already has knowledge about cleaning tapes. Once it
779 has some information about cleaning cycles (measured in drive
780 run time, number of tapes used, or calender days, for example)
781 it can automatically execute tape cleaning (with an
782 autochanger, obviously) or ask for operator assistance loading
785 The final step would be to implement TAPEALERT checks not only
786 when changing tapes and only sending the information to the
787 administrator, but rather checking after each tape error,
788 checking on a regular basis (for example after each tape
789 file), and also before unloading and after loading a new tape.
790 Then, depending on the drives TAPEALERT state and the known
791 drive cleaning state Bacula could automatically schedule later
792 cleaning, clean immediately, or inform the operator.
794 Implementing this would perhaps require another catalog change
795 and perhaps major changes in SD code and the DIR-SD protocol,
796 so I'd only consider this worth implementing if it would
797 actually be used or even needed by many people.
799 Implementation of these projects could happen in three distinct
800 sub-projects: Measuring Tape and Drive usage, retiring
801 volumes, and handling drive cleaning and TAPEALERTs.
803 Item 24: Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
804 Date: 27 November 2005
805 Origin: Ove Risberg (Ove.Risberg at octocode dot com)
808 What: I want the file daemon to start multiple threads for a backup
809 job so the fastest possible backup can be made.
811 The file daemon could parse the FileSet information and start
812 one thread for each File entry located on a separate
815 A confiuration option in the job section should be used to
816 enable or disable this feature. The confgutration option could
817 specify the maximum number of threads in the file daemon.
819 If the theads could spool the data to separate spool files
820 the restore process will not be much slower.
822 Why: Multiple concurrent backups of a large fileserver with many
823 disks and controllers will be much faster.
825 Item 25: Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
827 Origin: Ray Pengelly [ray at biomed dot queensu dot ca
830 What: The ability to archive data to storage based on certain parameters
831 such as age, size, or location. Once the data has been written to
832 storage and logged it is then pruned from the originating
833 filesystem. Note! We are talking about user's files and not
836 Why: This would allow fully automatic storage management which becomes
837 useful for large datastores. It would also allow for auto-staging
838 from one media type to another.
840 Example 1) Medical imaging needs to store large amounts of data.
841 They decide to keep data on their servers for 6 months and then put
842 it away for long term storage. The server then finds all files
843 older than 6 months writes them to tape. The files are then removed
846 Example 2) All data that hasn't been accessed in 2 months could be
847 moved from high-cost, fibre-channel disk storage to a low-cost
848 large-capacity SATA disk storage pool which doesn't have as quick of
849 access time. Then after another 6 months (or possibly as one
850 storage pool gets full) data is migrated to Tape.
855 ========== Items on put hold by Kern ============================
857 Item h1: Split documentation
858 Origin: Maxx <maxxatworkat gmail dot com>
860 Status: Approved, awaiting implementation
862 What: Split documentation in several books
864 Why: Bacula manual has now more than 600 pages, and looking for
865 implementation details is getting complicated. I think
866 it would be good to split the single volume in two or
869 1) Introduction, requirements and tutorial, typically
870 are useful only until first installation time
872 2) Basic installation and configuration, with all the
873 gory details about the directives supported 3)
874 Advanced Bacula: testing, troubleshooting, GUI and
875 ancillary programs, security managements, scripting,
878 Notes: This is a project that needs to be done, and will be implemented,
879 but it is really a developer issue of timing, and does not
880 needed to be included in the voting.
883 Item h2: Implement support for stacking arbitrary stream filters, sinks.
884 Date: 23 November 2006
885 Origin: Landon Fuller <landonf@threerings.net>
886 Status: Planning. Assigned to landonf.
888 What: Implement support for the following:
889 - Stacking arbitrary stream filters (eg, encryption, compression,
890 sparse data handling))
891 - Attaching file sinks to terminate stream filters (ie, write out
892 the resultant data to a file)
893 - Refactor the restoration state machine accordingly
895 Why: The existing stream implementation suffers from the following:
896 - All state (compression, encryption, stream restoration), is
897 global across the entire restore process, for all streams. There are
898 multiple entry and exit points in the restoration state machine, and
899 thus multiple places where state must be allocated, deallocated,
900 initialized, or reinitialized. This results in exceptional complexity
901 for the author of a stream filter.
902 - The developer must enumerate all possible combinations of filters
903 and stream types (ie, win32 data with encryption, without encryption,
904 with encryption AND compression, etc).
906 Notes: This feature request only covers implementing the stream filters/
907 sinks, and refactoring the file daemon's restoration implementation
908 accordingly. If I have extra time, I will also rewrite the backup
909 implementation. My intent in implementing the restoration first is to
910 solve pressing bugs in the restoration handling, and to ensure that
911 the new restore implementation handles existing backups correctly.
913 I do not plan on changing the network or tape data structures to
914 support defining arbitrary stream filters, but supporting that
915 functionality is the ultimate goal.
917 Assistance with either code or testing would be fantastic.
919 Notes: Kern: this project has a lot of merit, and we need to do it, but
920 it is really an issue for developers rather than a new feature
921 for users, so I have removed it from the voting list, but kept it
922 here, but at some point, it will be implemented.
924 Item h3: Filesystem watch triggered backup.
926 Origin: Jesper Krogh <jesper@krogh.cc>
929 What: With inotify and similar filesystem triggeret notification
930 systems is it possible to have the file-daemon to monitor
931 filesystem changes and initiate backup.
933 Why: There are 2 situations where this is nice to have.
934 1) It is possible to get a much finer-grained backup than
935 the fixed schedules used now.. A file created and deleted
936 a few hours later, can automatically be caught.
938 2) The introduced load on the system will probably be
939 distributed more even on the system.
941 Notes: This can be combined with configration that specifies
942 something like: "at most every 15 minutes or when changes
945 Kern Notes: I would rather see this implemented by an external program
946 that monitors the Filesystem changes, then uses the console
949 Item h4: Directive/mode to backup only file changes, not entire file
950 Date: 11 November 2005
951 Origin: Joshua Kugler <joshua dot kugler at uaf dot edu>
952 Marek Bajon <mbajon at bimsplus dot com dot pl>
955 What: Currently when a file changes, the entire file will be backed up in
956 the next incremental or full backup. To save space on the tapes
957 it would be nice to have a mode whereby only the changes to the
958 file would be backed up when it is changed.
960 Why: This would save lots of space when backing up large files such as
961 logs, mbox files, Outlook PST files and the like.
963 Notes: This would require the usage of disk-based volumes as comparing
964 files would not be feasible using a tape drive.
966 Notes: Kern: I don't know how to implement this. Put on hold until someone
967 provides a detailed implementation plan.
970 Item h5: Implement multiple numeric backup levels as supported by dump
972 Origin: Daniel Rich <drich@employees.org>
974 What: Dump allows specification of backup levels numerically instead of just
975 "full", "incr", and "diff". In this system, at any given level, all
976 files are backed up that were were modified since the last backup of a
977 higher level (with 0 being the highest and 9 being the lowest). A
978 level 0 is therefore equivalent to a full, level 9 an incremental, and
979 the levels 1 through 8 are varying levels of differentials. For
980 bacula's sake, these could be represented as "full", "incr", and
981 "diff1", "diff2", etc.
983 Why: Support of multiple backup levels would provide for more advanced backup
984 rotation schemes such as "Towers of Hanoi". This would allow better
985 flexibility in performing backups, and can lead to shorter recover
988 Notes: Legato Networker supports a similar system with full, incr, and 1-9 as
991 Notes: Kern: I don't see the utility of this, and it would be a *huge*
992 modification to existing code.
994 Item h6: Implement NDMP protocol support
999 What: Network Data Management Protocol is implemented by a number of
1000 NAS filer vendors to enable backups using third-party
1003 Why: This would allow NAS filer backups in Bacula without incurring
1004 the overhead of NFS or SBM/CIFS.
1006 Notes: Further information is available:
1008 http://www.ndmp.org/wp/wp.shtml
1009 http://www.traakan.com/ndmjob/index.html
1011 There are currently no viable open-source NDMP
1012 implementations. There is a reference SDK and example
1013 app available from ndmp.org but it has problems
1014 compiling on recent Linux and Solaris OS'. The ndmjob
1015 reference implementation from Traakan is known to
1016 compile on Solaris 10.
1018 Notes: Kern: I am not at all in favor of this until NDMP becomes
1019 an Open Standard or until there are Open Source libraries
1020 that interface to it.
1022 Item h7: Commercial database support
1023 Origin: Russell Howe <russell_howe dot wreckage dot org>
1027 What: It would be nice for the database backend to support more
1028 databases. I'm thinking of SQL Server at the moment, but I guess Oracle,
1029 DB2, MaxDB, etc are all candidates. SQL Server would presumably be
1030 implemented using FreeTDS or maybe an ODBC library?
1032 Why: We only really have one database server, which is MS SQL Server
1033 2000. Maintaining a second one for the backup software (we grew out of
1034 SQLite, which I liked, but which didn't work so well with our database
1035 size). We don't really have a machine with the resources to run
1036 postgres, and would rather only maintain a single DBMS. We're stuck with
1037 SQL Server because pretty much all the company's custom applications
1038 (written by consultants) are locked into SQL Server 2000. I can imagine
1039 this scenario is fairly common, and it would be nice to use the existing
1040 properly specced database server for storing Bacula's catalog, rather
1041 than having to run a second DBMS.
1043 Notes: This might be nice, but someone other than me will probably need to
1044 implement it, and at the moment, proprietary code cannot legally be
1045 mixed with Bacula GPLed code. This would be possible only providing
1046 the vendors provide GPLed (or OpenSource) interface code.
1048 Item h8: Incorporation of XACML2/SAML2 parsing
1049 Date: 19 January 2006
1050 Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
1053 What: XACML is "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language" and
1054 "SAML is the "Security Assertion Markup Language"--an XML standard
1055 for making statements about identity and authorization. Having these
1056 would give us a framework to approach ACLs in a generic manner, and
1057 in a way flexible enough to support the four major sorts of ACLs I
1058 see as a concern to Bacula at this point, as well as (probably) to
1059 deal with new sorts of ACLs that may appear in the future.
1061 Why: Bacula is beginning to need to back up systems with ACLs
1062 that do not map cleanly onto traditional Unix permissions. I see
1063 four sets of ACLs--in general, mutually incompatible with one
1064 another--that we're going to need to deal with. These are: NTFS
1065 ACLs, POSIX ACLs, NFSv4 ACLS, and AFS ACLS. (Some may question the
1066 relevance of AFS; AFS is one of Sine Nomine's core consulting
1067 businesses, and having a reputable file-level backup and restore
1068 technology for it (as Tivoli is probably going to drop AFS support
1069 soon since IBM no longer supports AFS) would be of huge benefit to
1070 our customers; we'd most likely create the AFS support at Sine Nomine
1071 for inclusion into the Bacula (and perhaps some changes to the
1072 OpenAFS volserver) core code.)
1074 Now, obviously, Bacula already handles NTFS just fine. However, I
1075 think there's a lot of value in implementing a generic ACL model, so
1076 that it's easy to support whatever particular instances of ACLs come
1077 down the pike: POSIX ACLS (think SELinux) and NFSv4 are the obvious
1078 things arriving in the Linux world in a big way in the near future.
1079 XACML, although overcomplicated for our needs, provides this
1080 framework, and we should be able to leverage other people's
1081 implementations to minimize the amount of work *we* have to do to get
1082 a generic ACL framework. Basically, the costs of implementation are
1083 high, but they're largely both external to Bacula and already sunk.
1085 Notes: As you indicate this is a bit of "blue sky" or in other words,
1086 at the moment, it is a bit esoteric to consider for Bacula.
1088 Item h9: Archive data
1090 Origin: calvin streeting calvin at absentdream dot com
1093 What: The abilty to archive to media (dvd/cd) in a uncompressed format
1094 for dead filing (archiving not backing up)
1096 Why: At work when jobs are finished and moved off of the main file
1097 servers (raid based systems) onto a simple Linux file server (ide based
1098 system) so users can find old information without contacting the IT
1101 So this data dosn't realy change it only gets added to,
1102 But it also needs backing up. At the moment it takes
1103 about 8 hours to back up our servers (working data) so
1104 rather than add more time to existing backups i am trying
1105 to implement a system where we backup the acrhive data to
1106 cd/dvd these disks would only need to be appended to
1107 (burn only new/changed files to new disks for off site
1108 storage). basialy understand the differnce between
1109 achive data and live data.
1111 Notes: Scan the data and email me when it needs burning divide
1112 into predefined chunks keep a recored of what is on what
1113 disk make me a label (simple php->mysql=>pdf stuff) i
1114 could do this bit ability to save data uncompresed so
1115 it can be read in any other system (future proof data)
1116 save the catalog with the disk as some kind of menu
1119 Notes: Kern: I don't understand this item, and in any case, if it
1120 is specific to DVD/CDs, which we do not recommend using,
1121 it is unlikely to be implemented except as a user
1125 Item h10: Clustered file-daemons
1126 Origin: Alan Brown ajb2 at mssl dot ucl dot ac dot uk
1129 What: A "virtual" filedaemon, which is actually a cluster of real ones.
1131 Why: In the case of clustered filesystems (SAN setups, GFS, or OCFS2, etc)
1132 multiple machines may have access to the same set of filesystems
1134 For performance reasons, one may wish to initate backups from
1135 several of these machines simultaneously, instead of just using
1136 one backup source for the common clustered filesystem.
1138 For obvious reasons, normally backups of $A-FD/$PATH and
1139 B-FD/$PATH are treated as different backup sets. In this case
1140 they are the same communal set.
1142 Likewise when restoring, it would be easier to just specify
1143 one of the cluster machines and let bacula decide which to use.
1145 This can be faked to some extent using DNS round robin entries
1146 and a virtual IP address, however it means "status client" will
1147 always give bogus answers. Additionally there is no way of
1148 spreading the load evenly among the servers.
1150 What is required is something similar to the storage daemon
1151 autochanger directives, so that Bacula can keep track of
1152 operating backups/restores and direct new jobs to a "free"
1155 Notes: Kern: I don't understand the request enough to be able to
1156 implement it. A lot more design detail should be presented
1157 before voting on this project.
1160 ========== Already implemented ================================
1162 Item n: make changing "spooldata=yes|no" possible for
1163 manual/interactive jobs
1164 Origin: Marc Schiffbauer <marc@schiffbauer.net>
1165 Date: 12 April 2007)
1166 Status: Already implemented by Eric
1168 What: Make it possible to modify the spooldata option
1169 for a job when being run from within the console.
1170 Currently it is possible to modify the backup level
1171 and the spooldata setting in a Schedule resource.
1172 It is also possible to modify the backup level when using
1173 the "run" command in the console.
1174 But it is currently not possible to to the same
1175 with "spooldata=yes|no" like:
1177 run job=MyJob level=incremental spooldata=yes
1179 Why: In some situations it would be handy to be able to switch
1180 spooldata on or off for interactive/manual jobs based on
1181 which data the admin expects or how fast the LAN/WAN
1182 connection currently is.
1186 ============= Empty Feature Request form ===========
1187 Item n: One line summary ...
1188 Date: Date submitted
1189 Origin: Name and email of originator.
1192 What: More detailed explanation ...
1194 Why: Why it is important ...
1196 Notes: Additional notes or features (omit if not used)
1197 ============== End Feature Request form ==============