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: I get the idea, but would like more details on the precise
264 syntax of the necessary directives and what they would do.
267 Item 9: Scheduling syntax that permits more flexibility and options
268 Date: 15 December 2006
269 Origin: Gregory Brauer (greg at wildbrain dot com) and
270 Florian Schnabel <florian.schnabel at docufy dot de>
273 What: Currently, Bacula only understands how to deal with weeks of the
274 month or weeks of the year in schedules. This makes it impossible
275 to do a true weekly rotation of tapes. There will always be a
276 discontinuity that will require disruptive manual intervention at
277 least monthly or yearly because week boundaries never align with
278 month or year boundaries.
280 A solution would be to add a new syntax that defines (at least)
281 a start timestamp, and repetition period.
283 An easy option to skip a certain job on a certain date.
286 Why: Rotated backups done at weekly intervals are useful, and Bacula
287 cannot currently do them without extensive hacking.
289 You could then easily skip tape backups on holidays. Especially
290 if you got no autochanger and can only fit one backup on a tape
291 that would be really handy, other jobs could proceed normally
292 and you won't get errors that way.
295 Notes: Here is an example syntax showing a 3-week rotation where full
296 Backups would be performed every week on Saturday, and an
297 incremental would be performed every week on Tuesday. Each
298 set of tapes could be removed from the loader for the following
299 two cycles before coming back and being reused on the third
300 week. Since the execution times are determined by intervals
301 from a given point in time, there will never be any issues with
302 having to adjust to any sort of arbitrary time boundary. In
303 the example provided, I even define the starting schedule
304 as crossing both a year and a month boundary, but the run times
305 would be based on the "Repeat" value and would therefore happen
310 Name = "Week 1 Rotation"
311 #Saturday. Would run Dec 30, Jan 20, Feb 10, etc.
315 Start = 2006-12-30 01:00
319 #Tuesday. Would run Jan 2, Jan 23, Feb 13, etc.
323 Start = 2007-01-02 01:00
330 Name = "Week 2 Rotation"
331 #Saturday. Would run Jan 6, Jan 27, Feb 17, etc.
335 Start = 2007-01-06 01:00
339 #Tuesday. Would run Jan 9, Jan 30, Feb 20, etc.
343 Start = 2007-01-09 01:00
350 Name = "Week 3 Rotation"
351 #Saturday. Would run Jan 13, Feb 3, Feb 24, etc.
355 Start = 2007-01-13 01:00
359 #Tuesday. Would run Jan 16, Feb 6, Feb 27, etc.
363 Start = 2007-01-16 01:00
369 Notes: Kern: I have merged the previously separate project of skipping
370 jobs (via Schedule syntax) into this.
373 Item 10: Message mailing based on backup types
374 Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
375 Date: January 6, 2006
378 What: In the "Messages" resource definitions, allowing messages
379 to be mailed based on the type (backup, restore, etc.) and level
380 (full, differential, etc) of job that created the originating
383 Why: It would, for example, allow someone's boss to be emailed
384 automatically only when a Full Backup job runs, so he can
385 retrieve the tapes for offsite storage, even if the IT dept.
386 doesn't (or can't) explicitly notify him. At the same time, his
387 mailbox wouldnt be filled by notifications of Verifies, Restores,
388 or Incremental/Differential Backups (which would likely be kept
391 Notes: One way this could be done is through additional message types, for example:
394 # email the boss only on full system backups
395 Mail = boss@mycompany.com = full, !incremental, !differential, !restore,
397 # email us only when something breaks
398 MailOnError = itdept@mycompany.com = all
401 Notes: Kern: This should be rather trivial to implement.
404 Item 11: Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
405 Origin: Bill Moran <wmoran@collaborativefusion.com>
408 What: Cause Bacula daemons (dir, fd, sd) to always use the ip address
409 specified in the [DIR|DF|SD]Addr directive as the source IP
410 for initiating communication.
411 Why: On complex networks, as well as extremely secure networks, it's
412 not unusual to have multiple possible routes through the network.
413 Often, each of these routes is secured by different policies
414 (effectively, firewalls allow or deny different traffic depending
415 on the source address)
416 Unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult or impossible to
417 represent this in a system routing table, as the result is
418 excessive subnetting that quickly exhausts available IP space.
419 The best available workaround is to provide multiple IPs to
420 a single machine that are all on the same subnet. In order
421 for this to work properly, applications must support the ability
422 to bind outgoing connections to a specified address, otherwise
423 the operating system will always choose the first IP that
424 matches the required route.
425 Notes: Many other programs support this. For example, the following
426 can be configured in BIND:
427 query-source address 10.0.0.1;
428 transfer-source 10.0.0.2;
429 Which means queries from this server will always come from
430 10.0.0.1 and zone transfers will always originate from
434 Item 12: Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
435 Date: 28 October 2005
437 Status: Partially coded in 1.37 -- much more to do.
439 What: Allow users to specify wild-card and/or regular
440 expressions to be matched in both the Include and
441 Exclude directives in a FileSet. At the same time,
442 allow users to define plug-ins to be called (based on
443 regular expression/wild-card matching).
445 Why: This would give the users the ultimate ability to control
446 how files are backed up/restored. A user could write a
447 plug-in knows how to backup his Oracle database without
448 stopping/starting it, for example.
451 Item 13: Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
452 Origin: Eric Bollengier
456 What: The goal of this project is to be able to restore only rights
457 and attributes of files without crushing them.
459 Why: Who have never had to repair a chmod -R 777, or a wild update
460 of recursive right under Windows? At this time, you must have
461 enough space to restore data, dump attributes (easy with acl,
462 more complex with unix/windows rights) and apply them to your
463 broken tree. With this options, it will be very easy to compare
464 right or ACL over the time.
466 Notes: If the file is here, we skip restore and we change rights.
467 If the file isn't here, we can create an empty one and apply
468 rights or do nothing.
472 Item 14: Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types
474 Origin: Chad Slater <chad.slater@clickfox.com>
477 What: Adding a FullStorage=BigTapeLibrary in the Schedule resource
478 would help those of us who use different storage devices for different
479 backup levels cope with the "auto-upgrade" of a backup.
481 Why: Assume I add several new devices to be backed up, i.e. several
482 hosts with 1TB RAID. To avoid tape switching hassles, incrementals are
483 stored in a disk set on a 2TB RAID. If you add these devices in the
484 middle of the month, the incrementals are upgraded to "full" backups,
485 but they try to use the same storage device as requested in the
486 incremental job, filling up the RAID holding the differentials. If we
487 could override the Storage parameter for full and/or differential
488 backups, then the Full job would use the proper Storage device, which
489 has more capacity (i.e. a 8TB tape library.
492 Item 15: Implement more Python events and functions
493 Date: 28 October 2005
497 What: Allow Python scripts to be called at more places
498 within Bacula and provide additional access to Bacula
501 Implement an interface for Python scripts to access the
502 catalog through Bacula.
504 Why: This will permit users to customize Bacula through
512 Also add a way to get a listing of currently running
513 jobs (possibly also scheduled jobs).
516 to start the appropriate job.
519 Item 16: Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
520 Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
521 Date: January 11, 2006
524 What: In the vein of the Wild and Regex directives in a Fileset's
525 Options, it would be helpful to allow a user to include or exclude
526 files and directories by creation or modification times.
528 You could factor the Exclude=yes|no option in much the same way it
529 affects the Wild and Regex directives. For example, you could exclude
530 all files modified before a certain date:
534 Modified Before = ####
537 Or you could exclude all files created/modified since a certain date:
541 Created Modified Since = ####
544 The format of the time/date could be done several ways, say the number
545 of seconds since the epoch:
546 1137008553 = Jan 11 2006, 1:42:33PM # result of `date +%s`
548 Or a human readable date in a cryptic form:
549 20060111134233 = Jan 11 2006, 1:42:33PM # YYYYMMDDhhmmss
551 Why: I imagine a feature like this could have many uses. It would
552 allow a user to do a full backup while excluding the base operating
553 system files, so if I installed a Linux snapshot from a CD yesterday,
554 I'll *exclude* all files modified *before* today. If I need to
555 recover the system, I use the CD I already have, plus the tape backup.
556 Or if, say, a Windows client is hit by a particularly corrosive
557 virus, and I need to *exclude* any files created/modified *since* the
560 Notes: Of course, this feature would work in concert with other
561 in/exclude rules, and wouldnt override them (or each other).
563 Notes: The directives I'd imagine would be along the lines of
564 "[Created] [Modified] [Before|Since] = <date>".
565 So one could compare against 'ctime' and/or 'mtime', but ONLY 'before'
569 Item 17: Automatic promotion of backup levels based on backup size
570 Date: 19 January 2006
571 Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
574 What: Amanda has a feature whereby it estimates the space that a
575 differential, incremental, and full backup would take. If the
576 difference in space required between the scheduled level and the next
577 level up is beneath some user-defined critical threshold, the backup
578 level is bumped to the next type. Doing this minimizes the number of
579 volumes necessary during a restore, with a fairly minimal cost in
582 Why: I know at least one (quite sophisticated and smart) user
583 for whom the absence of this feature is a deal-breaker in terms of
584 using Bacula; if we had it it would eliminate the one cool thing
585 Amanda can do and we can't (at least, the one cool thing I know of).
588 Item 18: Better control over Job execution
593 What: Bacula needs a few extra features for better Job execution:
594 1. A way to prevent multiple Jobs of the same name from
595 being scheduled at the same time (ususally happens when
596 a job is missed because a client is down).
597 2. Directives that permit easier upgrading of Job types
598 based on a period of time. I.e. "do a Full at least
599 once every 2 weeks", or "do a differential at least
600 once a week". If a lower level job is scheduled when
601 it begins to run it will be upgraded depending on
602 the specified criteria.
607 Item 19: Automatic disabling of devices
609 Origin: Peter Eriksson <peter at ifm.liu dot se>
612 What: After a configurable amount of fatal errors with a tape drive
613 Bacula should automatically disable further use of a certain
614 tape drive. There should also be "disable"/"enable" commands in
617 Why: On a multi-drive jukebox there is a possibility of tape drives
618 going bad during large backups (needing a cleaning tape run,
619 tapes getting stuck). It would be advantageous if Bacula would
620 automatically disable further use of a problematic tape drive
621 after a configurable amount of errors has occurred.
623 An example: I have a multi-drive jukebox (6 drives, 380+ slots)
624 where tapes occasionally get stuck inside the drive. Bacula will
625 notice that the "mtx-changer" command will fail and then fail
626 any backup jobs trying to use that drive. However, it will still
627 keep on trying to run new jobs using that drive and fail -
628 forever, and thus failing lots and lots of jobs... Since we have
629 many drives Bacula could have just automatically disabled
630 further use of that drive and used one of the other ones
633 Item 20: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
634 Origin: Dmitriy Pinchukov <absh@bossdev.kiev.ua>
638 What: When I do update -> Volume parameters -> All Volumes
639 from Pool, then I have to select pools one by one. I'd like
640 console to have an option like "0: All Pools" in the list of
643 Why: I have many pools and therefore unhappy with manually
644 updating each of them using update -> Volume parameters -> All
645 Volumes from Pool -> pool #.
648 Item 21: Include timestamp of job launch in "stat clients" output
649 Origin: Mark Bergman <mark.bergman@uphs.upenn.edu>
650 Date: Tue Aug 22 17:13:39 EDT 2006
653 What: The "stat clients" command doesn't include any detail on when
654 the active backup jobs were launched.
656 Why: Including the timestamp would make it much easier to decide whether
657 a job is running properly.
659 Notes: It may be helpful to have the output from "stat clients" formatted
660 more like that from "stat dir" (and other commands), in a column
661 format. The per-client information that's currently shown (level,
662 client name, JobId, Volume, pool, device, Files, etc.) is good, but
663 somewhat hard to parse (both programmatically and visually),
664 particularly when there are many active clients.
668 Item 22: Implement Storage daemon compression
669 Date: 18 December 2006
670 Origin: Vadim A. Umanski , e-mail umanski@ext.ru
672 What: The ability to compress backup data on the SD receiving data
673 instead of doing that on client sending data.
674 Why: The need is practical. I've got some machines that can send
675 data to the network 4 or 5 times faster than compressing
676 them (I've measured that). They're using fast enough SCSI/FC
677 disk subsystems but rather slow CPUs (ex. UltraSPARC II).
678 And the backup server has got a quite fast CPUs (ex. Dual P4
679 Xeons) and quite a low load. When you have 20, 50 or 100 GB
680 of raw data - running a job 4 to 5 times faster - that
681 really matters. On the other hand, the data can be
682 compressed 50% or better - so losing twice more space for
683 disk backup is not good at all. And the network is all mine
684 (I have a dedicated management/provisioning network) and I
685 can get as high bandwidth as I need - 100Mbps, 1000Mbps...
686 That's why the server-side compression feature is needed!
689 Item 23: Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management
690 Date: 8 November 2005, November 11, 2005
691 Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton at sinenomine dot net>,
692 Arno Lehmann <al at its-lehmann dot de>
695 What: Make Bacula manage tape life cycle information, tape reuse
696 times and drive cleaning cycles.
698 Why: All three parts of this project are important when operating
700 We need to know which tapes need replacement, and we need to
701 make sure the drives are cleaned when necessary. While many
702 tape libraries and even autoloaders can handle all this
703 automatically, support by Bacula can be helpful for smaller
704 (older) libraries and single drives. Limiting the number of
705 times a tape is used might prevent tape errors when using
706 tapes until the drives can't read it any more. Also, checking
707 drive status during operation can prevent some failures (as I
708 [Arno] had to learn the hard way...)
710 Notes: First, Bacula could (and even does, to some limited extent)
711 record tape and drive usage. For tapes, the number of mounts,
712 the amount of data, and the time the tape has actually been
713 running could be recorded. Data fields for Read and Write
714 time and Number of mounts already exist in the catalog (I'm
715 not sure if VolBytes is the sum of all bytes ever written to
716 that volume by Bacula). This information can be important
717 when determining which media to replace. The ability to mark
718 Volumes as "used up" after a given number of write cycles
719 should also be implemented so that a tape is never actually
720 worn out. For the tape drives known to Bacula, similar
721 information is interesting to determine the device status and
722 expected life time: Time it's been Reading and Writing, number
723 of tape Loads / Unloads / Errors. This information is not yet
724 recorded as far as I [Arno] know. A new volume status would
725 be necessary for the new state, like "Used up" or "Worn out".
726 Volumes with this state could be used for restores, but not
727 for writing. These volumes should be migrated first (assuming
728 migration is implemented) and, once they are no longer needed,
729 could be moved to a Trash pool.
731 The next step would be to implement a drive cleaning setup.
732 Bacula already has knowledge about cleaning tapes. Once it
733 has some information about cleaning cycles (measured in drive
734 run time, number of tapes used, or calender days, for example)
735 it can automatically execute tape cleaning (with an
736 autochanger, obviously) or ask for operator assistance loading
739 The final step would be to implement TAPEALERT checks not only
740 when changing tapes and only sending the information to the
741 administrator, but rather checking after each tape error,
742 checking on a regular basis (for example after each tape
743 file), and also before unloading and after loading a new tape.
744 Then, depending on the drives TAPEALERT state and the known
745 drive cleaning state Bacula could automatically schedule later
746 cleaning, clean immediately, or inform the operator.
748 Implementing this would perhaps require another catalog change
749 and perhaps major changes in SD code and the DIR-SD protocol,
750 so I'd only consider this worth implementing if it would
751 actually be used or even needed by many people.
753 Implementation of these projects could happen in three distinct
754 sub-projects: Measuring Tape and Drive usage, retiring
755 volumes, and handling drive cleaning and TAPEALERTs.
757 Item 24: Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
758 Date: 27 November 2005
759 Origin: Ove Risberg (Ove.Risberg at octocode dot com)
762 What: I want the file daemon to start multiple threads for a backup
763 job so the fastest possible backup can be made.
765 The file daemon could parse the FileSet information and start
766 one thread for each File entry located on a separate
769 A confiuration option in the job section should be used to
770 enable or disable this feature. The confgutration option could
771 specify the maximum number of threads in the file daemon.
773 If the theads could spool the data to separate spool files
774 the restore process will not be much slower.
776 Why: Multiple concurrent backups of a large fileserver with many
777 disks and controllers will be much faster.
779 Item 25: Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
781 Origin: Ray Pengelly [ray at biomed dot queensu dot ca
784 What: The ability to archive data to storage based on certain parameters
785 such as age, size, or location. Once the data has been written to
786 storage and logged it is then pruned from the originating
787 filesystem. Note! We are talking about user's files and not
790 Why: This would allow fully automatic storage management which becomes
791 useful for large datastores. It would also allow for auto-staging
792 from one media type to another.
794 Example 1) Medical imaging needs to store large amounts of data.
795 They decide to keep data on their servers for 6 months and then put
796 it away for long term storage. The server then finds all files
797 older than 6 months writes them to tape. The files are then removed
800 Example 2) All data that hasn't been accessed in 2 months could be
801 moved from high-cost, fibre-channel disk storage to a low-cost
802 large-capacity SATA disk storage pool which doesn't have as quick of
803 access time. Then after another 6 months (or possibly as one
804 storage pool gets full) data is migrated to Tape.
809 ========== Items on put hold by Kern ============================
811 Item h1: Split documentation
812 Origin: Maxx <maxxatworkat gmail dot com>
814 Status: Approved, awaiting implementation
816 What: Split documentation in several books
818 Why: Bacula manual has now more than 600 pages, and looking for
819 implementation details is getting complicated. I think
820 it would be good to split the single volume in two or
823 1) Introduction, requirements and tutorial, typically
824 are useful only until first installation time
826 2) Basic installation and configuration, with all the
827 gory details about the directives supported 3)
828 Advanced Bacula: testing, troubleshooting, GUI and
829 ancillary programs, security managements, scripting,
832 Notes: This is a project that needs to be done, and will be implemented,
833 but it is really a developer issue of timing, and does not
834 needed to be included in the voting.
837 Item h2: Implement support for stacking arbitrary stream filters, sinks.
838 Date: 23 November 2006
839 Origin: Landon Fuller <landonf@threerings.net>
840 Status: Planning. Assigned to landonf.
842 What: Implement support for the following:
843 - Stacking arbitrary stream filters (eg, encryption, compression,
844 sparse data handling))
845 - Attaching file sinks to terminate stream filters (ie, write out
846 the resultant data to a file)
847 - Refactor the restoration state machine accordingly
849 Why: The existing stream implementation suffers from the following:
850 - All state (compression, encryption, stream restoration), is
851 global across the entire restore process, for all streams. There are
852 multiple entry and exit points in the restoration state machine, and
853 thus multiple places where state must be allocated, deallocated,
854 initialized, or reinitialized. This results in exceptional complexity
855 for the author of a stream filter.
856 - The developer must enumerate all possible combinations of filters
857 and stream types (ie, win32 data with encryption, without encryption,
858 with encryption AND compression, etc).
860 Notes: This feature request only covers implementing the stream filters/
861 sinks, and refactoring the file daemon's restoration implementation
862 accordingly. If I have extra time, I will also rewrite the backup
863 implementation. My intent in implementing the restoration first is to
864 solve pressing bugs in the restoration handling, and to ensure that
865 the new restore implementation handles existing backups correctly.
867 I do not plan on changing the network or tape data structures to
868 support defining arbitrary stream filters, but supporting that
869 functionality is the ultimate goal.
871 Assistance with either code or testing would be fantastic.
873 Notes: Kern: this project has a lot of merit, and we need to do it, but
874 it is really an issue for developers rather than a new feature
875 for users, so I have removed it from the voting list, but kept it
876 here, but at some point, it will be implemented.
878 Item h3: Filesystem watch triggered backup.
880 Origin: Jesper Krogh <jesper@krogh.cc>
883 What: With inotify and similar filesystem triggeret notification
884 systems is it possible to have the file-daemon to monitor
885 filesystem changes and initiate backup.
887 Why: There are 2 situations where this is nice to have.
888 1) It is possible to get a much finer-grained backup than
889 the fixed schedules used now.. A file created and deleted
890 a few hours later, can automatically be caught.
892 2) The introduced load on the system will probably be
893 distributed more even on the system.
895 Notes: This can be combined with configration that specifies
896 something like: "at most every 15 minutes or when changes
899 Kern Notes: I would rather see this implemented by an external program
900 that monitors the Filesystem changes, then uses the console
903 Item h4: Directive/mode to backup only file changes, not entire file
904 Date: 11 November 2005
905 Origin: Joshua Kugler <joshua dot kugler at uaf dot edu>
906 Marek Bajon <mbajon at bimsplus dot com dot pl>
909 What: Currently when a file changes, the entire file will be backed up in
910 the next incremental or full backup. To save space on the tapes
911 it would be nice to have a mode whereby only the changes to the
912 file would be backed up when it is changed.
914 Why: This would save lots of space when backing up large files such as
915 logs, mbox files, Outlook PST files and the like.
917 Notes: This would require the usage of disk-based volumes as comparing
918 files would not be feasible using a tape drive.
920 Notes: Kern: I don't know how to implement this. Put on hold until someone
921 provides a detailed implementation plan.
924 Item h5: Implement multiple numeric backup levels as supported by dump
926 Origin: Daniel Rich <drich@employees.org>
928 What: Dump allows specification of backup levels numerically instead of just
929 "full", "incr", and "diff". In this system, at any given level, all
930 files are backed up that were were modified since the last backup of a
931 higher level (with 0 being the highest and 9 being the lowest). A
932 level 0 is therefore equivalent to a full, level 9 an incremental, and
933 the levels 1 through 8 are varying levels of differentials. For
934 bacula's sake, these could be represented as "full", "incr", and
935 "diff1", "diff2", etc.
937 Why: Support of multiple backup levels would provide for more advanced backup
938 rotation schemes such as "Towers of Hanoi". This would allow better
939 flexibility in performing backups, and can lead to shorter recover
942 Notes: Legato Networker supports a similar system with full, incr, and 1-9 as
945 Notes: Kern: I don't see the utility of this, and it would be a *huge*
946 modification to existing code.
948 Item h6: Implement NDMP protocol support
953 What: Network Data Management Protocol is implemented by a number of
954 NAS filer vendors to enable backups using third-party
957 Why: This would allow NAS filer backups in Bacula without incurring
958 the overhead of NFS or SBM/CIFS.
960 Notes: Further information is available:
962 http://www.ndmp.org/wp/wp.shtml
963 http://www.traakan.com/ndmjob/index.html
965 There are currently no viable open-source NDMP
966 implementations. There is a reference SDK and example
967 app available from ndmp.org but it has problems
968 compiling on recent Linux and Solaris OS'. The ndmjob
969 reference implementation from Traakan is known to
970 compile on Solaris 10.
972 Notes: Kern: I am not at all in favor of this until NDMP becomes
973 an Open Standard or until there are Open Source libraries
974 that interface to it.
976 Item h7: Commercial database support
977 Origin: Russell Howe <russell_howe dot wreckage dot org>
981 What: It would be nice for the database backend to support more
982 databases. I'm thinking of SQL Server at the moment, but I guess Oracle,
983 DB2, MaxDB, etc are all candidates. SQL Server would presumably be
984 implemented using FreeTDS or maybe an ODBC library?
986 Why: We only really have one database server, which is MS SQL Server
987 2000. Maintaining a second one for the backup software (we grew out of
988 SQLite, which I liked, but which didn't work so well with our database
989 size). We don't really have a machine with the resources to run
990 postgres, and would rather only maintain a single DBMS. We're stuck with
991 SQL Server because pretty much all the company's custom applications
992 (written by consultants) are locked into SQL Server 2000. I can imagine
993 this scenario is fairly common, and it would be nice to use the existing
994 properly specced database server for storing Bacula's catalog, rather
995 than having to run a second DBMS.
997 Notes: This might be nice, but someone other than me will probably need to
998 implement it, and at the moment, proprietary code cannot legally be
999 mixed with Bacula GPLed code. This would be possible only providing
1000 the vendors provide GPLed (or OpenSource) interface code.
1002 Item h8: Incorporation of XACML2/SAML2 parsing
1003 Date: 19 January 2006
1004 Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
1007 What: XACML is "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language" and
1008 "SAML is the "Security Assertion Markup Language"--an XML standard
1009 for making statements about identity and authorization. Having these
1010 would give us a framework to approach ACLs in a generic manner, and
1011 in a way flexible enough to support the four major sorts of ACLs I
1012 see as a concern to Bacula at this point, as well as (probably) to
1013 deal with new sorts of ACLs that may appear in the future.
1015 Why: Bacula is beginning to need to back up systems with ACLs
1016 that do not map cleanly onto traditional Unix permissions. I see
1017 four sets of ACLs--in general, mutually incompatible with one
1018 another--that we're going to need to deal with. These are: NTFS
1019 ACLs, POSIX ACLs, NFSv4 ACLS, and AFS ACLS. (Some may question the
1020 relevance of AFS; AFS is one of Sine Nomine's core consulting
1021 businesses, and having a reputable file-level backup and restore
1022 technology for it (as Tivoli is probably going to drop AFS support
1023 soon since IBM no longer supports AFS) would be of huge benefit to
1024 our customers; we'd most likely create the AFS support at Sine Nomine
1025 for inclusion into the Bacula (and perhaps some changes to the
1026 OpenAFS volserver) core code.)
1028 Now, obviously, Bacula already handles NTFS just fine. However, I
1029 think there's a lot of value in implementing a generic ACL model, so
1030 that it's easy to support whatever particular instances of ACLs come
1031 down the pike: POSIX ACLS (think SELinux) and NFSv4 are the obvious
1032 things arriving in the Linux world in a big way in the near future.
1033 XACML, although overcomplicated for our needs, provides this
1034 framework, and we should be able to leverage other people's
1035 implementations to minimize the amount of work *we* have to do to get
1036 a generic ACL framework. Basically, the costs of implementation are
1037 high, but they're largely both external to Bacula and already sunk.
1039 Notes: As you indicate this is a bit of "blue sky" or in other words,
1040 at the moment, it is a bit esoteric to consider for Bacula.
1042 Item h9: Archive data
1044 Origin: calvin streeting calvin at absentdream dot com
1047 What: The abilty to archive to media (dvd/cd) in a uncompressed format
1048 for dead filing (archiving not backing up)
1050 Why: At work when jobs are finished and moved off of the main file
1051 servers (raid based systems) onto a simple Linux file server (ide based
1052 system) so users can find old information without contacting the IT
1055 So this data dosn't realy change it only gets added to,
1056 But it also needs backing up. At the moment it takes
1057 about 8 hours to back up our servers (working data) so
1058 rather than add more time to existing backups i am trying
1059 to implement a system where we backup the acrhive data to
1060 cd/dvd these disks would only need to be appended to
1061 (burn only new/changed files to new disks for off site
1062 storage). basialy understand the differnce between
1063 achive data and live data.
1065 Notes: Scan the data and email me when it needs burning divide
1066 into predefined chunks keep a recored of what is on what
1067 disk make me a label (simple php->mysql=>pdf stuff) i
1068 could do this bit ability to save data uncompresed so
1069 it can be read in any other system (future proof data)
1070 save the catalog with the disk as some kind of menu
1073 Notes: Kern: I don't understand this item, and in any case, if it
1074 is specific to DVD/CDs, which we do not recommend using,
1075 it is unlikely to be implemented except as a user
1079 Item h10: Clustered file-daemons
1080 Origin: Alan Brown ajb2 at mssl dot ucl dot ac dot uk
1083 What: A "virtual" filedaemon, which is actually a cluster of real ones.
1085 Why: In the case of clustered filesystems (SAN setups, GFS, or OCFS2, etc)
1086 multiple machines may have access to the same set of filesystems
1088 For performance reasons, one may wish to initate backups from
1089 several of these machines simultaneously, instead of just using
1090 one backup source for the common clustered filesystem.
1092 For obvious reasons, normally backups of $A-FD/$PATH and
1093 B-FD/$PATH are treated as different backup sets. In this case
1094 they are the same communal set.
1096 Likewise when restoring, it would be easier to just specify
1097 one of the cluster machines and let bacula decide which to use.
1099 This can be faked to some extent using DNS round robin entries
1100 and a virtual IP address, however it means "status client" will
1101 always give bogus answers. Additionally there is no way of
1102 spreading the load evenly among the servers.
1104 What is required is something similar to the storage daemon
1105 autochanger directives, so that Bacula can keep track of
1106 operating backups/restores and direct new jobs to a "free"
1109 Notes: Kern: I don't understand the request enough to be able to
1110 implement it. A lot more design detail should be presented
1111 before voting on this project.
1114 ========== Already implemented ================================
1116 Item n: make changing "spooldata=yes|no" possible for
1117 manual/interactive jobs
1118 Origin: Marc Schiffbauer <marc@schiffbauer.net>
1119 Date: 12 April 2007)
1120 Status: Already implemented by Eric
1122 What: Make it possible to modify the spooldata option
1123 for a job when being run from within the console.
1124 Currently it is possible to modify the backup level
1125 and the spooldata setting in a Schedule resource.
1126 It is also possible to modify the backup level when using
1127 the "run" command in the console.
1128 But it is currently not possible to to the same
1129 with "spooldata=yes|no" like:
1131 run job=MyJob level=incremental spooldata=yes
1133 Why: In some situations it would be handy to be able to switch
1134 spooldata on or off for interactive/manual jobs based on
1135 which data the admin expects or how fast the LAN/WAN
1136 connection currently is.
1140 ============= Empty Feature Request form ===========
1141 Item n: One line summary ...
1142 Date: Date submitted
1143 Origin: Name and email of originator.
1146 What: More detailed explanation ...
1148 Why: Why it is important ...
1150 Notes: Additional notes or features (omit if not used)
1151 ============== End Feature Request form ==============