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4 <td class="contentTopic"> Support for Bacula </td>
9 Please keep in mind that we are not getting paid for this.
10 Nevertheless, our desire is to see as many people using
11 <b>Bacula</b> as possible. So we are very willing to
12 provide a reasonable level of email support.
14 <p>Before asking for help, it could be useful to check against the
15 email archive as often solution to your problem has been discussed
16 or a patch has been released. Please see:
17 <a href="http://news.gmane.org/search.php?match=bacula">
18 http://news.gmane.org/search.php?match=bacula</a>.
20 Also, if you are using Bacula in production, we highly recommend
21 subscribing to the bugs database at: <a href="http://bugs.bacula.org">
22 http://bugs.bacula.org</a> to keep informed of problems and
25 <p>For support, send an email to
26 <b>bacula-users at lists.sourceforge.net</b>, and if you are
27 specific enough, some kind Bacula user will help you. Please
28 note that if you don't at least specify what version of Bacula
29 and what platform you are using, it will not be easy to get a
30 valid answer. The email address noted above
31 was modified to prevent easy use by spammers.
32 To use it, you must replace the <b>at</b> with an @ symbol. Due
33 to the increasing volumes of spam on the list, you must
34 be subscribed to it to be able to send and email to it. The
35 link to your left entitled <b>Email Lists</b> provides links
36 to where you can subscribe to each of the Bacula email lists.
38 The users constantly monitor this list and will generally provide
39 support. Please see <b>Information Needed</b> below for what to
40 include in your support request. If you don't supply the necessary
41 information, it will take longer to respond to your request, and
42 users may be afraid to try to respond,
43 if your request is too complicated or not well formulated.
46 <p>I (Kern) get a number of "off-list" emails sent
47 directly to me. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to provide
48 direct user support. However, I do read all the email sent and
49 occasionally provide a tip or two. If you do send email to me,
50 please always copy the appropriate list, if you
51 do not copy the list, I may not answer you, or I will answer by copying
52 the list. If you <em>really</em> have something confidential,
53 please clearly indicate it.</p>
55 <p>If you send a bug report or minor enhancement request because of a
56 problem to the bacula-devel list, and you do not provide the information
57 requested below, particularly the Bacula version, it is <b>very</b>
58 frustrating for us, because it is quite often the case that your problem is
59 version dependent, and likely already fixed. In such case, we will note
60 the problem, but you will be unlikely to get a response, especially if we
61 are busy, because it forces us to first ask you what version you are using
62 (or other information), then deal with your response, thus doubling the
63 time for us. If we do ask you for information, please include <b>all</b>
64 the previous correspondence in each email, otherwise you force us to search
65 the archives to find what you previously wrote. In short, if you want a
66 response, please see "Information Needed" below.
68 <p>If you are looking for live-support you might check out our irc-channel
69 in the <a href="http://www.freenode.net">Freenode</a> net, called #bacula.
71 <h3>Information Needed</h3>
72 For us to respond to a bug report, we normally need the following
73 as the minimum information, which you can enter into the appropriate
74 fields of the bug reporting system:
76 <li>Your operating system</li>
77 <li>The version of Bacula you are using</li>
78 <li>A <a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html">clear and concise</a> description of the problem</li>
79 <li>If you say "it crashes", "it doesn't work" or something
80 similar, you should include some output from Bacula that shows this.</li>
81 <li>If we respond to your email, and you answer, possibly supplying more
82 information, please be sure to include the <b>full</b> text of previous
83 emails so that we have all the information in one place.</li>
85 If you are having tape problems, please include:
87 <li>The kind of tape drive you have </li>
88 <li>Have you run the <b>btape</b> "test" command?</li>
91 If you are having database problems, please include:
93 <li>The database you are using: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQLite3 </li>
94 <li>The version of the database you are using</li>
97 The first two of these items can be fulfilled by sending
98 us a copy of your <b>config.out</b> file, which is in the
99 main <b>Bacula</b> source directory after you have done
100 your <b>./configure</b>.
101 <p>In addition, we will sometimes need a copy of your Bacula
102 configuration files (especially bacula-dir.conf). If you
103 think it is a configuration problem, please don't hesitate
104 to send them if necessary.</td>
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108 Please read that little Bug-Report-<a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html">HowTo</a> as well.
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