4 \chapter{Tips and Suggestions}
6 \index[general]{Tips and Suggestions }
7 \index[general]{Suggestions!Tips and }
9 \index[general]{Examples }
11 There are a number of example scripts for various things that can be found in
12 the {\bf example} subdirectory and its subdirectories of the Bacula source
15 \section{Upgrading Bacula Versions}
17 \index[general]{Upgrading Bacula Versions }
18 \index[general]{Versions!Upgrading Bacula }
19 \index[general]{Upgrading}
21 The first thing to do before upgrading from one version to another is to
22 ensure that you don't overwrite or delete your production (current) version
23 of Bacula until you have tested that the new version works.
25 If you have installed Bacula into a single directory, this is simple: simply
26 make a copy of your Bacula directory.
28 If you have done a more typical Unix installation where the binaries are
29 placed in one directory and the configuration files are placed in another,
30 then the simplest way is to configure your new Bacula to go into a single
31 file. Alternatively, make copies of all your binaries and especially your
34 Whatever your situation may be (one of the two just described), you should
35 probably start with the {\bf defaultconf} script that can be found in the {\bf
36 examples} subdirectory. Copy this script to the main Bacula directory, modify
37 it as necessary (there should not need to be many modifications), configure
38 Bacula, build it, install it, then stop your production Bacula, copy all the
39 {\bf *.conf} files from your production Bacula directory to the test Bacula
40 directory, start the test version, and run a few test backups. If all seems
41 good, then you can proceed to install the new Bacula in place of or possibly
44 When installing a new Bacula you need not worry about losing the changes you
45 made to your configuration files as the installation process will not
46 overwrite them providing that you do not do a {\bf make uninstall}.
48 If the new version of Bacula requires an upgrade to the database,
49 you can upgrade it with the script {\bf update\_bacula\_tables}, which
50 will be installed in your scripts directory (default {\bf /etc/bacula}),
51 or alternatively, you can find it in the
52 {\bf \lt{}bacula-source\gt{}/src/cats} directory.
54 \section{Getting Notified of Job Completion}
56 \index[general]{Getting Notified of Job Completion }
57 \index[general]{Completion!Getting Notified of Job }
59 One of the first things you should do is to ensure that you are being properly
60 notified of the status of each Job run by Bacula, or at a minimum of each Job
61 that terminates with an error.
63 Until you are completely comfortable with {\bf Bacula}, we recommend that you
64 send an email to yourself for each Job that is run. This is most easily
65 accomplished by adding an email notification address in the {\bf Messages}
66 resource of your Director's configuration file. An email is automatically
67 configured in the default configuration files, but you must ensure that the
68 default {\bf root} address is replaced by your email address.
70 For additional examples of how to configure a Bacula, please take a look at the
71 {\bf .conf} files found in the {\bf examples} sub-directory. We recommend the
72 following configuration (where you change the paths and email address to
73 correspond to your setup). Note, the {\bf mailcommand} and {\bf
74 operatorcommand} should be on a single line. They were split here for
81 mailcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -h localhost
83 -s \"Bacula: %t %e of %c %l\" %r"
84 operatorcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -h localhost
86 -s \"Bacula: Intervention needed for %j\" %r"
87 Mail = your-email-address = all, !skipped, !terminate
88 append = "/home/bacula/bin/log" = all, !skipped, !terminate
89 operator = your-email-address = mount
90 console = all, !skipped, !saved
95 You will need to ensure that the {\bf /home/bacula/bin} path on the {\bf
96 mailcommand} and the {\bf operatorcommand} lines point to your {\bf Bacula}
97 binary directory where the {\bf bsmtp} program will be installed. You will
98 also want to ensure that the {\bf your-email-address} is replaced by your
99 email address, and finally, you will also need to ensure that the {\bf
100 /home/bacula/bin/log} points to the file where you want to log all messages.
102 With the above Messages resource, you will be notified by email of every Job
103 that ran, all the output will be appended to the {\bf log} file you specify,
104 all output will be directed to the console program, and all mount messages
105 will be emailed to you. Note, some messages will be sent to multiple
108 The form of the mailcommand is a bit complicated, but it allows you to
109 distinguish whether the Job terminated in error or terminated normally. Please
111 \ilink{Mail Command}{mailcommand} section of the Messages
112 Resource chapter of this manual for the details of the substitution characters
115 Once you are totally comfortable with Bacula as I am, or if you have a large
116 number of nightly Jobs as I do (eight), you will probably want to change the
117 {\bf Mail} command to {\bf Mail On Error} which will generate an email message
118 only if the Job terminates in error. If the Job terminates normally, no email
119 message will be sent, but the output will still be appended to the log file as
120 well as sent to the Console program.
122 \section{Getting Email Notification to Work}
124 \index[general]{Work!Getting Email Notification to }
125 \index[general]{Getting Email Notification to Work }
127 The section above describes how to get email notification of job status.
128 Occasionally, however, users have problems receiving any email at all. In that
129 case, the things to check are the following:
132 \item Ensure that you have a valid email address specified on your {\bf Mail}
133 record in the Director's Messages resource. The email address should be fully
134 qualified. Simply using {\bf root} generally will not work, rather you should
135 use {\bf root@localhost} or better yet your full domain.
136 \item Ensure that you do not have a {\bf Mail} record in the Storage daemon's
137 or File daemon's configuration files. The only record you should have is {\bf
142 director = director-name = all
147 \item If all else fails, try replacing the {\bf mailcommand} with
151 mailcommand = "mail -s test your@domain.com"
155 \item Once the above is working, assuming you want to use {\bf bsmtp}, submit
156 the desired bsmtp command by hand and ensure that the email is delivered,
157 then put that command into {\bf Bacula}. Small differences in things such as
158 the parenthesis around the word Bacula can make a big difference to some
159 bsmtp programs. For example, you might start simply by using:
163 mailcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -f \"root@localhost\" %r"
169 \section{Getting Notified that Bacula is Running}
170 \label{JobNotification}
171 \index[general]{Running!Getting Notified that Bacula is }
172 \index[general]{Getting Notified that Bacula is Running }
174 If like me, you have setup Bacula so that email is sent only when a Job has
175 errors, as described in the previous section of this chapter, inevitably, one
176 day, something will go wrong and {\bf Bacula} can stall. This could be because
177 Bacula crashes, which is vary rare, or more likely the network has caused {\bf
178 Bacula} to {\bf hang} for some unknown reason.
180 To avoid this, you can use the {\bf RunAfterJob} command in the Job resource
181 to schedule a Job nightly, or weekly that simply emails you a message saying
182 that Bacula is still running. For example, I have setup the following Job in
183 my Director's configuration file:
189 Run = Level=Full sun-sat at 6:05
199 Schedule = "Watchdog"
200 RunAfterJob = "/home/kern/bacula/bin/watchdog %c %d"
208 File Retention = 1day
209 Job Retention = 1 month
215 Where I established a schedule to run the Job nightly. The Job itself is type
216 {\bf Admin} which means that it doesn't actually do anything, and I've defined
217 a FileSet, Pool, Storage, and Client, all of which are not really used (and
218 probably don't need to be specified). The key aspect of this Job is the
223 RunAfterJob = "/home/kern/bacula/bin/watchdog %c %d"
227 which runs my "watchdog" script. As an example, I have added the Job codes
228 \%c and \%d which will cause the Client name and the Director's name to be
229 passed to the script. For example, if the Client's name is {\bf Watchdog} and
230 the Director's name is {\bf main-dir} then referencing \$1 in the script would
231 get {\bf Watchdog} and referencing \$2 would get {\bf main-dir}. In this case,
232 having the script know the Client and Director's name is not really useful,
233 but in other situations it may be.
235 You can put anything in the watchdog script. In my case, I like to monitor the
236 size of my catalog to be sure that {\bf Bacula} is really pruning it. The
237 following is my watchdog script:
242 cd /home/kern/mysql/var/bacula
244 /home/kern/bacula/bin/bsmtp \
245 -f "\(Bacula\) abuse@whitehouse.com" -h mail.yyyy.com \
246 -s "Bacula running" abuse@whitehouse.com
250 If you just wish to send yourself a message, you can do it with:
255 cd /home/kern/mysql/var/bacula
256 /home/kern/bacula/bin/bsmtp \
257 -f "\(Bacula\) abuse@whitehouse.com" -h mail.yyyy.com \
258 -s "Bacula running" abuse@whitehouse.com <<END-OF-DATA
259 Bacula is still running!!!
264 \section{Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap File}
266 \index[general]{Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap File }
267 \index[general]{File!Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap }
270 \ilink{ WriteBootstrap}{writebootstrap} record in each of your
271 Director's Job resources, you can constantly maintain a
272 \ilink{bootstrap}{BootstrapChapter} file that will enable you to
273 recover the state of your system as of the last backup without having the
274 Bacula catalog. This permits you to more easily recover from a disaster that
275 destroys your Bacula catalog.
277 When a Job resource has a {\bf WriteBootstrap} record, Bacula will maintain
278 the designated file (normally on another system but mounted by NSF) with up to
279 date information necessary to restore your system. For example, in my
280 Director's configuration file, I have the following record:
284 Write Bootstrap = "/mnt/deuter/files/backup/client-name.bsr"
288 where I replace {\bf client-name} by the actual name of the client that is
289 being backed up. Thus, Bacula automatically maintains one file for each of my
290 clients. The necessary bootstrap information is appended to this file during
291 each {\bf Incremental} backup, and the file is totally rewritten during each
294 Note, one disadvantage of writing to an NFS mounted volume as I do is
295 that if the other machine goes down, the OS will wait forever on the fopen()
296 call that Bacula makes. As a consequence, Bacula will completely stall until
297 the machine exporting the NFS mounts comes back up. A possible solution to this
298 problem was provided by Andrew Hilborne, and consists of using the {\bf soft}
299 option instead of the {\bf hard} option when mounting the NFS volume, which is
300 typically done in {\bf /etc/fstab}/. The NFS documentation explains these
301 options in detail. However, I found that with the {\bf soft} option
302 NFS disconnected frequently causing even more problems.
304 If you are starting off in the middle of a cycle (i.e. with Incremental
305 backups) rather than at the beginning (with a Full backup), the {\bf
306 bootstrap} file will not be immediately valid as it must always have the
307 information from a Full backup as the first record. If you wish to synchronize
308 your bootstrap file immediately, you can do so by running a {\bf restore}
309 command for the client and selecting a full restore, but when the restore
310 command asks for confirmation to run the restore Job, you simply reply no,
311 then copy the bootstrap file that was written to the location specified on the
312 {\bf Write Bootstrap} record. The restore bootstrap file can be found in {\bf
313 restore.bsr} in the working directory that you defined. In the example given
314 below for the client {\bf rufus}, my input is shown in bold. Note, the JobId
315 output has been partially truncated to fit on the page here:
319 (in the Console program)
321 First you select one or more JobIds that contain files
322 to be restored. You will then be presented several methods
323 of specifying the JobIds. Then you will be allowed to
324 select which files from those JobIds are to be restored.
325 To select the JobIds, you have the following choices:
326 1: List last 20 Jobs run
327 2: List Jobs where a given File is saved
328 3: Enter list of JobIds to select
329 4: Enter SQL list command
330 5: Select the most recent backup for a client
332 Select item: (1-6): 5
333 The defined Client resources are:
337 Select Client (File daemon) resource (1-3): 2
338 The defined FileSet resources are:
340 Item 1 selected automatically.
341 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
342 | JobId | Levl | Files | StrtTim | VolName | File | SesId | VolSesTime |
343 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
344 | 2 | F | 84 | ... | test1 | 0 | 1 | 1035645259 |
345 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
346 You have selected the following JobId: 2
347 Building directory tree for JobId 2 ...
348 The defined Storage resources are:
350 Item 1 selected automatically.
351 You are now entering file selection mode where you add and
352 remove files to be restored. All files are initially added.
353 Enter "done" to leave this mode.
356 84 files selected to restore.
358 JobName: kernsrestore
359 Bootstrap: /home/kern/bacula/working/restore.bsr
360 Where: /tmp/bacula-restores
365 OK to run? (yes/mod/no): no
368 cp ../working/restore.bsr /mnt/deuter/files/backup/rufus.bsr
372 \section{Rejected Volumes After a Crash}
373 \label{RejectedVolumes}
374 \index[general]{Crash!Rejected Volumes After a }
375 \index[general]{Rejected Volumes After a Crash }
377 Bacula keeps a count of the number of files on each Volume in its Catalog
378 database so that before appending to a tape, it can verify that the number of
379 files are correct, and thus prevent overwriting valid data. If the Director or
380 the Storage daemon crashes before the job has completed, the tape will contain
381 one more file than is noted in the Catalog, and the next time you attempt to
382 use the same Volume, Bacula will reject it due to a mismatch between the
383 physical tape (Volume) and the catalog.
385 The easiest solution to this problem is to label a new tape and start fresh.
386 If you wish to continue appending to the current tape, you can do so by using
387 the {\bf update} command in the console program to change the {\bf Volume
388 Files} entry in the catalog. A typical sequence of events would go like the
402 17-Jan-2003 16:45 rufus-dir: Start Backup JobId 13,
403 Job=kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46
404 17-Jan-2003 16:45 rufus-sd: Volume test01 previously written,
405 moving to end of data.
406 17-Jan-2003 16:46 rufus-sd: kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46 Error:
407 I cannot write on this volume because:
408 The number of files mismatch! Volume=11 Catalog=10
409 17-Jan-2003 16:46 rufus-sd: Job kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46 waiting.
410 Cannot find any appendable volumes.
411 Please use the "label" command to create a new Volume for:
418 (note, lines wrapped for presentation)
419 The key here is the line that reads:
423 The number of files mismatch! Volume=11 Catalog=10
427 It says that Bacula found eleven files on the volume, but that the catalog
428 says there should be ten. When you see this, you can be reasonably sure that
429 the SD was interrupted while writing before it had a chance to update the
430 catalog. As a consequence, you can just modify the catalog count to eleven,
431 and even if the catalog contains references to files saved in file 11,
432 everything will be OK and nothing will be lost. Note that if the SD had
433 written several file marks to the volume, the difference between the Volume
434 count and the Catalog count could be larger than one, but this is unusual.
436 If on the other hand the catalog is marked as having more files than Bacula
437 found on the tape, you need to consider the possible negative consequences of
438 modifying the catalog. Please see below for a more complete discussion of
441 Continuing with the example of {\bf Volume = 11 Catalog = 10}, to enable to
442 Bacula to append to the tape, you do the following:
449 2: Pool from resource
450 3: Slots from autochanger
451 Choose catalog item to update (1-3): 1
455 Select the Pool (1-2):
456 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
457 | MedId | VolName | MedTyp | VolStat | VolBytes | Last | VolReten | Recy | Slt |
458 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
459 | 1 | test01 | DDS-4 | Error | 352427156 | ... | 31536000 | 1 | 0 |
460 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
461 Enter MediaId or Volume name: 1
465 (note table output truncated for presentation) First, you chose to update the
466 Volume parameters by entering a {\bf 1}. In the volume listing that follows,
467 notice how the VolStatus is {\bf Error}. We will correct that after changing
468 the Volume Files. Continuing, you respond 1,
472 Updating Volume "test01"
473 Parameters to modify:
475 2: Volume Retention Period
476 3: Volume Use Duration
477 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
478 5: Maximum Volume Files
479 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
485 Select parameter to modify (1-11): 9
486 Warning changing Volume Files can result
487 in loss of data on your Volume
488 Current Volume Files is: 10
489 Enter new number of Files for Volume: 11
490 New Volume Files is: 11
491 Updating Volume "test01"
492 Parameters to modify:
494 2: Volume Retention Period
495 3: Volume Use Duration
496 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
497 5: Maximum Volume Files
498 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
504 Select parameter to modify (1-10): 1
508 Here, you have selected {\bf 9} in order to update the Volume Files, then you
509 changed it from {\bf 10} to {\bf 11}, and you now answer {\bf 1} to change the
514 Current Volume status is: Error
522 Choose new Volume Status (1-6): 1
523 New Volume status is: Append
524 Updating Volume "test01"
525 Parameters to modify:
527 2: Volume Retention Period
528 3: Volume Use Duration
529 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
530 5: Maximum Volume Files
531 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
537 Select parameter to modify (1-11): 11
542 At this point, you have changed the Volume Files from {\bf 10} to {\bf 11} to
543 account for the last file that was written but not updated in the database,
544 and you changed the Volume Status back to {\bf Append}.
546 This was a lot of words to describe something quite simple.
548 The {\bf Volume Files} option exists only in version 1.29 and later, and you
549 should be careful using it. Generally, if you set the value to that which
550 Bacula said is on the tape, you will be OK, especially if the value is one
551 more than what is in the catalog.
553 Now lets consider the case:
557 The number of files mismatch! Volume=10 Catalog=12
561 Here the Bacula found fewer files on the volume than what is marked in the
562 catalog. Now, in this case, you should hesitate a lot before modifying the count
563 in the catalog, because if you force the catalog from 12 to 10, Bacula will
564 start writing after the file 10 on the tape, possibly overwriting valid data,
565 and if you ever try to restore any of the files that the catalog has marked as
566 saved on Files 11 and 12, all chaos will break out. In this case, you will
567 probably be better off using a new tape. In fact, you might want to see what
568 files the catalog claims are actually stored on that Volume, and back them up
569 to another tape and recycle this tape.
571 \section{Security Considerations}
573 \index[general]{Considerations!Security }
574 \index[general]{Security Considerations }
576 Only the File daemon needs to run with root permission (so that it can access
577 all files). As a consequence, you may run your Director, Storage daemon, and
578 MySQL or PostgreSQL database server as non-root processes. Version 1.30 has
579 the {\bf -u} and the {\bf -g} options that allow you to specify a userid and
580 groupid on the command line to be used after Bacula starts.
582 As of version 1.33, thanks to Dan Langille, it is easier to configure the
583 Bacula Director and Storage daemon to run as non-root.
585 You should protect the Bacula port addresses (normally 9101, 9102, and 9103)
586 from outside access by a firewall or other means of protection to prevent
587 unauthorized use of your daemons.
589 You should ensure that the configuration files are not world readable since
590 they contain passwords that allow access to the daemons. Anyone who can access
591 the Director using a console program can restore any file from a backup
594 You should protect your Catalog database. If you are using SQLite, make sure
595 that the working directory is readable only by root (or your Bacula userid),
596 and ensure that {\bf bacula.db} has permissions {\bf -rw-r\verb:--:r\verb:--:} (i.e. 640) or
597 more strict. If you are using MySQL or PostgreSQL, please note that the Bacula
598 setup procedure leaves the database open to anyone. At a minimum, you should
599 assign the user {\bf bacula} a userid and add it to your Director's
600 configuration file in the appropriate Catalog resource.
602 \section{Creating Holiday Schedules}
604 \index[general]{Schedules!Creating Holiday }
605 \index[general]{Creating Holiday Schedules }
607 If you normally change tapes every day or at least every Friday, but Thursday
608 is a holiday, you can use a trick proposed by Lutz Kittler to ensure that no
609 job runs on Thursday so that you can insert Friday's tape and be sure it will
610 be used on Friday. To do so, define a {\bf RunJobBefore} script that normally
611 returns zero, so that the Bacula job will normally continue. You can then
612 modify the script to return non-zero on any day when you do not want Bacula to
615 \section{Automatic Labeling Using Your Autochanger}
617 \index[general]{Automatic Labeling Using Your Autochanger }
618 \index[general]{Autochanger!Automatic Labeling Using Your }
620 If you have an autochanger but it does not support barcodes, using a "trick"
621 you can make Bacula automatically label all the volumes in your autochanger's
624 First create a file containing one line for each slot in your autochanger that
625 has a tape to be labeled. The line will contain the slot number a colon (:)
626 then the Volume name you want to use. For example, create a file named {\bf
627 volume-list}, which contains:
637 The records do not need to be in any order and you don't need to mention all
638 the slots. Normally, you will have a consistent set of Volume names and a
639 sequential set of numbers for each slot you want labeled. In the example
640 above, I've left out slots 3 and 4 just as an example. Now, modify your {\bf
641 mtx-changer} script and comment out all the lines in the {\bf list)} case by
642 putting a \# in column 1. Then add the following two lines:
646 cat <absolute-path>/volume-list
651 so that the whole case looks like:
657 # commented out lines
658 cat <absolute-path>/volume-list
664 where you replace \lt{}absolute-path\gt{} with the full path to the
665 volume-list file. Then using the console, you enter the following command:
673 and Bacula will proceed to mount the autochanger Volumes in the list and label
674 them with the Volume names you have supplied. Bacula will think that the list
675 was provided by the autochanger barcodes, but in reality, it was you who
676 supplied the \lt{}barcodes\gt{}.
678 If it seems to work, when it finishes, enter:
686 and you should see all the volumes nicely created.
688 \section{Backing Up Portables Using DHCP}
690 \index[general]{DHCP!Backing Up Portables Using }
691 \index[general]{Backing Up Portables Using DHCP }
693 You may want to backup laptops or portables that are not always connected to
694 the network. If you are using DHCP to assign an IP address to those machines
695 when they connect, you will need to use the Dynamic Update capability of DNS
696 to assign a name to those machines that can be used in the Address field of
697 the Client resource in the Director's conf file.
699 \section{Going on Vacation}
701 \index[general]{Vacation!Going on }
702 \index[general]{Going on Vacation }
704 At some point, you may want to be absent for a week or two and you want to
705 make sure Bacula has enough tape left so that the backups will complete. You
706 start by doing a {\bf list volumes} in the Console program:
712 Using default Catalog name=BackupDB DB=bacula
714 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+-
715 | MediaId | VolumeName | MediaType | VolStatus | VolBytes |
716 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+-
717 | 23 | DLT-30Nov02 | DLT8000 | Full | 54,739,278,128 |
718 | 24 | DLT-21Dec02 | DLT8000 | Full | 56,331,524,629 |
719 | 25 | DLT-11Jan03 | DLT8000 | Full | 67,863,514,895 |
720 | 26 | DLT-02Feb03 | DLT8000 | Full | 63,439,314,216 |
721 | 27 | DLT-03Mar03 | DLT8000 | Full | 66,022,754,598 |
722 | 28 | DLT-04Apr03 | DLT8000 | Full | 60,792,559,924 |
723 | 29 | DLT-28Apr03 | DLT8000 | Full | 62,072,494,063 |
724 | 30 | DLT-17May03 | DLT8000 | Full | 65,901,767,839 |
725 | 31 | DLT-07Jun03 | DLT8000 | Used | 56,558,490,015 |
726 | 32 | DLT-28Jun03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,274,871,265 |
727 | 33 | DLT-19Jul03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,648,749,480 |
728 | 34 | DLT-08Aug03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,293,941,255 |
729 | 35 | DLT-24Aug03 | DLT8000 | Append | 9,999,216,782 |
730 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+
734 Note, I have truncated the output for presentation purposes. What is
735 significant, is that I can see that my current tape has almost 10 Gbytes of
736 data, and that the average amount of data I get on my tapes is about 60
737 Gbytes. So if I go on vacation now, I don't need to worry about tape capacity
738 (at least not for short absences).
740 Equally significant is the fact that I did go on vacation the 28th of June
741 2003, and when I did the {\bf list volumes} command, my current tape at that
742 time, DLT-07Jun03 MediaId 31, had 56.5 Gbytes written. I could see that the
743 tape would fill shortly. Consequently, I manually marked it as {\bf Used} and
744 replaced it with a fresh tape that I labeled as DLT-28Jun03, thus assuring
745 myself that the backups would all complete without my intervention.
747 \section{Exclude Files on Windows Regardless of Case}
749 \index[general]{Exclude Files on Windows Regardless of Case}
750 % TODO: should this be put in the win32 chapter?
751 % TODO: should all these tips be placed in other chapters?
753 This tip was submitted by Marc Brueckner who wasn't sure of the case of some
754 of his files on Win32, which is case insensitive. The problem is that Bacula
755 thinks that {\bf /UNIMPORTANT FILES} is different from {\bf /Unimportant
756 Files}. Marc was aware that the file exclusion permits wild-cards. So, he
761 "/[Uu][Nn][Ii][Mm][Pp][Oo][Rr][Tt][Aa][Nn][Tt] [Ff][Ii][Ll][Ee][Ss]"
765 As a consequence, the above exclude works for files of any case.
767 Please note that this works only in Bacula Exclude statement and not in
770 \section{Executing Scripts on a Remote Machine}
771 \label{RemoteExecution}
772 \index[general]{Machine!Executing Scripts on a Remote }
773 \index[general]{Executing Scripts on a Remote Machine }
775 This tip also comes from Marc Brueckner. (Note, this tip is probably outdated
776 by the addition of {\bf ClientRunBeforJob} and {\bf ClientRunAfterJob} Job
777 records, but the technique still could be useful.) First I thought the "Run
778 Before Job" statement in the Job-resource is for executing a script on the
779 remote machine (the machine to be backed up). (Note, this is possible as mentioned
780 above by using {\bf ClientRunBeforJob} and {\bf ClientRunAfterJob}).
781 It could be useful to execute
782 scripts on the remote machine e.g. for stopping databases or other services
783 while doing the backup. (Of course I have to start the services again when the
784 backup has finished) I found the following solution: Bacula could execute
785 scripts on the remote machine by using ssh. The authentication is done
786 automatically using a private key. First you have to generate a keypair. I've
791 ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t dsa -f Bacula_key
795 This statement may take a little time to run. It creates a public/private key
796 pair with no passphrase. You could save the keys in /etc/bacula. Now you have
797 two new files : Bacula\_key which contains the private key and Bacula\_key.pub
798 which contains the public key.
800 Now you have to append the Bacula\_key.pub file to the file authorized\_keys
801 in the \textbackslash{}root\textbackslash{}.ssh directory of the remote
802 machine. Then you have to add (or uncomment) the line
806 AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys
810 to the sshd\_config file on the remote machine. Where the \%h stands for the
811 home-directory of the user (root in this case).
813 Assuming that your sshd is already running on the remote machine, you can now
814 enter the following on the machine where Bacula runs:
818 ssh -i Bacula_key -l root <machine-name-or-ip-address> "ls -la"
822 This should execute the "ls -la" command on the remote machine.
824 Now you could add lines like the following to your Director's conf file:
829 Run Before Job = ssh -i /etc/bacula/Bacula_key 192.168.1.1 \
830 "/etc/init.d/database stop"
831 Run After Job = ssh -i /etc/bacula/Bacula_key 192.168.1.1 \
832 "/etc/init.d/database start"
837 Even though Bacula version 1.32 and later has a ClientRunBeforeJob, the ssh method still
838 could be useful for updating all the Bacula clients on several remote machines
841 \section{Recycling All Your Volumes}
843 \index[general]{Recycling All Your Volumes }
844 \index[general]{Volumes!Recycling All Your }
846 This tip comes from Phil Stracchino.
848 If you decide to blow away your catalog and start over, the simplest way to
849 re-add all your prelabeled tapes with a minimum of fuss (provided you don't
850 care about the data on the tapes) is to add the tape labels using the console
851 {\bf add} command, then go into the catalog and manually set the VolStatus of
852 every tape to {\bf Recycle}.
854 The SQL command to do this is very simple, either use your vendor's
855 command line interface (mysql, postgres, sqlite, ...) or use the sql
856 command in the Bacula console:
860 update Media set VolStatus='Recycle';
864 Bacula will then ignore the data already stored on the tapes and just re-use
865 each tape without further objection.
867 \section{Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS filesystems}
869 \index[general]{Filesystems!Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS }
870 \index[general]{Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS filesystems }
872 This tip comes from Volker Sauer.
874 Note, this tip was given prior to implementation of ACLs in Bacula (version
875 1.34.5). It is left here because dumping/displaying ACLs can still be useful
876 in testing/verifying that Bacula is backing up and restoring your ACLs
877 properly. Please see the
878 \ilink{aclsupport}{ACLSupport} FileSet option in the
879 configuration chapter of this manual.
881 For example, you could dump the ACLs to a file with a script similar to the
887 BACKUP_DIRS="/foo /bar"
888 STORE_ACL=/root/acl-backup
890 for i in $BACKUP_DIRS; do
891 cd $i /usr/bin/getfacl -R --skip-base .>$STORE_ACL/${i//\//_}
896 Then use Bacula to backup {\bf /root/acl-backup}.
898 The ACLs could be restored using Bacula to the {\bf /root/acl-backup} file,
899 then restored to your system using:
903 setfacl --restore/root/acl-backup
907 \section{Total Automation of Bacula Tape Handling}
909 \index[general]{Handling!Total Automation of Bacula Tape }
910 \index[general]{Total Automation of Bacula Tape Handling }
912 This tip was provided by Alexander Kuehn.
914 \elink{Bacula}{\url{http://www.bacula.org/}} is a really nice backup program except
915 that the manual tape changing requires user interaction with the bacula
918 Fortunately I can fix this.
919 NOTE!!! This suggestion applies for people who do *NOT* have tape autochangers
920 and must change tapes manually.!!!!!
922 Bacula supports a variety of tape changers through the use of mtx-changer
923 scripts/programs. This highly flexible approach allowed me to create
924 \elink{this shell script}{\url{http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/mtx-changer.txt}} which does the following:
925 % TODO: We need to include this in book appendix and point to it.
927 Whenever a new tape is required it sends a mail to the operator to insert the
928 new tape. Then it waits until a tape has been inserted, sends a mail again to
929 say thank you and let's bacula continue its backup.
930 So you can schedule and run backups without ever having to log on or see the
932 To make the whole thing work you need to create a Device resource which looks
933 something like this ("Archive Device", "Maximum Changer Wait", "Media
934 Type" and "Label media" may have different values):
940 Archive Device = # use yours not mine! ;)/dev/nsa0
941 Changer Device = # not really required/dev/nsa0
942 Changer Command = "# use this (maybe change the path)!
943 /usr/local/bin/mtx-changer %o %a %S"
944 Maximum Changer Wait = 3d # 3 days in seconds
945 AutomaticMount = yes; # mount on start
946 AlwaysOpen = yes; # keep device locked
947 Media Type = DDS3 # it's just a name
948 RemovableMedia = yes; #
949 Offline On Unmount = Yes; # keep this too
955 As the script has to emulate the complete wisdom of a mtx-changer it has an
956 internal "database" containing where which tape is stored, you can see this on
961 labels="VOL-0001 VOL-0002 VOL-0003 VOL-0004 VOL-0005 VOL-0006
962 VOL-0007 VOL-0008 VOL-0009 VOL-0010 VOL-0011 VOL-0012"
966 The above should be all on one line, and it effectively tells Bacula that
967 volume "VOL-0001" is located in slot 1 (which is our lowest slot), that
968 volume "VOL-0002" is located in slot 2 and so on..
969 The script also maintains a logfile (/var/log/mtx.log) where you can monitor
972 \section{Running Concurrent Jobs}
973 \label{ConcurrentJobs}
974 \index[general]{Jobs!Running Concurrent}
975 \index[general]{Running Concurrent Jobs}
976 \index[general]{Concurrent Jobs}
978 Bacula can run multiple concurrent jobs, but the default configuration files
979 are not set to do so. Using the {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} directive, you
980 have a lot of control over how many jobs can run at the same time, and which
981 jobs can run simultaneously. The downside is that it can be a bit tricky to
982 set it up for the first time as you need to set the concurrency in at least
983 five different places.
985 The Director, the File daemon, and the Storage daemon each have a {\bf Maximum
986 Concurrent Jobs} directive that determines overall number of concurrent jobs
987 the daemon will run. The default is one for the Director and ten for both the
988 File daemon and the Storage daemon, so assuming you will not be running more
989 than ten concurrent jobs, the only changes that are needed are in the
990 Director's conf file (bacula-dir.conf).
992 Within the Director's configuration file, {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} can be
993 set in the Direct, Job, Client, and Storage resources. Each one must be set
994 properly, according to your needs, otherwise your jobs may be run one at a
997 For example, if you want two different jobs to run simultaneously backing up
998 the same Client to the same Storage device, they will run concurrently only if
999 you have set {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} greater than one in the Director
1000 resource, the Client resource, and the Storage resource in bacula-dir.conf.
1002 We recommend that you carefully read the \ilink{Data
1003 Spooling}{SpoolingChapter} of this manual first, then carefully
1004 test your multiple concurrent backup including
1005 restore testing before you put it into production.
1007 Below is a super stripped down bacula-dir.conf file showing you the four
1008 places where the the file has been modified to allow the same job {\bf
1009 NightlySave} to run up to four times concurrently. The change to the Job
1010 resource is not necessary if you want different Jobs to run at the same time,
1011 which is the normal case.
1016 # Bacula Director Configuration file -- bacula-dir.conf
1020 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1024 Name = "NightlySave"
1025 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1032 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1037 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4