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 For additional tips, please see the \elink{Bacula
16 wiki}{\url{http://wiki.bacula.org}}.
18 \section{Upgrading Bacula Versions}
20 \index[general]{Upgrading Bacula Versions }
21 \index[general]{Versions!Upgrading Bacula }
22 \index[general]{Upgrading}
24 The first thing to do before upgrading from one version to another is to
25 ensure that you don't overwrite or delete your production (current) version
26 of Bacula until you have tested that the new version works.
28 If you have installed Bacula into a single directory, this is simple: simply
29 make a copy of your Bacula directory.
31 If you have done a more typical Unix installation where the binaries are
32 placed in one directory and the configuration files are placed in another,
33 then the simplest way is to configure your new Bacula to go into a single
34 file. Alternatively, make copies of all your binaries and especially your
37 Whatever your situation may be (one of the two just described), you should
38 probably start with the {\bf defaultconf} script that can be found in the {\bf
39 examples} subdirectory. Copy this script to the main Bacula directory, modify
40 it as necessary (there should not need to be many modifications), configure
41 Bacula, build it, install it, then stop your production Bacula, copy all the
42 {\bf *.conf} files from your production Bacula directory to the test Bacula
43 directory, start the test version, and run a few test backups. If all seems
44 good, then you can proceed to install the new Bacula in place of or possibly
47 When installing a new Bacula you need not worry about losing the changes you
48 made to your configuration files as the installation process will not
49 overwrite them providing that you do not do a {\bf make uninstall}.
51 If the new version of Bacula requires an upgrade to the database,
52 you can upgrade it with the script {\bf update\_bacula\_tables}, which
53 will be installed in your scripts directory (default {\bf /etc/bacula}),
54 or alternatively, you can find it in the
55 {\bf \lt{}bacula-source\gt{}/src/cats} directory.
57 \section{Getting Notified of Job Completion}
59 \index[general]{Getting Notified of Job Completion }
60 \index[general]{Completion!Getting Notified of Job }
62 One of the first things you should do is to ensure that you are being properly
63 notified of the status of each Job run by Bacula, or at a minimum of each Job
64 that terminates with an error.
66 Until you are completely comfortable with {\bf Bacula}, we recommend that you
67 send an email to yourself for each Job that is run. This is most easily
68 accomplished by adding an email notification address in the {\bf Messages}
69 resource of your Director's configuration file. An email is automatically
70 configured in the default configuration files, but you must ensure that the
71 default {\bf root} address is replaced by your email address.
73 For additional examples of how to configure a Bacula, please take a look at the
74 {\bf .conf} files found in the {\bf examples} sub-directory. We recommend the
75 following configuration (where you change the paths and email address to
76 correspond to your setup). Note, the {\bf mailcommand} and {\bf
77 operatorcommand} should be on a single line. They were split here for
84 mailcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -h localhost
86 -s \"Bacula: %t %e of %c %l\" %r"
87 operatorcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -h localhost
89 -s \"Bacula: Intervention needed for %j\" %r"
90 Mail = your-email-address = all, !skipped, !terminate
91 append = "/home/bacula/bin/log" = all, !skipped, !terminate
92 operator = your-email-address = mount
93 console = all, !skipped, !saved
98 You will need to ensure that the {\bf /home/bacula/bin} path on the {\bf
99 mailcommand} and the {\bf operatorcommand} lines point to your {\bf Bacula}
100 binary directory where the {\bf bsmtp} program will be installed. You will
101 also want to ensure that the {\bf your-email-address} is replaced by your
102 email address, and finally, you will also need to ensure that the {\bf
103 /home/bacula/bin/log} points to the file where you want to log all messages.
105 With the above Messages resource, you will be notified by email of every Job
106 that ran, all the output will be appended to the {\bf log} file you specify,
107 all output will be directed to the console program, and all mount messages
108 will be emailed to you. Note, some messages will be sent to multiple
111 The form of the mailcommand is a bit complicated, but it allows you to
112 distinguish whether the Job terminated in error or terminated normally. Please
114 \ilink{Mail Command}{mailcommand} section of the Messages
115 Resource chapter of this manual for the details of the substitution characters
118 Once you are totally comfortable with Bacula as I am, or if you have a large
119 number of nightly Jobs as I do (eight), you will probably want to change the
120 {\bf Mail} command to {\bf Mail On Error} which will generate an email message
121 only if the Job terminates in error. If the Job terminates normally, no email
122 message will be sent, but the output will still be appended to the log file as
123 well as sent to the Console program.
125 \section{Getting Email Notification to Work}
127 \index[general]{Work!Getting Email Notification to }
128 \index[general]{Getting Email Notification to Work }
130 The section above describes how to get email notification of job status.
131 Occasionally, however, users have problems receiving any email at all. In that
132 case, the things to check are the following:
135 \item Ensure that you have a valid email address specified on your {\bf Mail}
136 record in the Director's Messages resource. The email address should be fully
137 qualified. Simply using {\bf root} generally will not work, rather you should
138 use {\bf root@localhost} or better yet your full domain.
139 \item Ensure that you do not have a {\bf Mail} record in the Storage daemon's
140 or File daemon's configuration files. The only record you should have is {\bf
145 director = director-name = all
150 \item If all else fails, try replacing the {\bf mailcommand} with
154 mailcommand = "mail -s test your@domain.com"
158 \item Once the above is working, assuming you want to use {\bf bsmtp}, submit
159 the desired bsmtp command by hand and ensure that the email is delivered,
160 then put that command into {\bf Bacula}. Small differences in things such as
161 the parenthesis around the word Bacula can make a big difference to some
162 bsmtp programs. For example, you might start simply by using:
166 mailcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -f \"root@localhost\" %r"
172 \section{Getting Notified that Bacula is Running}
173 \label{JobNotification}
174 \index[general]{Running!Getting Notified that Bacula is }
175 \index[general]{Getting Notified that Bacula is Running }
177 If like me, you have setup Bacula so that email is sent only when a Job has
178 errors, as described in the previous section of this chapter, inevitably, one
179 day, something will go wrong and {\bf Bacula} can stall. This could be because
180 Bacula crashes, which is vary rare, or more likely the network has caused {\bf
181 Bacula} to {\bf hang} for some unknown reason.
183 To avoid this, you can use the {\bf RunAfterJob} command in the Job resource
184 to schedule a Job nightly, or weekly that simply emails you a message saying
185 that Bacula is still running. For example, I have setup the following Job in
186 my Director's configuration file:
192 Run = Level=Full sun-sat at 6:05
202 Schedule = "Watchdog"
203 RunAfterJob = "/home/kern/bacula/bin/watchdog %c %d"
211 File Retention = 1day
212 Job Retention = 1 month
218 Where I established a schedule to run the Job nightly. The Job itself is type
219 {\bf Admin} which means that it doesn't actually do anything, and I've defined
220 a FileSet, Pool, Storage, and Client, all of which are not really used (and
221 probably don't need to be specified). The key aspect of this Job is the
226 RunAfterJob = "/home/kern/bacula/bin/watchdog %c %d"
230 which runs my "watchdog" script. As an example, I have added the Job codes
231 \%c and \%d which will cause the Client name and the Director's name to be
232 passed to the script. For example, if the Client's name is {\bf Watchdog} and
233 the Director's name is {\bf main-dir} then referencing \$1 in the script would
234 get {\bf Watchdog} and referencing \$2 would get {\bf main-dir}. In this case,
235 having the script know the Client and Director's name is not really useful,
236 but in other situations it may be.
238 You can put anything in the watchdog script. In my case, I like to monitor the
239 size of my catalog to be sure that {\bf Bacula} is really pruning it. The
240 following is my watchdog script:
245 cd /home/kern/mysql/var/bacula
247 /home/kern/bacula/bin/bsmtp \
248 -f "\(Bacula\) abuse@whitehouse.com" -h mail.yyyy.com \
249 -s "Bacula running" abuse@whitehouse.com
253 If you just wish to send yourself a message, you can do it with:
258 cd /home/kern/mysql/var/bacula
259 /home/kern/bacula/bin/bsmtp \
260 -f "\(Bacula\) abuse@whitehouse.com" -h mail.yyyy.com \
261 -s "Bacula running" abuse@whitehouse.com <<END-OF-DATA
262 Bacula is still running!!!
267 \section{Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap File}
269 \index[general]{Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap File }
270 \index[general]{File!Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap }
273 \ilink{ WriteBootstrap}{writebootstrap} record in each of your
274 Director's Job resources, you can constantly maintain a
275 \ilink{bootstrap}{BootstrapChapter} file that will enable you to
276 recover the state of your system as of the last backup without having the
277 Bacula catalog. This permits you to more easily recover from a disaster that
278 destroys your Bacula catalog.
280 When a Job resource has a {\bf WriteBootstrap} record, Bacula will maintain
281 the designated file (normally on another system but mounted by NSF) with up to
282 date information necessary to restore your system. For example, in my
283 Director's configuration file, I have the following record:
287 Write Bootstrap = "/mnt/deuter/files/backup/client-name.bsr"
291 where I replace {\bf client-name} by the actual name of the client that is
292 being backed up. Thus, Bacula automatically maintains one file for each of my
293 clients. The necessary bootstrap information is appended to this file during
294 each {\bf Incremental} backup, and the file is totally rewritten during each
297 Note, one disadvantage of writing to an NFS mounted volume as I do is
298 that if the other machine goes down, the OS will wait forever on the fopen()
299 call that Bacula makes. As a consequence, Bacula will completely stall until
300 the machine exporting the NFS mounts comes back up. A possible solution to this
301 problem was provided by Andrew Hilborne, and consists of using the {\bf soft}
302 option instead of the {\bf hard} option when mounting the NFS volume, which is
303 typically done in {\bf /etc/fstab}/. The NFS documentation explains these
304 options in detail. However, I found that with the {\bf soft} option
305 NFS disconnected frequently causing even more problems.
307 If you are starting off in the middle of a cycle (i.e. with Incremental
308 backups) rather than at the beginning (with a Full backup), the {\bf
309 bootstrap} file will not be immediately valid as it must always have the
310 information from a Full backup as the first record. If you wish to synchronize
311 your bootstrap file immediately, you can do so by running a {\bf restore}
312 command for the client and selecting a full restore, but when the restore
313 command asks for confirmation to run the restore Job, you simply reply no,
314 then copy the bootstrap file that was written to the location specified on the
315 {\bf Write Bootstrap} record. The restore bootstrap file can be found in {\bf
316 restore.bsr} in the working directory that you defined. In the example given
317 below for the client {\bf rufus}, my input is shown in bold. Note, the JobId
318 output has been partially truncated to fit on the page here:
322 (in the Console program)
324 First you select one or more JobIds that contain files
325 to be restored. You will then be presented several methods
326 of specifying the JobIds. Then you will be allowed to
327 select which files from those JobIds are to be restored.
328 To select the JobIds, you have the following choices:
329 1: List last 20 Jobs run
330 2: List Jobs where a given File is saved
331 3: Enter list of JobIds to select
332 4: Enter SQL list command
333 5: Select the most recent backup for a client
335 Select item: (1-6): 5
336 The defined Client resources are:
340 Select Client (File daemon) resource (1-3): 2
341 The defined FileSet resources are:
343 Item 1 selected automatically.
344 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
345 | JobId | Levl | Files | StrtTim | VolName | File | SesId | VolSesTime |
346 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
347 | 2 | F | 84 | ... | test1 | 0 | 1 | 1035645259 |
348 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
349 You have selected the following JobId: 2
350 Building directory tree for JobId 2 ...
351 The defined Storage resources are:
353 Item 1 selected automatically.
354 You are now entering file selection mode where you add and
355 remove files to be restored. All files are initially added.
356 Enter "done" to leave this mode.
359 84 files selected to restore.
361 JobName: kernsrestore
362 Bootstrap: /home/kern/bacula/working/restore.bsr
363 Where: /tmp/bacula-restores
368 OK to run? (yes/mod/no): no
371 cp ../working/restore.bsr /mnt/deuter/files/backup/rufus.bsr
375 \section{Rejected Volumes After a Crash}
376 \label{RejectedVolumes}
377 \index[general]{Crash!Rejected Volumes After a }
378 \index[general]{Rejected Volumes After a Crash }
380 Bacula keeps a count of the number of files on each Volume in its Catalog
381 database so that before appending to a tape, it can verify that the number of
382 files are correct, and thus prevent overwriting valid data. If the Director or
383 the Storage daemon crashes before the job has completed, the tape will contain
384 one more file than is noted in the Catalog, and the next time you attempt to
385 use the same Volume, Bacula will reject it due to a mismatch between the
386 physical tape (Volume) and the catalog.
388 The easiest solution to this problem is to label a new tape and start fresh.
389 If you wish to continue appending to the current tape, you can do so by using
390 the {\bf update} command in the console program to change the {\bf Volume
391 Files} entry in the catalog. A typical sequence of events would go like the
405 17-Jan-2003 16:45 rufus-dir: Start Backup JobId 13,
406 Job=kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46
407 17-Jan-2003 16:45 rufus-sd: Volume test01 previously written,
408 moving to end of data.
409 17-Jan-2003 16:46 rufus-sd: kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46 Error:
410 I cannot write on this volume because:
411 The number of files mismatch! Volume=11 Catalog=10
412 17-Jan-2003 16:46 rufus-sd: Job kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46 waiting.
413 Cannot find any appendable volumes.
414 Please use the "label" command to create a new Volume for:
421 (note, lines wrapped for presentation)
422 The key here is the line that reads:
426 The number of files mismatch! Volume=11 Catalog=10
430 It says that Bacula found eleven files on the volume, but that the catalog
431 says there should be ten. When you see this, you can be reasonably sure that
432 the SD was interrupted while writing before it had a chance to update the
433 catalog. As a consequence, you can just modify the catalog count to eleven,
434 and even if the catalog contains references to files saved in file 11,
435 everything will be OK and nothing will be lost. Note that if the SD had
436 written several file marks to the volume, the difference between the Volume
437 count and the Catalog count could be larger than one, but this is unusual.
439 If on the other hand the catalog is marked as having more files than Bacula
440 found on the tape, you need to consider the possible negative consequences of
441 modifying the catalog. Please see below for a more complete discussion of
444 Continuing with the example of {\bf Volume = 11 Catalog = 10}, to enable to
445 Bacula to append to the tape, you do the following:
452 2: Pool from resource
453 3: Slots from autochanger
454 Choose catalog item to update (1-3): 1
458 Select the Pool (1-2):
459 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
460 | MedId | VolName | MedTyp | VolStat | VolBytes | Last | VolReten | Recy | Slt |
461 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
462 | 1 | test01 | DDS-4 | Error | 352427156 | ... | 31536000 | 1 | 0 |
463 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
464 Enter MediaId or Volume name: 1
468 (note table output truncated for presentation) First, you chose to update the
469 Volume parameters by entering a {\bf 1}. In the volume listing that follows,
470 notice how the VolStatus is {\bf Error}. We will correct that after changing
471 the Volume Files. Continuing, you respond 1,
475 Updating Volume "test01"
476 Parameters to modify:
478 2: Volume Retention Period
479 3: Volume Use Duration
480 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
481 5: Maximum Volume Files
482 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
488 Select parameter to modify (1-11): 9
489 Warning changing Volume Files can result
490 in loss of data on your Volume
491 Current Volume Files is: 10
492 Enter new number of Files for Volume: 11
493 New Volume Files is: 11
494 Updating Volume "test01"
495 Parameters to modify:
497 2: Volume Retention Period
498 3: Volume Use Duration
499 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
500 5: Maximum Volume Files
501 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
507 Select parameter to modify (1-10): 1
511 Here, you have selected {\bf 9} in order to update the Volume Files, then you
512 changed it from {\bf 10} to {\bf 11}, and you now answer {\bf 1} to change the
517 Current Volume status is: Error
525 Choose new Volume Status (1-6): 1
526 New Volume status is: Append
527 Updating Volume "test01"
528 Parameters to modify:
530 2: Volume Retention Period
531 3: Volume Use Duration
532 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
533 5: Maximum Volume Files
534 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
540 Select parameter to modify (1-11): 11
545 At this point, you have changed the Volume Files from {\bf 10} to {\bf 11} to
546 account for the last file that was written but not updated in the database,
547 and you changed the Volume Status back to {\bf Append}.
549 This was a lot of words to describe something quite simple.
551 The {\bf Volume Files} option exists only in version 1.29 and later, and you
552 should be careful using it. Generally, if you set the value to that which
553 Bacula said is on the tape, you will be OK, especially if the value is one
554 more than what is in the catalog.
556 Now lets consider the case:
560 The number of files mismatch! Volume=10 Catalog=12
564 Here the Bacula found fewer files on the volume than what is marked in the
565 catalog. Now, in this case, you should hesitate a lot before modifying the count
566 in the catalog, because if you force the catalog from 12 to 10, Bacula will
567 start writing after the file 10 on the tape, possibly overwriting valid data,
568 and if you ever try to restore any of the files that the catalog has marked as
569 saved on Files 11 and 12, all chaos will break out. In this case, you will
570 probably be better off using a new tape. In fact, you might want to see what
571 files the catalog claims are actually stored on that Volume, and back them up
572 to another tape and recycle this tape.
574 \section{Security Considerations}
576 \index[general]{Considerations!Security }
577 \index[general]{Security Considerations }
579 Only the File daemon needs to run with root permission (so that it can access
580 all files). As a consequence, you may run your Director, Storage daemon, and
581 MySQL or PostgreSQL database server as non-root processes. Version 1.30 has
582 the {\bf -u} and the {\bf -g} options that allow you to specify a userid and
583 groupid on the command line to be used after Bacula starts.
585 As of version 1.33, thanks to Dan Langille, it is easier to configure the
586 Bacula Director and Storage daemon to run as non-root.
588 You should protect the Bacula port addresses (normally 9101, 9102, and 9103)
589 from outside access by a firewall or other means of protection to prevent
590 unauthorized use of your daemons.
592 You should ensure that the configuration files are not world readable since
593 they contain passwords that allow access to the daemons. Anyone who can access
594 the Director using a console program can restore any file from a backup
597 You should protect your Catalog database. If you are using SQLite, make sure
598 that the working directory is readable only by root (or your Bacula userid),
599 and ensure that {\bf bacula.db} has permissions {\bf -rw-r\verb:--:r\verb:--:} (i.e. 640) or
600 more strict. If you are using MySQL or PostgreSQL, please note that the Bacula
601 setup procedure leaves the database open to anyone. At a minimum, you should
602 assign the user {\bf bacula} a userid and add it to your Director's
603 configuration file in the appropriate Catalog resource.
605 \section{Creating Holiday Schedules}
607 \index[general]{Schedules!Creating Holiday }
608 \index[general]{Creating Holiday Schedules }
610 If you normally change tapes every day or at least every Friday, but Thursday
611 is a holiday, you can use a trick proposed by Lutz Kittler to ensure that no
612 job runs on Thursday so that you can insert Friday's tape and be sure it will
613 be used on Friday. To do so, define a {\bf RunJobBefore} script that normally
614 returns zero, so that the Bacula job will normally continue. You can then
615 modify the script to return non-zero on any day when you do not want Bacula to
618 \section{Automatic Labeling Using Your Autochanger}
620 \index[general]{Automatic Labeling Using Your Autochanger }
621 \index[general]{Autochanger!Automatic Labeling Using Your }
623 If you have an autochanger but it does not support barcodes, using a "trick"
624 you can make Bacula automatically label all the volumes in your autochanger's
627 First create a file containing one line for each slot in your autochanger that
628 has a tape to be labeled. The line will contain the slot number a colon (:)
629 then the Volume name you want to use. For example, create a file named {\bf
630 volume-list}, which contains:
640 The records do not need to be in any order and you don't need to mention all
641 the slots. Normally, you will have a consistent set of Volume names and a
642 sequential set of numbers for each slot you want labeled. In the example
643 above, I've left out slots 3 and 4 just as an example. Now, modify your {\bf
644 mtx-changer} script and comment out all the lines in the {\bf list)} case by
645 putting a \# in column 1. Then add the following two lines:
649 cat <absolute-path>/volume-list
654 so that the whole case looks like:
660 # commented out lines
661 cat <absolute-path>/volume-list
667 where you replace \lt{}absolute-path\gt{} with the full path to the
668 volume-list file. Then using the console, you enter the following command:
676 and Bacula will proceed to mount the autochanger Volumes in the list and label
677 them with the Volume names you have supplied. Bacula will think that the list
678 was provided by the autochanger barcodes, but in reality, it was you who
679 supplied the \lt{}barcodes\gt{}.
681 If it seems to work, when it finishes, enter:
689 and you should see all the volumes nicely created.
691 \section{Backing Up Portables Using DHCP}
693 \index[general]{DHCP!Backing Up Portables Using }
694 \index[general]{Backing Up Portables Using DHCP }
696 You may want to backup laptops or portables that are not always connected to
697 the network. If you are using DHCP to assign an IP address to those machines
698 when they connect, you will need to use the Dynamic Update capability of DNS
699 to assign a name to those machines that can be used in the Address field of
700 the Client resource in the Director's conf file.
702 \section{Going on Vacation}
704 \index[general]{Vacation!Going on }
705 \index[general]{Going on Vacation }
707 At some point, you may want to be absent for a week or two and you want to
708 make sure Bacula has enough tape left so that the backups will complete. You
709 start by doing a {\bf list volumes} in the Console program:
715 Using default Catalog name=BackupDB DB=bacula
717 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+-
718 | MediaId | VolumeName | MediaType | VolStatus | VolBytes |
719 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+-
720 | 23 | DLT-30Nov02 | DLT8000 | Full | 54,739,278,128 |
721 | 24 | DLT-21Dec02 | DLT8000 | Full | 56,331,524,629 |
722 | 25 | DLT-11Jan03 | DLT8000 | Full | 67,863,514,895 |
723 | 26 | DLT-02Feb03 | DLT8000 | Full | 63,439,314,216 |
724 | 27 | DLT-03Mar03 | DLT8000 | Full | 66,022,754,598 |
725 | 28 | DLT-04Apr03 | DLT8000 | Full | 60,792,559,924 |
726 | 29 | DLT-28Apr03 | DLT8000 | Full | 62,072,494,063 |
727 | 30 | DLT-17May03 | DLT8000 | Full | 65,901,767,839 |
728 | 31 | DLT-07Jun03 | DLT8000 | Used | 56,558,490,015 |
729 | 32 | DLT-28Jun03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,274,871,265 |
730 | 33 | DLT-19Jul03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,648,749,480 |
731 | 34 | DLT-08Aug03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,293,941,255 |
732 | 35 | DLT-24Aug03 | DLT8000 | Append | 9,999,216,782 |
733 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+
737 Note, I have truncated the output for presentation purposes. What is
738 significant, is that I can see that my current tape has almost 10 Gbytes of
739 data, and that the average amount of data I get on my tapes is about 60
740 Gbytes. So if I go on vacation now, I don't need to worry about tape capacity
741 (at least not for short absences).
743 Equally significant is the fact that I did go on vacation the 28th of June
744 2003, and when I did the {\bf list volumes} command, my current tape at that
745 time, DLT-07Jun03 MediaId 31, had 56.5 Gbytes written. I could see that the
746 tape would fill shortly. Consequently, I manually marked it as {\bf Used} and
747 replaced it with a fresh tape that I labeled as DLT-28Jun03, thus assuring
748 myself that the backups would all complete without my intervention.
750 \section{Exclude Files on Windows Regardless of Case}
752 \index[general]{Exclude Files on Windows Regardless of Case}
753 % TODO: should this be put in the win32 chapter?
754 % TODO: should all these tips be placed in other chapters?
756 This tip was submitted by Marc Brueckner who wasn't sure of the case of some
757 of his files on Win32, which is case insensitive. The problem is that Bacula
758 thinks that {\bf /UNIMPORTANT FILES} is different from {\bf /Unimportant
759 Files}. Marc was aware that the file exclusion permits wild-cards. So, he
764 "/[Uu][Nn][Ii][Mm][Pp][Oo][Rr][Tt][Aa][Nn][Tt] [Ff][Ii][Ll][Ee][Ss]"
768 As a consequence, the above exclude works for files of any case.
770 Please note that this works only in Bacula Exclude statement and not in
773 \section{Executing Scripts on a Remote Machine}
774 \label{RemoteExecution}
775 \index[general]{Machine!Executing Scripts on a Remote }
776 \index[general]{Executing Scripts on a Remote Machine }
778 This tip also comes from Marc Brueckner. (Note, this tip is probably outdated
779 by the addition of {\bf ClientRunBeforJob} and {\bf ClientRunAfterJob} Job
780 records, but the technique still could be useful.) First I thought the "Run
781 Before Job" statement in the Job-resource is for executing a script on the
782 remote machine (the machine to be backed up). (Note, this is possible as mentioned
783 above by using {\bf ClientRunBeforJob} and {\bf ClientRunAfterJob}).
784 It could be useful to execute
785 scripts on the remote machine e.g. for stopping databases or other services
786 while doing the backup. (Of course I have to start the services again when the
787 backup has finished) I found the following solution: Bacula could execute
788 scripts on the remote machine by using ssh. The authentication is done
789 automatically using a private key. First you have to generate a keypair. I've
794 ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t dsa -f Bacula_key
798 This statement may take a little time to run. It creates a public/private key
799 pair with no passphrase. You could save the keys in /etc/bacula. Now you have
800 two new files : Bacula\_key which contains the private key and Bacula\_key.pub
801 which contains the public key.
803 Now you have to append the Bacula\_key.pub file to the file authorized\_keys
804 in the \textbackslash{}root\textbackslash{}.ssh directory of the remote
805 machine. Then you have to add (or uncomment) the line
809 AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys
813 to the sshd\_config file on the remote machine. Where the \%h stands for the
814 home-directory of the user (root in this case).
816 Assuming that your sshd is already running on the remote machine, you can now
817 enter the following on the machine where Bacula runs:
821 ssh -i Bacula_key -l root <machine-name-or-ip-address> "ls -la"
825 This should execute the "ls -la" command on the remote machine.
827 Now you could add lines like the following to your Director's conf file:
832 Run Before Job = ssh -i /etc/bacula/Bacula_key 192.168.1.1 \
833 "/etc/init.d/database stop"
834 Run After Job = ssh -i /etc/bacula/Bacula_key 192.168.1.1 \
835 "/etc/init.d/database start"
840 Even though Bacula version 1.32 and later has a ClientRunBeforeJob, the ssh method still
841 could be useful for updating all the Bacula clients on several remote machines
844 \section{Recycling All Your Volumes}
846 \index[general]{Recycling All Your Volumes }
847 \index[general]{Volumes!Recycling All Your }
849 This tip comes from Phil Stracchino.
851 If you decide to blow away your catalog and start over, the simplest way to
852 re-add all your prelabeled tapes with a minimum of fuss (provided you don't
853 care about the data on the tapes) is to add the tape labels using the console
854 {\bf add} command, then go into the catalog and manually set the VolStatus of
855 every tape to {\bf Recycle}.
857 The SQL command to do this is very simple, either use your vendor's
858 command line interface (mysql, postgres, sqlite, ...) or use the sql
859 command in the Bacula console:
863 update Media set VolStatus='Recycle';
867 Bacula will then ignore the data already stored on the tapes and just re-use
868 each tape without further objection.
870 \section{Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS filesystems}
872 \index[general]{Filesystems!Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS }
873 \index[general]{Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS filesystems }
875 This tip comes from Volker Sauer.
877 Note, this tip was given prior to implementation of ACLs in Bacula (version
878 1.34.5). It is left here because dumping/displaying ACLs can still be useful
879 in testing/verifying that Bacula is backing up and restoring your ACLs
880 properly. Please see the
881 \ilink{aclsupport}{ACLSupport} FileSet option in the
882 configuration chapter of this manual.
884 For example, you could dump the ACLs to a file with a script similar to the
890 BACKUP_DIRS="/foo /bar"
891 STORE_ACL=/root/acl-backup
893 for i in $BACKUP_DIRS; do
894 cd $i /usr/bin/getfacl -R --skip-base .>$STORE_ACL/${i//\//_}
899 Then use Bacula to backup {\bf /root/acl-backup}.
901 The ACLs could be restored using Bacula to the {\bf /root/acl-backup} file,
902 then restored to your system using:
906 setfacl --restore/root/acl-backup
910 \section{Total Automation of Bacula Tape Handling}
912 \index[general]{Handling!Total Automation of Bacula Tape }
913 \index[general]{Total Automation of Bacula Tape Handling }
915 This tip was provided by Alexander Kuehn.
917 \elink{Bacula}{\url{http://www.bacula.org/}} is a really nice backup program except
918 that the manual tape changing requires user interaction with the bacula
921 Fortunately I can fix this.
922 NOTE!!! This suggestion applies for people who do *NOT* have tape autochangers
923 and must change tapes manually.!!!!!
925 Bacula supports a variety of tape changers through the use of mtx-changer
926 scripts/programs. This highly flexible approach allowed me to create
927 \elink{this shell script}{\url{http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/mtx-changer.txt}} which does the following:
928 % TODO: We need to include this in book appendix and point to it.
930 Whenever a new tape is required it sends a mail to the operator to insert the
931 new tape. Then it waits until a tape has been inserted, sends a mail again to
932 say thank you and let's bacula continue its backup.
933 So you can schedule and run backups without ever having to log on or see the
935 To make the whole thing work you need to create a Device resource which looks
936 something like this ("Archive Device", "Maximum Changer Wait", "Media
937 Type" and "Label media" may have different values):
943 Archive Device = # use yours not mine! ;)/dev/nsa0
944 Changer Device = # not really required/dev/nsa0
945 Changer Command = "# use this (maybe change the path)!
946 /usr/local/bin/mtx-changer %o %a %S"
947 Maximum Changer Wait = 3d # 3 days in seconds
948 AutomaticMount = yes; # mount on start
949 AlwaysOpen = yes; # keep device locked
950 Media Type = DDS3 # it's just a name
951 RemovableMedia = yes; #
952 Offline On Unmount = Yes; # keep this too
958 As the script has to emulate the complete wisdom of a mtx-changer it has an
959 internal "database" containing where which tape is stored, you can see this on
964 labels="VOL-0001 VOL-0002 VOL-0003 VOL-0004 VOL-0005 VOL-0006
965 VOL-0007 VOL-0008 VOL-0009 VOL-0010 VOL-0011 VOL-0012"
969 The above should be all on one line, and it effectively tells Bacula that
970 volume "VOL-0001" is located in slot 1 (which is our lowest slot), that
971 volume "VOL-0002" is located in slot 2 and so on..
972 The script also maintains a logfile (/var/log/mtx.log) where you can monitor
975 \section{Running Concurrent Jobs}
976 \label{ConcurrentJobs}
977 \index[general]{Jobs!Running Concurrent}
978 \index[general]{Running Concurrent Jobs}
979 \index[general]{Concurrent Jobs}
981 Bacula can run multiple concurrent jobs, but the default configuration files
982 are not set to do so. Using the {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} directive, you
983 have a lot of control over how many jobs can run at the same time, and which
984 jobs can run simultaneously. The downside is that it can be a bit tricky to
985 set it up for the first time as you need to set the concurrency in at least
986 five different places.
988 The Director, the File daemon, and the Storage daemon each have a {\bf Maximum
989 Concurrent Jobs} directive that determines overall number of concurrent jobs
990 the daemon will run. The default is one for the Director and ten for both the
991 File daemon and the Storage daemon, so assuming you will not be running more
992 than ten concurrent jobs, the only changes that are needed are in the
993 Director's conf file (bacula-dir.conf).
995 Within the Director's configuration file, {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} can be
996 set in the Direct, Job, Client, and Storage resources. Each one must be set
997 properly, according to your needs, otherwise your jobs may be run one at a
1000 For example, if you want two different jobs to run simultaneously backing up
1001 the same Client to the same Storage device, they will run concurrently only if
1002 you have set {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} greater than one in the Director
1003 resource, the Client resource, and the Storage resource in bacula-dir.conf.
1005 We recommend that you carefully read the \ilink{Data
1006 Spooling}{SpoolingChapter} of this manual first, then carefully
1007 test your multiple concurrent backup including
1008 restore testing before you put it into production.
1010 Below is a super stripped down bacula-dir.conf file showing you the four
1011 places where the the file has been modified to allow the same job {\bf
1012 NightlySave} to run up to four times concurrently. The change to the Job
1013 resource is not necessary if you want different Jobs to run at the same time,
1014 which is the normal case.
1019 # Bacula Director Configuration file -- bacula-dir.conf
1023 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1027 Name = "NightlySave"
1028 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1035 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1040 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4