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 }
20 The first thing to do before upgrading from one version to another is to
21 ensure that you don't overwrite or delete your production (current) version of Bacula until
22 you have tested that the new version works.
24 If you have installed Bacula into a single directory, this is simple: simply
25 make a copy of your Bacula directory.
27 If you have done a more typical Unix installation where the binaries are
28 placed in one directory and the configuration files are placed in another,
29 then the simplest way is to configure your new Bacula to go into a single
30 file. Alternatively, make copies of all your binaries and especially your
33 Whatever your situation may be (one of the two just described), you should
34 probably start with the {\bf defaultconf} script that can be found in the {\bf
35 examples} subdirectory. Copy this script to the main Bacula directory, modify
36 it as necessary (there should not need to be many modifications), configure
37 Bacula, build it, install it, then stop your production Bacula, copy all the
38 {\bf *.conf} files from your production Bacula directory to the test Bacula
39 directory, start the test version, and run a few test backups. If all seems
40 good, then you can proceed to install the new Bacula in place of or possibly
43 When installing a new Bacula you need not worry about losing the changes you
44 made to your configuration files as the installation process will not
45 overwrite them providing that you do not do a {\bf make uninstall}.
47 If the new version of Bacula requires an upgrade to the database,
48 you can upgrade it with the script {\bf update\_bacula\_tables}, which
49 will be installed in your scripts directory (default {\bf /etc/bacula}),
50 or alternatively, you can find it in the
51 {\bf \lt{}bacula-source\gt{}/src/cats} directory.
53 \section{Getting Notified of Job Completion}
55 \index[general]{Getting Notified of Job Completion }
56 \index[general]{Completion!Getting Notified of Job }
58 One of the first things you should do is to ensure that you are being properly
59 notified of the status of each Job run by Bacula, or at a minimum of each Job
60 that terminates with an error.
62 Until you are completely comfortable with {\bf Bacula}, we recommend that you
63 send an email to yourself for each Job that is run. This is most easily
64 accomplished by adding an email notification address in the {\bf Messages}
65 resource of your Director's configuration file. An email is automatically
66 configured in the default configuration files, but you must ensure that the
67 default {\bf root} address is replaced by your email address.
69 For additional examples of how to configure a Bacula, please take a look at the
70 {\bf .conf} files found in the {\bf examples} sub-directory. We recommend the
71 following configuration (where you change the paths and email address to
72 correspond to your setup). Note, the {\bf mailcommand} and {\bf
73 operatorcommand} should be on a single line. They were split here for
80 mailcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -h localhost
82 -s \"Bacula: %t %e of %c %l\" %r"
83 operatorcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -h localhost
85 -s \"Bacula: Intervention needed for %j\" %r"
86 Mail = your-email-address = all, !skipped, !terminate
87 append = "/home/bacula/bin/log" = all, !skipped, !terminate
88 operator = your-email-address = mount
89 console = all, !skipped, !saved
94 You will need to ensure that the {\bf /home/bacula/bin} path on the {\bf
95 mailcommand} and the {\bf operatorcommand} lines point to your {\bf Bacula}
96 binary directory where the {\bf bsmtp} program will be installed. You will
97 also want to ensure that the {\bf your-email-address} is replaced by your
98 email address, and finally, you will also need to ensure that the {\bf
99 /home/bacula/bin/log} points to the file where you want to log all messages.
101 With the above Messages resource, you will be notified by email of every Job
102 that ran, all the output will be appended to the {\bf log} file you specify,
103 all output will be directed to the console program, and all mount messages
104 will be emailed to you. Note, some messages will be sent to multiple
107 The form of the mailcommand is a bit complicated, but it allows you to
108 distinguish whether the Job terminated in error or terminated normally. Please
110 \ilink{Mail Command}{mailcommand} section of the Messages
111 Resource chapter of this manual for the details of the substitution characters
114 Once you are totally comfortable with Bacula as I am, or if you have a large
115 number of nightly Jobs as I do (eight), you will probably want to change the
116 {\bf Mail} command to {\bf Mail On Error} which will generate an email message
117 only if the Job terminates in error. If the Job terminates normally, no email
118 message will be sent, but the output will still be appended to the log file as
119 well as sent to the Console program.
121 \section{Getting Email Notification to Work}
123 \index[general]{Work!Getting Email Notification to }
124 \index[general]{Getting Email Notification to Work }
126 The section above describes how to get email notification of job status.
127 Occasionally, however, users have problems receiving any email at all. In that
128 case, the things to check are the following:
131 \item Ensure that you have a valid email address specified on your {\bf Mail}
132 record in the Director's Messages resource. The email address should be fully
133 qualified. Simply using {\bf root} generally will not work, rather you should
134 use {\bf root@localhost} or better yet your full domain.
135 \item Ensure that you do not have a {\bf Mail} record in the Storage daemon's
136 or File daemon's configuration files. The only record you should have is {\bf
141 director = director-name = all
146 \item If all else fails, try replacing the {\bf mailcommand} with
150 mailcommand = "mail -s test your@domain.com"
154 \item Once the above is working, assuming you want to use {\bf bsmtp}, submit
155 the desired bsmtp command by hand and ensure that the email is delivered,
156 then put that command into {\bf Bacula}. Small differences in things such as
157 the parenthesis around the word Bacula can make a big difference to some
158 bsmtp programs. For example, you might start simply by using:
162 mailcommand = "/home/bacula/bin/bsmtp -f \"root@localhost\" %r"
168 \section{Getting Notified that Bacula is Running}
169 \label{JobNotification}
170 \index[general]{Running!Getting Notified that Bacula is }
171 \index[general]{Getting Notified that Bacula is Running }
173 If like me, you have setup Bacula so that email is sent only when a Job has
174 errors, as described in the previous section of this chapter, inevitably, one
175 day, something will go wrong and {\bf Bacula} can stall. This could be because
176 Bacula crashes, which is vary rare, or more likely the network has caused {\bf
177 Bacula} to {\bf hang} for some unknown reason.
179 To avoid this, you can use the {\bf RunAfterJob} command in the Job resource
180 to schedule a Job nightly, or weekly that simply emails you a message saying
181 that Bacula is still running. For example, I have setup the following Job in
182 my Director's configuration file:
188 Run = Level=Full sun-sat at 6:05
198 Schedule = "Watchdog"
199 RunAfterJob = "/home/kern/bacula/bin/watchdog %c %d"
207 File Retention = 1day
208 Job Retention = 1 month
214 Where I established a schedule to run the Job nightly. The Job itself is type
215 {\bf Admin} which means that it doesn't actually do anything, and I've defined
216 a FileSet, Pool, Storage, and Client, all of which are not really used (and
217 probably don't need to be specified). The key aspect of this Job is the
222 RunAfterJob = "/home/kern/bacula/bin/watchdog %c %d"
226 which runs my "watchdog" script. As an example, I have added the Job codes
227 \%c and \%d which will cause the Client name and the Director's name to be
228 passed to the script. For example, if the Client's name is {\bf Watchdog} and
229 the Director's name is {\bf main-dir} then referencing \$1 in the script would
230 get {\bf Watchdog} and referencing \$2 would get {\bf main-dir}. In this case,
231 having the script know the Client and Director's name is not really useful,
232 but in other situations it may be.
234 You can put anything in the watchdog script. In my case, I like to monitor the
235 size of my catalog to be sure that {\bf Bacula} is really pruning it. The
236 following is my watchdog script:
241 cd /home/kern/mysql/var/bacula
243 /home/kern/bacula/bin/bsmtp \
244 -f "\(Bacula\) abuse@whitehouse.com" -h mail.yyyy.com \
245 -s "Bacula running" abuse@whitehouse.com
249 If you just wish to send yourself a message, you can do it with:
254 cd /home/kern/mysql/var/bacula
255 /home/kern/bacula/bin/bsmtp \
256 -f "\(Bacula\) abuse@whitehouse.com" -h mail.yyyy.com \
257 -s "Bacula running" abuse@whitehouse.com <<END-OF-DATA
258 Bacula is still running!!!
263 \section{Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap File}
265 \index[general]{Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap File }
266 \index[general]{File!Maintaining a Valid Bootstrap }
269 \ilink{ WriteBootstrap}{writebootstrap} record in each of your
270 Director's Job resources, you can constantly maintain a
271 \ilink{bootstrap}{BootstrapChapter} file that will enable you to
272 recover the state of your system as of the last backup without having the
273 Bacula catalog. This permits you to more easily recover from a disaster that
274 destroys your Bacula catalog.
276 When a Job resource has a {\bf WriteBootstrap} record, Bacula will maintain
277 the designated file (normally on another system but mounted by NSF) with up to
278 date information necessary to restore your system. For example, in my
279 Director's configuration file, I have the following record:
283 Write Bootstrap = "/mnt/deuter/files/backup/client-name.bsr"
287 where I replace {\bf client-name} by the actual name of the client that is
288 being backed up. Thus, Bacula automatically maintains one file for each of my
289 clients. The necessary bootstrap information is appended to this file during
290 each {\bf Incremental} backup, and the file is totally rewritten during each
293 Note, one disadvantage of writing to an NFS mounted volume as I do is
294 that if the other machine goes down, the OS will wait forever on the fopen()
295 call that Bacula makes. As a consequence, Bacula will completely stall until
296 the machine exporting the NFS mounts comes back up. A possible solution to this
297 problem was provided by Andrew Hilborne, and consists of using the {\bf soft}
298 option instead of the {\bf hard} option when mounting the NFS volume, which is
299 typically done in {\bf /etc/fstab}/. The NFS documentation explains these
300 options in detail. However, I found that with the {\bf soft} option
301 NFS disconnected frequently causing even more problems.
303 If you are starting off in the middle of a cycle (i.e. with Incremental
304 backups) rather than at the beginning (with a Full backup), the {\bf
305 bootstrap} file will not be immediately valid as it must always have the
306 information from a Full backup as the first record. If you wish to synchronize
307 your bootstrap file immediately, you can do so by running a {\bf restore}
308 command for the client and selecting a full restore, but when the restore
309 command asks for confirmation to run the restore Job, you simply reply no,
310 then copy the bootstrap file that was written to the location specified on the
311 {\bf Write Bootstrap} record. The restore bootstrap file can be found in {\bf
312 restore.bsr} in the working directory that you defined. In the example given
313 below for the client {\bf rufus}, my input is shown in bold. Note, the JobId
314 output has been partially truncated to fit on the page here:
318 (in the Console program)
320 First you select one or more JobIds that contain files
321 to be restored. You will then be presented several methods
322 of specifying the JobIds. Then you will be allowed to
323 select which files from those JobIds are to be restored.
324 To select the JobIds, you have the following choices:
325 1: List last 20 Jobs run
326 2: List Jobs where a given File is saved
327 3: Enter list of JobIds to select
328 4: Enter SQL list command
329 5: Select the most recent backup for a client
331 Select item: (1-6): 5
332 The defined Client resources are:
336 Select Client (File daemon) resource (1-3): 2
337 The defined FileSet resources are:
339 Item 1 selected automatically.
340 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
341 | JobId | Levl | Files | StrtTim | VolName | File | SesId | VolSesTime |
342 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
343 | 2 | F | 84 | ... | test1 | 0 | 1 | 1035645259 |
344 +-------+------+-------+---------+---------+------+-------+------------+
345 You have selected the following JobId: 2
346 Building directory tree for JobId 2 ...
347 The defined Storage resources are:
349 Item 1 selected automatically.
350 You are now entering file selection mode where you add and
351 remove files to be restored. All files are initially added.
352 Enter "done" to leave this mode.
355 84 files selected to restore.
357 JobName: kernsrestore
358 Bootstrap: /home/kern/bacula/working/restore.bsr
359 Where: /tmp/bacula-restores
364 OK to run? (yes/mod/no): no
367 cp ../working/restore.bsr /mnt/deuter/files/backup/rufus.bsr
371 \section{Rejected Volumes After a Crash}
372 \label{RejectedVolumes}
373 \index[general]{Crash!Rejected Volumes After a }
374 \index[general]{Rejected Volumes After a Crash }
376 Bacula keeps a count of the number of files on each Volume in its Catalog
377 database so that before appending to a tape, it can verify that the number of
378 files are correct, and thus prevent overwriting valid data. If the Director or
379 the Storage daemon crashes before the job has completed, the tape will contain
380 one more file than is noted in the Catalog, and the next time you attempt to
381 use the same Volume, Bacula will reject it due to a mismatch between the
382 physical tape (Volume) and the catalog.
384 The easiest solution to this problem is to label a new tape and start fresh.
385 If you wish to continue appending to the current tape, you can do so by using
386 the {\bf update} command in the console program to change the {\bf Volume
387 Files} entry in the catalog. A typical sequence of events would go like the
401 17-Jan-2003 16:45 rufus-dir: Start Backup JobId 13,
402 Job=kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46
403 17-Jan-2003 16:45 rufus-sd: Volume test01 previously written,
404 moving to end of data.
405 17-Jan-2003 16:46 rufus-sd: kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46 Error:
406 I cannot write on this volume because:
407 The number of files mismatch! Volume=11 Catalog=10
408 17-Jan-2003 16:46 rufus-sd: Job kernsave.2003-01-17_16.45.46 waiting.
409 Cannot find any appendable volumes.
410 Please use the "label" command to create a new Volume for:
417 (note, lines wrapped for presentation)
418 The key here is the line that reads:
422 The number of files mismatch! Volume=11 Catalog=10
426 It says that Bacula found eleven files on the volume, but that the catalog
427 says there should be ten. When you see this, you can be reasonably sure that
428 the SD was interrupted while writing before it had a chance to update the
429 catalog. As a consequence, you can just modify the catalog count to eleven,
430 and even if the catalog contains references to files saved in file 11,
431 everything will be OK and nothing will be lost. Note that if the SD had
432 written several file marks to the volume, the difference between the Volume
433 count and the Catalog count could be larger than one, but this is unusual.
435 If on the other hand the catalog is marked as having more files than Bacula
436 found on the tape, you need to consider the possible negative consequences of
437 modifying the catalog. Please see below for a more complete discussion of
440 Continuing with the example of {\bf Volume = 11 Catalog = 10}, to enable to
441 Bacula to append to the tape, you do the following:
448 2: Pool from resource
449 3: Slots from autochanger
450 Choose catalog item to update (1-3): 1
454 Select the Pool (1-2):
455 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
456 | MedId | VolName | MedTyp | VolStat | VolBytes | Last | VolReten | Recy | Slt |
457 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
458 | 1 | test01 | DDS-4 | Error | 352427156 | ... | 31536000 | 1 | 0 |
459 +-------+---------+--------+---------+-----------+------+----------+------+-----+
460 Enter MediaId or Volume name: 1
464 (note table output truncated for presentation) First, you chose to update the
465 Volume parameters by entering a {\bf 1}. In the volume listing that follows,
466 notice how the VolStatus is {\bf Error}. We will correct that after changing
467 the Volume Files. Continuing, you respond 1,
471 Updating Volume "test01"
472 Parameters to modify:
474 2: Volume Retention Period
475 3: Volume Use Duration
476 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
477 5: Maximum Volume Files
478 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
484 Select parameter to modify (1-11): 9
485 Warning changing Volume Files can result
486 in loss of data on your Volume
487 Current Volume Files is: 10
488 Enter new number of Files for Volume: 11
489 New Volume Files is: 11
490 Updating Volume "test01"
491 Parameters to modify:
493 2: Volume Retention Period
494 3: Volume Use Duration
495 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
496 5: Maximum Volume Files
497 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
503 Select parameter to modify (1-10): 1
507 Here, you have selected {\bf 9} in order to update the Volume Files, then you
508 changed it from {\bf 10} to {\bf 11}, and you now answer {\bf 1} to change the
513 Current Volume status is: Error
521 Choose new Volume Status (1-6): 1
522 New Volume status is: Append
523 Updating Volume "test01"
524 Parameters to modify:
526 2: Volume Retention Period
527 3: Volume Use Duration
528 4: Maximum Volume Jobs
529 5: Maximum Volume Files
530 6: Maximum Volume Bytes
536 Select parameter to modify (1-11): 11
541 At this point, you have changed the Volume Files from {\bf 10} to {\bf 11} to
542 account for the last file that was written but not updated in the database,
543 and you changed the Volume Status back to {\bf Append}.
545 This was a lot of words to describe something quite simple.
547 The {\bf Volume Files} option exists only in version 1.29 and later, and you
548 should be careful using it. Generally, if you set the value to that which
549 Bacula said is on the tape, you will be OK, especially if the value is one
550 more than what is in the catalog.
552 Now lets consider the case:
556 The number of files mismatch! Volume=10 Catalog=12
560 Here the Bacula found fewer files on the volume than what is marked in the
561 catalog. Now, in this case, you should hesitate a lot before modifying the count
562 in the catalog, because if you force the catalog from 12 to 10, Bacula will
563 start writing after the file 10 on the tape, possibly overwriting valid data,
564 and if you ever try to restore any of the files that the catalog has marked as
565 saved on Files 11 and 12, all chaos will break out. In this case, you will
566 probably be better off using a new tape. In fact, you might want to see what
567 files the catalog claims are actually stored on that Volume, and back them up
568 to another tape and recycle this tape.
570 \section{Security Considerations}
572 \index[general]{Considerations!Security }
573 \index[general]{Security Considerations }
575 Only the File daemon needs to run with root permission (so that it can access
576 all files). As a consequence, you may run your Director, Storage daemon, and
577 MySQL or PostgreSQL database server as non-root processes. Version 1.30 has
578 the {\bf -u} and the {\bf -g} options that allow you to specify a userid and
579 groupid on the command line to be used after Bacula starts.
581 As of version 1.33, thanks to Dan Langille, it is easier to configure the
582 Bacula Director and Storage daemon to run as non-root.
584 You should protect the Bacula port addresses (normally 9101, 9102, and 9103)
585 from outside access by a firewall or other means of protection to prevent
586 unauthorized use of your daemons.
588 You should ensure that the configuration files are not world readable since
589 they contain passwords that allow access to the daemons. Anyone who can access
590 the Director using a console program can restore any file from a backup
593 You should protect your Catalog database. If you are using SQLite, make sure
594 that the working directory is readable only by root (or your Bacula userid),
595 and ensure that {\bf bacula.db} has permissions {\bf -rw-r\verb:--:r\verb:--:} (i.e. 640) or
596 more strict. If you are using MySQL or PostgreSQL, please note that the Bacula
597 setup procedure leaves the database open to anyone. At a minimum, you should
598 assign the user {\bf bacula} a userid and add it to your Director's
599 configuration file in the appropriate Catalog resource.
601 \section{Creating Holiday Schedules}
603 \index[general]{Schedules!Creating Holiday }
604 \index[general]{Creating Holiday Schedules }
606 If you normally change tapes every day or at least every Friday, but Thursday
607 is a holiday, you can use a trick proposed by Lutz Kittler to ensure that no
608 job runs on Thursday so that you can insert Friday's tape and be sure it will
609 be used on Friday. To do so, define a {\bf RunJobBefore} script that normally
610 returns zero, so that the Bacula job will normally continue. You can then
611 modify the script to return non-zero on any day when you do not want Bacula to
614 \section{Automatic Labeling Using Your Autochanger}
616 \index[general]{Automatic Labeling Using Your Autochanger }
617 \index[general]{Autochanger!Automatic Labeling Using Your }
619 If you have an autochanger but it does not support barcodes, using a "trick"
620 you can make Bacula automatically label all the volumes in your autochanger's
623 First create a file containing one line for each slot in your autochanger that
624 has a tape to be labeled. The line will contain the slot number a colon (:)
625 then the Volume name you want to use. For example, create a file named {\bf
626 volume-list}, which contains:
636 The records do not need to be in any order and you don't need to mention all
637 the slots. Normally, you will have a consistent set of Volume names and a
638 sequential set of numbers for each slot you want labeled. In the example
639 above, I've left out slots 3 and 4 just as an example. Now, modify your {\bf
640 mtx-changer} script and comment out all the lines in the {\bf list)} case by
641 putting a \# in column 1. Then add the following two lines:
645 cat <absolute-path>/volume-list
650 so that the whole case looks like:
656 # commented out lines
657 cat <absolute-path>/volume-list
663 where you replace \lt{}absolute-path\gt{} with the full path to the
664 volume-list file. Then using the console, you enter the following command:
672 and Bacula will proceed to mount the autochanger Volumes in the list and label
673 them with the Volume names you have supplied. Bacula will think that the list
674 was provided by the autochanger barcodes, but in reality, it was you who
675 supplied the \lt{}barcodes\gt{}.
677 If it seems to work, when it finishes, enter:
685 and you should see all the volumes nicely created.
687 \section{Backing Up Portables Using DHCP}
689 \index[general]{DHCP!Backing Up Portables Using }
690 \index[general]{Backing Up Portables Using DHCP }
692 You may want to backup laptops or portables that are not always connected to
693 the network. If you are using DHCP to assign an IP address to those machines
694 when they connect, you will need to use the Dynamic Update capability of DNS
695 to assign a name to those machines that can be used in the Address field of
696 the Client resource in the Director's conf file.
698 \section{Going on Vacation}
700 \index[general]{Vacation!Going on }
701 \index[general]{Going on Vacation }
703 At some point, you may want to be absent for a week or two and you want to
704 make sure Bacula has enough tape left so that the backups will complete. You
705 start by doing a {\bf list volumes} in the Console program:
711 Using default Catalog name=BackupDB DB=bacula
713 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+-
714 | MediaId | VolumeName | MediaType | VolStatus | VolBytes |
715 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+-
716 | 23 | DLT-30Nov02 | DLT8000 | Full | 54,739,278,128 |
717 | 24 | DLT-21Dec02 | DLT8000 | Full | 56,331,524,629 |
718 | 25 | DLT-11Jan03 | DLT8000 | Full | 67,863,514,895 |
719 | 26 | DLT-02Feb03 | DLT8000 | Full | 63,439,314,216 |
720 | 27 | DLT-03Mar03 | DLT8000 | Full | 66,022,754,598 |
721 | 28 | DLT-04Apr03 | DLT8000 | Full | 60,792,559,924 |
722 | 29 | DLT-28Apr03 | DLT8000 | Full | 62,072,494,063 |
723 | 30 | DLT-17May03 | DLT8000 | Full | 65,901,767,839 |
724 | 31 | DLT-07Jun03 | DLT8000 | Used | 56,558,490,015 |
725 | 32 | DLT-28Jun03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,274,871,265 |
726 | 33 | DLT-19Jul03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,648,749,480 |
727 | 34 | DLT-08Aug03 | DLT8000 | Full | 64,293,941,255 |
728 | 35 | DLT-24Aug03 | DLT8000 | Append | 9,999,216,782 |
729 +---------+---------------+-----------+-----------+----------------+
733 Note, I have truncated the output for presentation purposes. What is
734 significant, is that I can see that my current tape has almost 10 Gbytes of
735 data, and that the average amount of data I get on my tapes is about 60
736 Gbytes. So if I go on vacation now, I don't need to worry about tape capacity
737 (at least not for short absences).
739 Equally significant is the fact that I did go on vacation the 28th of June
740 2003, and when I did the {\bf list volumes} command, my current tape at that
741 time, DLT-07Jun03 MediaId 31, had 56.5 Gbytes written. I could see that the
742 tape would fill shortly. Consequently, I manually marked it as {\bf Used} and
743 replaced it with a fresh tape that I labeled as DLT-28Jun03, thus assuring
744 myself that the backups would all complete without my intervention.
746 \section{Exclude Files on Windows Regardless of Case}
748 \index[general]{Exclude Files on Windows Regardless of Case}
749 % TODO: should this be put in the win32 chapter?
750 % TODO: should all these tips be placed in other chapters?
752 This tip was submitted by Marc Brueckner who wasn't sure of the case of some
753 of his files on Win32, which is case insensitive. The problem is that Bacula
754 thinks that {\bf /UNIMPORTANT FILES} is different from {\bf /Unimportant
755 Files}. Marc was aware that the file exclusion permits wild-cards. So, he
760 "/[Uu][Nn][Ii][Mm][Pp][Oo][Rr][Tt][Aa][Nn][Tt] [Ff][Ii][Ll][Ee][Ss]"
764 As a consequence, the above exclude works for files of any case.
766 Please note that this works only in Bacula Exclude statement and not in
769 \section{Executing Scripts on a Remote Machine}
770 \label{RemoteExecution}
771 \index[general]{Machine!Executing Scripts on a Remote }
772 \index[general]{Executing Scripts on a Remote Machine }
774 This tip also comes from Marc Brueckner. (Note, this tip is probably outdated
775 by the addition of {\bf ClientRunBeforJob} and {\bf ClientRunAfterJob} Job
776 records, but the technique still could be useful.) First I thought the "Run
777 Before Job" statement in the Job-resource is for executing a script on the
778 remote machine(the machine to be backed up). It could be useful to execute
779 scripts on the remote machine e.g. for stopping databases or other services
780 while doing the backup. (Of course I have to start the services again when the
781 backup has finished) I found the following solution: Bacula could execute
782 scripts on the remote machine by using ssh. The authentication is done
783 automatically using a private key. First you have to generate a keypair. I've
788 ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t dsa -f Bacula_key
792 This statement may take a little time to run. It creates a public/private key
793 pair with no passphrase. You could save the keys in /etc/bacula. Now you have
794 two new files : Bacula\_key which contains the private key and Bacula\_key.pub
795 which contains the public key.
797 Now you have to append the Bacula\_key.pub file to the file authorized\_keys
798 in the \textbackslash{}root\textbackslash{}.ssh directory of the remote
799 machine. Then you have to add (or uncomment) the line
803 AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys
807 to the sshd\_config file on the remote machine. Where the \%h stands for the
808 home-directory of the user (root in this case).
810 Assuming that your sshd is already running on the remote machine, you can now
811 enter the following on the machine where Bacula runs:
815 ssh -i Bacula_key -l root "ls -la"
819 This should execute the "ls -la" command on the remote machine.
821 Now you could add lines like the following to your Director's conf file:
826 Run Before Job = ssh -i /etc/bacula/Bacula_key 192.168.1.1 \
827 "/etc/init.d/database stop"
828 Run After Job = ssh -i /etc/bacula/Bacula_key 192.168.1.1 \
829 "/etc/init.d/database start"
834 Even though Bacula version 1.32 has a ClientRunBeforeJob, the ssh method still
835 could be useful for updating all the Bacula clients on several remote machines
838 \section{Recycling All Your Volumes}
840 \index[general]{Recycling All Your Volumes }
841 \index[general]{Volumes!Recycling All Your }
843 This tip comes from Phil Stracchino.
845 If you decide to blow away your catalog and start over, the simplest way to
846 re-add all your prelabeled tapes with a minimum of fuss (provided you don't
847 care about the data on the tapes) is to add the tape labels using the console
848 {\bf add} command, then go into the catalog and manually set the VolStatus of
849 every tape to {\bf Recycle}.
851 The SQL command to do this is very simple:
855 update Media set VolStatus = "Recycle";
859 Bacula will then ignore the data already stored on the tapes and just re-use
860 each tape without further objection.
862 \section{Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS filesystems}
864 \index[general]{Filesystems!Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS }
865 \index[general]{Backing up ACLs on ext3 or XFS filesystems }
867 This tip comes from Volker Sauer.
869 Note, this tip was given prior to implementation of ACLs in Bacula (version
870 1.34.5). It is left here because dumping/displaying ACLs can still be useful
871 in testing/verifying that Bacula is backing up and restoring your ACLs
872 properly. Please see the
873 \ilink{aclsupport}{ACLSupport} FileSet option in the
874 configuration chapter of this manual.
876 For example, you could dump the ACLs to a file with a script similar to the
882 BACKUP_DIRS="/foo /bar"
883 STORE_ACL=/root/acl-backup
885 for i in $BACKUP_DIRS; do
886 cd $i /usr/bin/getfacl -R --skip-base .>$STORE_ACL/${i//\//_}
891 Then use Bacula to backup {\bf /root/acl-backup}.
893 The ACLs could be restored using Bacula to the {\bf /root/acl-backup} file,
894 then restored to your system using:
898 setfacl --restore/root/acl-backup
902 \section{Total Automation of Bacula Tape Handling}
904 \index[general]{Handling!Total Automation of Bacula Tape }
905 \index[general]{Total Automation of Bacula Tape Handling }
907 This tip was provided by Alexander Kuehn.
909 \elink{Bacula}{http://www.bacula.org/} is a really nice backup program except
910 that the manual tape changing requires user interaction with the bacula
913 Fortunately I can fix this.
914 NOTE!!! This suggestion applies for people who do *NOT* have tape autochangers
915 and must change tapes manually.!!!!!
917 Bacula supports a variety of tape changers through the use of mtx-changer
918 scripts/programs. This highly flexible approach allowed me to create
919 \ilink{this shell script}{mtx-changer.txt} which does the following:
920 % TODO: This link doesn't work; also need to include this in book appendix
921 % TODO: and point to it.
922 Whenever a new tape is required it sends a mail to the operator to insert the
923 new tape. Then it waits until a tape has been inserted, sends a mail again to
924 say thank you and let's bacula continue its backup.
925 So you can schedule and run backups without ever having to log on or see the
927 To make the whole thing work you need to create a Device resource which looks
928 something like this ("Archive Device", "Maximum Changer Wait", "Media
929 Type" and "Label media" may have different values):
935 Archive Device = # use yours not mine! ;)/dev/nsa0
936 Changer Device = # not really required/dev/nsa0
937 Changer Command = "# use this (maybe change the path)!
938 /usr/local/bin/mtx-changer %o %a %S"
939 Maximum Changer Wait = 3d # 3 days in seconds
940 AutomaticMount = yes; # mount on start
941 AlwaysOpen = yes; # keep device locked
942 Media Type = DDS3 # it's just a name
943 RemovableMedia = yes; #
944 Offline On Unmount = Yes; # keep this too
950 As the script has to emulate the complete wisdom of a mtx-changer it has an
951 internal "database" containing where which tape is stored, you can see this on
956 labels="VOL-0001 VOL-0002 VOL-0003 VOL-0004 VOL-0005 VOL-0006
957 VOL-0007 VOL-0008 VOL-0009 VOL-0010 VOL-0011 VOL-0012"
961 The above should be all on one line, and it effectively tells Bacula that
962 volume "VOL-0001" is located in slot 1 (which is our lowest slot), that
963 volume "VOL-0002" is located in slot 2 and so on..
964 The script also maintains a logfile (/var/log/mtx.log) where you can monitor
967 \section{Running Concurrent Jobs}
968 \label{ConcurrentJobs}
969 \index[general]{Jobs!Running Concurrent}
970 \index[general]{Running Concurrent Jobs}
971 \index[general]{Concurrent Jobs}
973 Bacula can run multiple concurrent jobs, but the default configuration files
974 are not set to do so. Using the {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} directive, you
975 have a lot of control over how many jobs can run at the same time, and which
976 jobs can run simultaneously. The downside is that it can be a bit tricky to
977 set it up for the first time as you need to set the concurrency in at least
978 five different places.
980 The Director, the File daemon, and the Storage daemon each have a {\bf Maximum
981 Concurrent Jobs} directive that determines overall number of concurrent jobs
982 the daemon will run. The default is one for the Director and ten for both the
983 File daemon and the Storage daemon, so assuming you will not be running more
984 than ten concurrent jobs, the only changes that are needed are in the
985 Director's conf file (bacula-dir.conf).
987 Within the Director's configuration file, {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} can be
988 set in the Direct, Job, Client, and Storage resources. Each one must be set
989 properly, according to your needs, otherwise your jobs may be run one at a
992 For example, if you want two different jobs to run simultaneously backing up
993 the same Client to the same Storage device, they will run concurrently only if
994 you have set {\bf Maximum Concurrent Jobs} greater than one in the Director
995 resource, the Client resource, and the Storage resource in bacula-dir.conf.
997 We recommend that you carefully read the \ilink{Data
998 Spooling}{SpoolingChapter} of this manual first, then carefully
999 test your multiple concurrent backup including
1000 restore testing before you put it into production.
1002 Below is a super stripped down bacula-dir.conf file showing you the four
1003 places where the the file has been modified to allow the same job {\bf
1004 NightlySave} to run up to four times concurrently. The change to the Job
1005 resource is not necessary if you want different Jobs to run at the same time,
1006 which is the normal case.
1011 # Bacula Director Configuration file -- bacula-dir.conf
1015 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1019 Name = "NightlySave"
1020 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1027 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
1032 Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4