4 \section*{The Windows Version of Bacula}
6 \index[general]{Windows Version of Bacula }
7 \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{Windows Version of Bacula}
10 \index[general]{General }
11 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsection}{General}
13 At the current time only the File daemon or Client program has been tested on
14 Windows. As a consequence, when we speak of the Windows version of Bacula
15 below, we are referring to the File daemon only.
17 The Windows version of the Bacula File daemon has been tested on Win98, WinMe,
18 WinNT, and Win2000 systems. We have coded to support Win95, but no longer have
19 a system for testing. The Windows version of Bacula is a native Win32 port,
20 but there are very few source code changes, which means that the Windows
21 version is for the most part running code that has long proved stable on Unix
22 systems. When running, it is perfectly integrated with Windows and displays
23 its icon in the system icon tray, and provides a system tray menu to obtain
24 additional information on how Bacula is running (status and events dialog
25 boxes). If so desired, it can also be stopped by using the system tray menu,
26 though this should normally never be necessary.
28 Once installed Bacula normally runs as a system service. This means that it is
29 immediately started by the operating system when the system is booted, and
30 runs in the background even if there is no user logged into the system.
32 \subsubsection*{Installation}
34 \index[general]{Installation }
35 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Installation}
37 Normally, you will install the Windows version of Bacula from the binaries.
38 This install is standard Windows .exe that runs an install wizard using the
39 NSIS Free Software installer, so if you have already installed Windows
40 software, it should be very familiar to you.
42 If you have a previous version Cygwin of Bacula (1.32 or lower) installed, you
43 should stop the service, uninstall it, and remove the directory possibly
44 saving your bacula-fd.conf file for use with the new version you will install.
45 The new native version of Bacula has far fewer files than the old Cygwin
48 Finally, proceed with the installation.
51 \item Simply double click on the {\bf winbacula-1.xx.0.exe} NSIS install
52 icon. The actual name of the icon will vary from one release version to
55 \includegraphics{./win32-nsis.eps} winbacula-1.xx.0.exe
57 \item Once launched, the installer wizard will ask you if you want to install
60 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Client Setup Wizard}
61 \includegraphics{./win32-welcome.eps}
63 \item If you proceed, you will be asked to select the components to be
64 installed. You may install the Bacula program (Bacula File Service) and or
65 the documentation. Both will be installed in sub-directories of the install
66 location that you choose later. The components dialog looks like the
69 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Component Selection Dialog}
70 \includegraphics{./win32-pkg.eps}
72 \item Next you will be asked to select an installation directory.
74 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Directory Selection Dialog}
75 \includegraphics{./win32-location.eps}
77 \item If you are installing for the first time, you will be asked if you want
78 to edit the bacula-fd.conf file, and if you respond with yes, it will be
81 \item Then the installer will ask if wish to install Bacula as a service. You
82 should always choose to do so:
84 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Client Service Selection}
85 \includegraphics{./win32-service.eps}
88 \item If everything goes well, you will receive the following confirmation:
90 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Client Service Confirmation}
91 \includegraphics{./win32-service-ok.eps}
94 \item Then you will be asked if you wish to start the service. If you respond
95 with yes, any running Bacula will be shutdown and the new one started. You
96 may see a DOS box momentarily appear on the screen as the service is started.
97 It should disappear in a second or two:
99 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Client Start}
100 \includegraphics{./win32-start.eps}
103 \item Finally, the finish dialog will appear:
105 \addcontentsline{lof}{figure}{Win32 Client Setup Completed}
106 \includegraphics{./win32-finish.eps}
111 That should complete the installation process. When the Bacula File Server is
112 ready to serve files, an icon \includegraphics{./idle.eps} representing a
113 cassette (or tape) will appear in the system tray
114 \includegraphics{./tray-icon.eps}; right click on it and a menu will appear.
116 \ \ \ \ \includegraphics{./menu.eps}
117 The {\bf Events} item is currently unimplemented, by selecting the {\bf
118 Status} item, you can verify whether any jobs are running or not.
120 When the Bacula File Server begins saving files, the color of the holes in the
121 cassette icon will change from white to green \includegraphics{./running.eps},
122 and if there is an error, the holes in the cassette icon will change to red
123 \includegraphics{./error.eps}.
125 If you are using remote desktop connections between your windows boxes, be
126 warned that that tray icon does not always appear. It will always be visible
127 when you log into the console, but the remote desktop may not display it.
129 \subsubsection*{Post Installation}
130 \index[general]{Post Installation }
131 \index[general]{Installation!Post }
132 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Post Installation}
134 After installing Bacula and before running it, you should check the contents
136 c:\textbackslash{}bacula\textbackslash{}bin\textbackslash{}bacula-fd.conf} to
137 ensure that it corresponds to your configuration.
139 \subsubsection*{Uninstalling Bacula}
140 \index[general]{Bacula!Uninstalling }
141 \index[general]{Uninstalling Bacula }
142 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Uninstalling Bacula}
144 Once Bacula has been installed, it can be uninstalled using the standard
145 Windows Add/Remove Programs dialog found on the Control panel.
147 \subsubsection*{Dealing with Problems}
149 \index[general]{Problems!Dealing with }
150 \index[general]{Dealing with Problems }
151 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Dealing with Problems}
153 The most likely source of problems is authentication when the Director
154 attempts to connect to the File daemon that you installed. This can occur if
155 the names and the passwords defined in the File daemon's configuration file
157 c:\textbackslash{}bacula\textbackslash{}bin\textbackslash{}bacula-fd.conf} on
158 the Windows machine do not match with the names and the passwords in the
159 Director's configuration file {\bf bacula-dir.conf} located on your Unix/Linux
162 More specifically, the password found in the {\bf Client} resource in the
163 Director's configuration file must be the same as the password in the {\bf
164 Director} resource of the File daemon's configuration file. In addition, the
165 name of the {\bf Director} resource in the File daemon's configuration file
166 must be the same as the name in the {\bf Director} resource of the Director's
169 It is a bit hard to explain in words, but if you understand that a Director
170 normally has multiple Clients and a Client (or File daemon) may permit access
171 by multiple Directors, you can see that the names and the passwords on both
172 sides must match for proper authentication.
174 One user had serious problems with the configuration file until he realized
175 that the Unix end of line conventions were used and Bacula wanted them in
176 Windows format. This has not been confirmed though.
178 Running Unix like programs on Windows machines is a bit frustrating because
179 the Windows command line shell (DOS Window) is rather primitive. As a
180 consequence, it is not generally possible to see the debug information and
181 certain error messages that Bacula prints. With a bit of work, however, it is
182 possible. When everything else fails and you want to {\bf see} what is going
183 on, try the following:
187 Start a DOS shell Window.
194 The {\bf -t} option will cause Bacula to read the configuration file, print
195 any error messages and then exit. the {\bf \gt{}} redirects the output to the
196 file named {\bf out}, which you can list with the {\bf type} command.
198 If something is going wrong later, or you want to run {\bf Bacula} with a
199 debug option, you might try starting it as:
203 bacula-fd -d 100 >out
207 In this case, Bacula will run until you explicitly stop it, which will give
208 you a chance to connect to it from your Unix/Linux server. In later versions
209 of Bacula (1.34 on, I think), when you start the File daemon in debug mode it
210 can write the output to a trace file {\bf bacula.trace} in the current
211 directory. To enable this, before running a job, use the console, and enter:
219 then run the job, and once you have terminated the File daemon, you will find
220 the debug output in the {\bf bacula.trace} file.
222 In addition, you should look in the System Applications log on the Control
223 Panel to find any Windows errors that Bacula got during the startup process.
225 Finally, due to the above problems, when you turn on debugging, and specify
226 trace=1 on a setdebug command in the Console, Bacula will write the debug
227 information to the file {\bf bacula.trace} in the directory from which Bacula
229 \label{Compatibility}
231 \subsubsection*{Windows Compatibility Considerations}
232 \index[general]{Windows Compatibility Considerations }
233 \index[general]{Considerations!Windows Compatibility }
234 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Windows Compatibility Considerations}
236 If any applications are running during the backup and they have open files,
237 Bacula will not be able to backup those files, so be sure you close your
238 applications (or tell your users to close their applications) before the
241 During backup, Bacula doesn't know about the system registry, so you will
242 either need to write it out to an ASCII file using {\bf regedit /e} or use a
243 program specifically designed to make a copy or backup the registry.
245 In Bacula versions 1.30 and earlier, we used the Cygwin emulation of Unix
246 open(), read(), write(), ... calls to access files. This worked pretty well
247 for Win95, Win98, and WinMe systems, but not very well for the other systems
248 (NT/2K/XP) because those systems have special security and ownership
249 information that was not saved. In addition on the NT/2K/XP systems, older
250 versions of Bacula were not always able to access all files due to system
251 permissions restrictions.
253 As a consequence, in Bacula version 1.31 and later, we use Windows backup API
254 calls by default. Typical of Windows, programming these special BackupRead and
255 BackupWrite calls is a real nightmare of complications. The end result gives
256 some distinct advantages and some disadvantages.
258 First, the advantages are that on WinNT/2K/XP systems, the security and
259 ownership information is now backed up. In addition, with the exception of
260 files in use by another program (a major disaster for backup programs on
261 Windows), Bacula can now access all system files. This means that when you
262 restore files, the security and ownership information will be restored on
263 WinNT/2K/XP along with the data.
265 The disadvantage of the Windows backup API calls is that it produces
266 non-portable backups. That is files and their data that are backed up on WinNT
267 using the native API calls (BackupRead/BackupWrite) cannot be restored on
268 Win95/98/Me or Unix systems. In principle, a file backed up on WinNT can be
269 restored on WinXP, but this remains to be seen in practice (not yet tested).
270 In addition, the stand-alone tools such as {\bf bls} and {\bf bextract} cannot
271 be used to retrieve the data for those files because those tools are not
272 available on Windows. All restores must use the Bacula {\bf restore} command.
273 This restriction is mentioned for completeness, but in practice should not
276 As a default, Bacula backs up Windows systems using the Windows API calls. If
277 you want to backup data on a WinNT/2K/XP system and restore it on a
278 Unix/Win95/98/Me system, we have provided a special {\bf portable} option that
279 backups the data in a portable fashion by using portable API calls. See the
280 \ilink{portable option}{portable} on the Include statement in a
281 FileSet resource in the Director's configuration chapter for the details on
282 setting this option. However, using the portable option means you may have
283 permissions problems accessing files, and none of the security and ownership
284 information will be backed up or restored. The file data can, however, be
285 restored on any system.
287 You should always be able to restore any file backed up on Unix or Win95/98/Me
288 to any other system. On some systems, such as WinNT/2K/XP, you may have to
289 reset the ownership of such restored files. Any file backed up on WinNT/2K/XP
290 should in principle be able to be restored to a similar system (i.e.
291 WinNT/2K/XP), however, I am unsure of the consequences if the owner
292 information and accounts are not identical on both systems. Bacula will not
293 let you restore files backed up on WinNT/2K/XP to any other system (i.e. Unix
294 Win95/98/Me) if you have used the defaults.
296 Finally, if you specify the {\bf portable=yes} option on the files you back
297 up. Bacula will be able to restore them on any other system. However, any
298 WinNT/2K/XP specific security and ownership information will be lost.
300 The following matrix will give you an idea of what you can expect. Thanks to
301 Marc Brueckner for doing the tests:
305 \addcontentsline{lot}{table}{WinNT/2K/XP Restore Portability Status}
306 \begin{longtable}{|l|l|p{2.8in}|}
308 \multicolumn{1}{|c| }{\bf Backup OS } & \multicolumn{1}{c| }{\bf Restore OS }
309 & \multicolumn{1}{c| }{\bf Results } \\
311 {WinMe } & {WinMe } & {Works } \\
313 {WinMe } & {WinNT } & {Works (SYSTEM permissions) } \\
315 {WinMe } & {WinXP } & {Works (SYSTEM permissions) } \\
317 {WinMe } & {Linux } & {Works (SYSTEM permissions) } \\
319 {\ } & {\ } & {\ } \\
321 {WinXP } & {WinXP } & {Works } \\
323 {WinXP } & {WinNT } & {Works (all files OK, but got ``The data is invalid''
326 {WinXP } & {WinMe } & {Error: Win32 data stream not supported. } \\
328 {WinXP } & {WinMe } & {Works if {\bf Portable=yes} specified during backup. }
331 {WinXP } & {Linux } & {Error: Win32 data stream not supported. } \\
333 {WinXP } & {Linux } & {Works if {\bf Portable=yes} specified during backup. }
336 {\ } & {\ } & {\ } \\
338 {WinNT } & {WinNT } & {Works } \\
340 {WinNT } & {WinXP } & {Works } \\
342 {WinNT } & {WinMe } & {Error: Win32 data stream not supported. } \\
344 {WinNT } & {WinMe } & {Works if {\bf Portable=yes} specified during backup. }
347 {WinNT } & {Linux } & {Error: Win32 data stream not supported. } \\
349 {WinNT } & {Linux } & {Works if {\bf Portable=yes} specified during backup. }
352 {\ } & {\ } & {\ } \\
354 {Linux } & {Linux } & {Works } \\
356 {Linux } & {WinNT } & {Works (SYSTEM permissions) } \\
358 {Linux } & {WinMe } & {Works } \\
360 {Linux } & {WinXP } & {Works (SYSTEM permissions) }
365 \subsubsection*{Windows Firewalls}
366 \index[general]{Firewalls!Windows }
367 \index[general]{Windows Firewalls }
368 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Windows Firewalls}
370 If you turn on the firewalling feature on Windows (default in WinXP SR2), you
371 are likely to find that the Bacula ports are blocked and you cannot
372 communicated to the other daemons. This can be deactivated through the {\bf
373 Security Notification} dialog, which is apparently somewhere in the {\bf
374 Security Center}. I don't have this on my computer, so I cannot give the exact
381 netsh firewall set opmode disable
385 is purported to disable the firewall, but this command is not accepted on my
388 \subsubsection*{Windows Port Usage}
389 \index[general]{Windows Port Usage }
390 \index[general]{Usage!Windows Port }
391 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Windows Port Usage}
393 If you want to see if the File daemon has properly opened the port and is
394 listening, you can enter the following command in a shell window:
398 netstat -an | findstr 910[123]
402 \subsubsection*{Windows Disaster Recovery}
403 \index[general]{Recovery!Windows Disaster }
404 \index[general]{Windows Disaster Recovery }
405 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Windows Disaster Recovery}
407 We don't currently have a good solution for disaster recovery on Windows as we
408 do on Linux. The main piece lacking is a Windows boot floppy or a Windows boot
409 CD. Microsoft releases a Windows Pre-installation Environment ({\bf WinPE})
410 that could possibly work, but we have not investigated it. This means that
411 until someone figures out the correct procedure, you must restore the OS from
412 the installation disks, then you can load a Bacula client and restore files.
413 Please don't count on using {\bf bextract} to extract files from your backup
414 tapes during a disaster recovery unless you have backed up those files using
415 the {\bf portable} option. {\bf bextract} does not run on Windows, and the
416 normal way Bacula saves files using the Windows API prevents the files from
417 being restored on a Unix machine. Once you have an operational Windows OS
418 loaded, you can run the File daemon and restore your user files.
421 \ilink{ Disaster Recovery of Win32 Systems}{Win3233} for the latest
422 suggestion, which looks very promising.
424 It looks like Bart PE Builder, which creates a Windows PE (Pre-installation
425 Environment) Boot-CD, may be just what is needed to build a complete disaster
426 recovery system for Win32. This distribution can be found at
427 \elink{http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ }{http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/}.
429 \subsubsection*{Windows Ownership and Permissions Problems}
430 \index[general]{Problems!Windows Ownership and Permissions }
431 \index[general]{Windows Ownership and Permissions Problems }
432 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Windows Ownership and Permissions
435 If you restore files backed up from WinNT/XP/2K to an alternate directory,
436 Bacula may need to create some higher level directories that were not saved
437 (or restored). In this case, the File daemon will create them under the SYSTEM
438 account because that is the account that Bacula runs under as a service. As of
439 version 1.32f-3, Bacula creates these files with full access permission.
440 However, there may be cases where you have problems accessing those files even
441 if you run as administrator. In principle, Microsoft supplies you with the way
442 to cease the ownership of those files and thus change the permissions.
443 However, a much better solution to working with and changing Win32 permissions
444 is the program {\bf SetACL}, which can be found at
445 \elink{http://setacl.sourceforge.net/ }{http://setacl.sourceforge.net/}.
447 \subsubsection*{Manually resetting the Permissions}
448 \index[general]{Manually resetting the Permissions }
449 \index[general]{Permissions!Manually resetting the }
450 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Manually resetting the Permissions}
452 The following solution was provided by Dan Langille \lt{}dan at langille in
453 the dot org domain\gt{}. The steps are performed using Windows 2000 Server but
454 they should apply to most Win32 platforms. The procedure outlines how to deal
455 with a problem which arises when a restore creates a top-level new directory.
456 In this example, ``top-level'' means something like {\bf
457 c:\textbackslash{}src}, not {\bf c:\textbackslash{}tmp\textbackslash{}src}
458 where {\bf c:\textbackslash{}tmp} already exists. If a restore job specifies /
459 as the {\bf Where:} value, this problem will arise.
461 The problem appears as a directory which cannot be browsed with Windows
462 Explorer. The symptoms include the following message when you try to click on
465 \includegraphics{./access-is-denied.eps}
467 If you encounter this message, the following steps will change the permissions
468 to allow full access.
471 \item right click on the top level directory (in this example, {\bf c:/src})
472 and select {\bf Properties}.
473 \item click on the Security tab.
474 \item If the following message appears, you can ignore it, and click on {\bf
477 \includegraphics{./view-only.eps}
479 You should see something like this:
481 \includegraphics{./properties-security.eps}
482 \item click on Advanced
483 \item click on the Owner tab
484 \item Change the owner to something other than the current owner (which is
485 {\bf SYSTEM} in this example as shown below).
487 \includegraphics{./properties-security-advanced-owner.eps}
488 \item ensure the ``Replace owner on subcontainers and objects'' box is
491 \item When the message ``You do not have permission to read the contents of
492 directory ''c:\textbackslash{}src\textbackslash{}basis. Do you wish to replace
493 the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?``, click
496 \includegraphics{./confirm.eps}
497 \item Click on OK to close the Properties tab
500 With the above procedure, you should now have full control over your restored
503 \subsubsection*{Backing Up the WinNT/XP/2K System State}
504 \index[general]{State!Backing Up the WinNT/XP/2K System }
505 \index[general]{Backing Up the WinNT/XP/2K System State }
506 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Backing Up the WinNT/XP/2K System State}
508 A suggestion by Damian Coutts using Microsoft's NTBackup utility in
509 conjunction with Bacula should permit a full restore of any damaged system
510 files on Win2K/XP. His suggestion is to do an NTBackup of the critical system
511 state prior to running a Bacula backup with the following command:
515 ntbackup backup systemstate /F c:\systemstate.bkf
519 The {\bf backup} is the command, the {\bf systemstate} says to backup only the
520 system state and not all the user files, and the {\bf /F
521 c:\textbackslash{}systemstate.bkf} specifies where to write the state file.
522 this file must then be saved and restored by Bacula.
524 To restore the system state, you first reload a base operating system if the
525 OS is damaged, otherwise, this is not necessary, then you would use Bacula to
526 restore all the damaged or lost user's files and to recover the {\bf
527 c:\textbackslash{}systemstate.bkf} file. Finally if there are any damaged or
528 missing system files or registry problems, you run {\bf NTBackup} and {\bf
529 catalogue} the system statefile, and then select it for restore. The
530 documentation says you can't run a command line restore of the systemstate.
532 To the best of my knowledge, this has not yet been tested. If you test it,
533 please report your results to the Bacula email list.
535 \subsubsection*{Windows Considerations for Filename Specifications}
536 \index[general]{Specifications!Windows Considerations for Filename }
537 \index[general]{Windows Considerations for Filename Specifications }
538 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Windows Considerations for Filename
542 \ilink{Director's Configuration chapter}{win32} of this manual
543 for important considerations on how to specify Windows paths in Bacula FileSet
544 Include and Exclude directives.
546 \subsubsection*{Command Line Options Specific to the Bacula Windows File
548 \index[general]{Client!Command Line Options Specific to the Bacula Windows
550 \index[general]{Command Line Options Specific to the Bacula Windows File
552 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Command Line Options Specific to the
553 Bacula Windows File Daemon (Client)}
555 These options are not normally seen or used by the user, and are documented
556 here only for information purposes. At the current time, to change the default
557 options, you must either manually run {\bf Bacula} or you must manually edit
558 the system registry and modify the appropriate entries.
560 In order to avoid option clashes between the options necessary for {\bf
561 Bacula} to run on Windows and the standard Bacula options, all Windows
562 specific options are signaled with a forward slash character (/), while as
563 usual, the standard Bacula options are signaled with a minus (-), or a minus
564 minus (\verb{--{). All the standard Bacula options can be used on the Windows
565 version. In addition, the following Windows only options are implemented:
569 \item [/servicehelper ]
570 \index[fd]{/servicehelper }
571 Run the service helper application (don't use this it is deprecated.).
574 \index[fd]{/service }
575 Start Bacula as a service
579 Run the Bacula application
582 \index[fd]{/install }
583 Install Bacula as a service in the system registry
587 Uninstall Bacula from the system registry
591 Show the Bacula about dialogue box
595 Show the Bacula status dialogue box
599 Show the Bacula events dialogue box (not yet implemented)
603 Stop any running {\bf Bacula}
607 Show the Bacula help dialogue box
610 It is important to note that under normal circumstances the user should never
611 need to use these options as they are normally handled by the system
612 automatically once Bacula is installed. However, you may note these options in
613 some of the .bat files that have been created for your use.
615 \subsubsection*{Shutting down Windows Systems}
616 \index[general]{Shutting down Windows Systems }
617 \index[general]{Systems!Shutting down Windows }
618 \addcontentsline{toc}{subsubsection}{Shutting down Windows Systems}
620 Some users like to shutdown their windows machines after a backup using a
621 Client Run After Job directive. If you want to do something similar, you might
622 take the shutdown program from the
623 \elink{apcupsd project}{http://www.apcupsd.com} or one from the
625 project}{http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/psshutdown.shtml}.