[bacula/docs] / docs / manuals / en / concepts / newfeatures.tex

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\chapter{New Features}
\label{NewFeaturesChapter}
\index[general]{New Features}

This chapter presents the new features added to the development 2.5.x
versions to be released as Bacula version 3.0.0 near the end of 2008.

\section{Accurate}
\index[general]{Accurate Backup}
As with most other backup programs, Bacula decides what files to backup 
for Incremental and Differental backup by comparing the change (st\_ctime)
and modification (st\_mtime) times of the file to the time the last backup completed.
If one of those two times is later than the last backup time, then the file
will be backed up.  This does not, however, permit tracking what files have
been deleted and will miss any file with an old time that may have been
restored or moved on the client filesystem.

If the {\bf Accurate = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}} directive is enabled (default no) in the
Job resource, the job will be run as an Accurate Job. For a {\bf Full}
backup, there is no difference, but for {\bf Differential} and {\bf Incremental}
backups, the Director will send a list of all previous files backed up, and the 
File daemon will use that list to determine if any new files have been added or
or moved and if any files have been deleted. This allows Bacula to make an accurate
backup of your system to that point in time so that if you do a restore, it
will restore your system exactly.  One note of caution about using Accurate backup is that
it requires more resources (CPU and memory) on both the Director and
the Client machines to create the list of previous files backed up, to send that
list to the File daemon, for the File daemon to keep the list (possibly very big)
in memory, and for the File daemon to do comparisons between every file in the 
FileSet and the list.


\section{Copy Jobs}
\index[general]{Copy Jobs}
A new {\bf Copy} job type has been implemented. It is essentially
identical to the existing Migration feature with the exception that
the Job that is copied is left unchanged.  This essentially creates
two identical copies of the same backup.  The Copy Job runs without
using the File daemon by copying the data from the old backup Volume to
a different Volume in a different Pool. See the Migration documentation
for additional details.

\section{Virtual Backup (Vbackup)}
\index[general]{Virtual Backup}
\index[general]{Vbackup}

Bacula's virtual backup feature is often called Synthetic Backup or
Consolidation in other backup products.  It permits you to consolidate
the previous Full backup plus the most recent Differential backup and any
subsequent Incremental backups into a new Full backup. This is accomplished
without contacting the client by reading the previous backup data and 
writing it to a volume in a different pool.  

In some respects the Vbackup feature works similar to a Migration job, in
that Bacula normally reads the data from the pool specified in the 
Job resource, and writes it to the {\bf Next Pool} specified in the 
Job resource.  The input Storage resource and the Output Storage resource
must be different.

The Vbackup is enabled on a Job by Job in the Job resource by specifying
a level of {\bf VirtualFull}.

A typical Job resource definition might look like the following:

\begin{verbatim}
Job {
  Name = "MyBackup"
  Type = Backup
  Client=localhost-fd
  FileSet = "Full Set"
  Storage = File
  Messages = Standard
  Pool = Default
  SpoolData = yes
}

# Default pool definition
Pool {
  Name = Default
  Pool Type = Backup
  Recycle = yes            # Automatically recycle Volumes
  AutoPrune = yes          # Prune expired volumes
  Volume Retention = 365d  # one year
  NextPool = Full
  Storage = File
}

Pool {
  Name = Full
  Pool Type = Backup
  Recycle = yes            # Automatically recycle Volumes
  AutoPrune = yes          # Prune expired volumes
  Volume Retention = 365d  # one year
  Storage = DiskChanger
}

# Definition of file storage device
Storage {
  Name = File
  Address = localhost
  Password = "xxx"
  Device = FileStorage
  Media Type = File
  Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 5
}

# Definition of DDS Virtual tape disk storage device
Storage {
  Name = DiskChanger
  Address = localhost  # N.B. Use a fully qualified name here
  Password = "yyy"
  Device = DiskChanger
  Media Type = DiskChangerMedia
  Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 4
  Autochanger = yes
}
\end{verbatim}

Then in bconsole or via a Run schedule, you would run the job as:

\begin{verbatim}
run job=MyBackup level=Full
run job=MyBackup level=Incremental
run job=MyBackup level=Differential
run job=MyBackup level=Incremental
run job=MyBackup level=Incremental
\end{verbatim}

So providing there were changes between each of those jobs, you would end up
with a Full backup, a Differential, which includes the first Incremental
backup, then two Incremental backups.  All the above jobs would be written to
the {\bf Default} pool.

To consolidate those backups into a new Full backup, you would run the
following:

\begin{verbatim}
run job=MyBackup level=VirtualFull
\end{verbatim}

And it would produce a new Full backup without using the client, and the output
would be written to the {\bf Full} Pool which uses the Diskchanger Storage.

\section{Duplicate Job Control}
\index[general]{Duplicate Jobs}
The new version of Bacula provides four new directives that
give additional control over what Bacula does if duplicate jobs 
are started.  A duplicate job in the sense we use it here means
a second or subsequent job with the same name starts.  This
happens most frequently when the first job runs longer than expected because no 
tapes are available.

The four directives each take as an argument a {\bf yes} or {\bf no} value and
are specified in the Job resource.

They are:

\begin{description}
\item [Allow Duplicate Jobs = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}]
  If this directive is enabled duplicate jobs will be run.  If
  the directive is set to {\bf no} (default) then only one job of a given name
  may run at one time, and the action that Bacula takes to ensure only
  one job runs is determined by the other directives (see below).

\item [Allow Higher Duplicates = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}]
  If this directive is set to {\bf yes} (default) the job with a higher
  priority (lower priority number) will be permitted to run.  If the
  priorities of the two jobs are the same, the outcome is determined by
  other directives (see below).

\item [Cancel Queued Duplicates = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}]
  If this directive is set to {\bf yes} (default) any job that is
  already queued to run but not yet running will be canceled.

\item [Cancel Running Duplicates = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}]
  If this directive is set to {\bf yes} any job that is already running
  will be canceled.  The default is {\bf no}.
\end{description}

\section{TLS Authentication}
\index[general]{TLS Authentication}
In Bacula version 2.5.x and later, in addition to the normal Bacula
CRAM-MD5 authentication that is used to authenticate each Bacula
connection, you can specify that you want TLS Authentication as well,
which will provide more secure authentication.

This new feature uses Bacula's existing TLS code (normally used for
communications encryption) to do authentication.  To use it, you must
specify all the TLS directives normally used to enable communications
encryption (TLS Enable, TLS Verify Peer, TLS Certificate, ...) and
a new directive:

\begin{verbatim}
TLS Authenticate = yes
\end{verbatim}

in the main daemon configuration resource (Director for the Director,
Client for the File daemon, and Storage for the Storage daemon).

When {\bf TLS Authenticate} is enabled, after doing the CRAM-MD5
authentication, Bacula will do the normal TLS authentication, then TLS 
encryption will be turned off.

If you want to encrypt communications data, do not turn on {\bf TLS
Authenticate}.

\section{bextract non-portable Win32 data}
\index[general]{bextract handles Win32 non-portable data}
{\bf bextract} has been enhanced to be able to restore
non-portable Win32 data to any OS.  Previous versions were 
unable to restore non-portable Win32 data to machines that
did not have the Win32 BackupRead and BackupWrite API calls.

\section{State File updated at Job Termination}
\index[general]{State File}
In previous versions of Bacula, the state file, which provides a
summary of previous jobs run in the {\bf status} command output was
updated only when Bacula terminated, thus if the daemon crashed, the
state file might not contain all the run data.  This version of
the Bacula daemons updates the state file on each job termination.

\section{MaxFullInterval}
\index[general]{MaxFullInterval}
The new Job resource directive {\bf Max Full Interval = \lt{}time-interval\gt{}}
can be used to specify the maximum time interval between {\bf Full} backup
jobs. When a job starts, if the time since the last Full backup is
greater than the specified interval, and the job would normally be an
{\bf Incremental} or {\bf Differential}, it will be automatically
upgraded to a {\bf Full} backup.

\section{MaxDiffInterval}
\index[general]{MaxDiffInterval}
The new Job resource directive {\bf Max Diff Interval = \lt{}time-interval\gt{}}
can be used to specify the maximum time interval between {\bf Differential} backup
jobs. When a job starts, if the time since the last Differential backup is
greater than the specified interval, and the job would normally be an
{\bf Incremental}, it will be automatically
upgraded to a {\bf Differential} backup.

\section{No Dump Flag}
\index[general]{MaxDiffInterval}
On FreeBSD systems, each file has a {\bf no dump flag} that can be set
by the user, and when it is set it is an indication to backup programs
to not backup that particular file.  This version of Bacula contains a
new Options directive within a FileSet resource, which instructs Bacula to
obey this flag.  The new directive is:

\begin{verbatim}
  Honor No Dump Flag = yes|no
\end{verbatim}

The default value is {\bf no}.


\section{Ignore Dir}
\index[general]{IgnoreDir}
The {\bf Ignore Dir = \lt{}filename\gt{}} is a new directive that can be added to the Include
section of the FileSet resource.  If the specified
filename is found on the Client in any directory to be backed up, 
the whole directory will be ignored (not backed up).
For example:

\begin{verbatim}
  # List of files to be backed up
  FileSet {
    Name = "MyFileSet"
    Include {
      Options {
        signature = MD5
      }
      File = /home
      IgnoreDir = .excludeme
    }
  }
\end{verbatim}

But in /home, there may be hundreds of directories of users and some
people want to indicate that they don't want to have certain
directories backed up. For example, with the above FileSet, if
the user or sysadmin creates a file named {\bf .excludeme} in 
specific directories, such as

\begin{verbatim}
   /home/user/www/cache/.excludeme
   /home/user/temp/.excludeme
\end{verbatim}

then Bacula will not backup the two directories named:

\begin{verbatim}
   /home/user/www/cache
   /home/user/temp
\end{verbatim}




\section{Bacula Plugins}
\index[general]{Plugin}
Support for shared object plugins has been implemented in the Linux
(and Unix) File daemon. The API will be documented separately in
the Developer's Guide or in a new document.  For the moment, there is
a single plugin named {\bf bpipe} that allows an external program to
get control to backup and restore a file.

Plugins are also planned (partially implemented) in the Director and the
Storage daemon.  The code is also implemented to work on Win32 machines, 
but it has not yet been tested.

\subsection{Plugin Directory}
Each daemon (DIR, FD, SD) has a new {\bf Plugin Directory} directive that may
be added to the daemon definition resource. The directory takes a quoted 
string argument, which is the name of the directory in which the daemon can
find the Bacula plugins. If this directive is not specified, Bacula will not
load any plugins. Since each plugin has a distinctive name, all the daemons
can share the same plugin directory. 



\subsection{Plugin Options}
The {\bf Plugin Options} directive takes a quoted string
arguement (after the equal sign) and may be specified in the
Job resource.  The options specified will be passed to the plugin
when it is run.  The value defined in the Job resource can be modified
by the user when he runs a Job via the {\bf bconsole} command line 
prompts.

Note: this directive may be specified, but it is not yet passed to
the plugin (i.e. not fully implemented).

\subsection{Plugin Options ACL}
The {\bf Plugin Options ACL} directive may be specified in the
Director's Console resource. It functions as all the other ACL commands
do by permitting users running restricted consoles to specify a 
{\bf Plugin Options} that overrides the one specified in the Job
definition. Without this directive restricted consoles may not modify
the Plugin Options.

\subsection{Plugin}
The {\bf Plugin} directive is specified in the Include section of
a FileSet resource where you put your {\bf File = xxx} directives.
For example:

\begin{verbatim}
  FileSet {
    Name = "MyFileSet"
    Include {
      Options {
        signature = MD5
      }
      File = /home
      Plugin = "bpipe:..."
    }
  }
\end{verbatim}

In the above example, when the File daemon is processing the directives
in the Include section, it will first backup all the files in {\bf /home}
then it will load the plugin named {\bf bpipe} (actually bpipe-dir.so) from
the Plugin Directory.  The syntax and semantics of the Plugin directive
require the first part of the string up to the colon (:) to be the name
of the plugin. Everything after the first colon is ignored by the File daemon but
is passed to the plugin. Thus the plugin writer may define the meaning of the
rest of the string as he wishes.

Please see the next section for information about the {\bf bpipe} Bacula
plugin.

\section{The bpipe Plugin}
The {\bf bpipe} plugin is provided in the directory src/plugins/fd/bpipe-fd.c of
the Bacula source distribution. When the plugin is compiled and linking into
the resulting dynamic shared object (DSO), it will have the name {\bf bpipe-fd.so}.

The purpose of the plugin is to provide an interface to any system program for
backup and restore. As specified above the {\bf bpipe} plugin is specified in
the Include section of your Job's FileSet resource.  The full syntax of the
plugin directive as interpreted by the {\bf bpipe} plugin (each plugin is free
to specify the sytax as it wishes) is:

\begin{verbatim}
  Plugin = "<field1>:<field2>:<field3>:<field4>"
\end{verbatim}

where
\begin{description}
\item {\bf field1} is the name of the plugin with the trailing {\bf -fd.so}
stripped off, so in this case, we would put {\bf bpipe} in this field.

\item {\bf field2} specifies the namespace, which for {\bf bpipe} is the
pseudo path and filename under which the backup will be saved. This pseudo
path and filename will be seen by the user in the restore file tree.
For example, if the value is {\bf /MYSQL/regress.sql}, the data
backed up by the plugin will be put under that "pseudo" path and filename.
You must be careful to choose a naming convention that is unique to avoid
a conflict with a path and filename that actually exists on your system.

\item {\bf field3} for the {\bf bpipe} plugin 
specifies the "reader" program that is called by the plugin during
backup to read the data. {\bf bpipe} will call this program by doing a
{\bf popen} on it.

\item {\bf field4} for the {\bf bpipe} plugin
specifies the "writer" program that is called by the plugin during
restore to write the data back to the filesystem.  
\end{description}

Putting it all together, the full plugin directive line might look
like the following:

\begin{verbatim}
Plugin = "bpipe:/MYSQL/regress.sql:mysqldump -f 
          --opt --databases bacula:mysql"
\end{verbatim}

The directive has been split into two lines, but within the {\bf bacula-dir.conf} file
would be written on a single line.

This causes the File daemon to call the {\bf bpipe} plugin, which will write
its data into the "pseudo" file {\bf /MYSQL/regress.sql} by calling the 
program {\bf mysqldump -f --opt --database bacula} to read the data during
backup. The mysqldump command outputs all the data for the database named
{\bf bacula}, which will be read by the plugin and stored in the backup.
During restore, the data that was backed up will be sent to the program
specified in the last field, which in this case is {\bf mysql}.  When
{\bf mysql} is called, it will read the data sent to it by the plugn
then write it back to the same database from which it came ({\bf bacula}
in this case).

The {\bf bpipe} plugin is a generic pipe program, that simply transmits 
the data from a specified program to Bacula for backup, and then from Bacula to 
a specified program for restore.

By using different command lines to {\bf bpipe},
you can backup any kind of data (ASCII or binary) depending
on the program called.



\section{Display Autochanger Content}
\index[general]{StatusSlots}

The {\bf status slots storage=\lt{}storage-name\gt{}} command displays autochanger content.

\footnotesize
\begin{verbatim}
 Slot |  Volume Name  |  Status  |  Media Type       |   Pool     |  Loaded |
------+---------------+----------+-------------------+------------+---------|
    1 |         00001 |   Append |  DiskChangerMedia |    Default |    0    |
    2 |         00002 |   Append |  DiskChangerMedia |    Default |    0    |
    3*|         00003 |   Append |  DiskChangerMedia |    Scratch |    0    |
    4 |               |          |                   |            |    0    |
\end{verbatim}
\normalsize

If you an asterisk ({\bf *}) appears after the slot number, you must run an {\bf update slots}
command to synchronize autochanger content with your catalog.

\section{Miscellaneous}
\index[general]{Misc New Features}
\begin{description}
\item [Virtual Tape Emulation]

We now have a Virtual Tape emulator that allows us to run though 99.9\% of
the tape code but actually reading and writing to a disk file. Used with the
\textbf{disk-changer} script, you can now emulate an autochanger with 10 drives
and 700 slots. This feature is most useful in testing.  It is enabled
by using {\bf Device Type = vtape} in the Storage daemon's Device
directive. This feature is only implemented on Linux machines.

\item [Bat Enhancements]
Bat (the Bacula Administration Tool) GUI program has been significantly
enhanced and stabilized. In particular, there are new table based status 
commands; it can now be easily localized using Qt4 Linguist.

The Bat communications protocol has been significantly enhanced to improve
GUI handling.

\item [RunScript Enhancements]
The {\bf RunScript} resource has been enhanced to permit multiple
commands per RunScript.  Simply specify multiple {\bf Command} directives
in your RunScript.

\begin{verbatim}
Job {
  Name = aJob
  RunScript {
    Command = "/bin/echo test"
    Command = "/bin/echo an other test"
    Command = "/bin/echo 3 commands in the same runscript"
    RunsWhen = Before
  }
 ...
}
\end{verbatim}

A new Client RunScript {\bf RunsWhen} keyword of {\bf AfterVSS} has been implemented, which
runs the command after the Volume Shadow Copy has been made.

Console commands can be specified within a RunScript by using:
{\bf Console = \lt{}command\gt{}}, however, this command has not been 
carefully tested and debugged and is known to easily crash the Director.
We would appreciate feedback.  Due to the recursive nature of this command, we
may remove it before the final release.

\item [Status Enhancements]
The bconsole {\bf status dir} output has been enhanced to indicate
Storage daemon job spooling and despooling activity.

\item [Connect Timeout]
The default connect timeout to the File
daemon has been set to 3 minutes. Previously it was 30 minutes.

\item [ftruncate for NFS Volumes]
If you write to a Volume mounted by NFS (say on a local file server),
in previous Bacula versions, when the Volume was recycled, it was not
properly truncated because NFS does not implement ftruncate (file 
truncate). This is now corrected in the new version because we have
written code (actually a kind user) that deletes and recreates the Volume,
thus accomplishing the same thing as a truncate.

\item [Support for Ubuntu]
The new version of Bacula now recognizes the Ubuntu (and Kubuntu)
version of Linux, and thus now provides correct autostart routines.
Since Ubuntu officially supports Bacula, you can also obtain any
recent release of Bacula from the Ubuntu repositories.


\item [FD Version]
The File daemon to Director protocol now includes a version 
number, which will help us in future versions automatically determine
if a File daemon is not compatible.

\item [Max Run Sched Time]

\item [Full Max Wait Time]

\item [Incremental Max Wait Time]

\item [Differential Max Wait Time]

\item [Full Max Run Time]

\item [Differential Max Run Time]

\item [Incremental Max Run Time]


\item [Statistics Enhancements]
If you (or your boss) want to have statistics on your backups, you could use
a few SQL queries on the Job table to report how many:
\begin{itemize}
\item jobs have run
\item jobs have been successful
\item files have been backed up
\item ...
\end{itemize}

However, these statistics are accurate only if your job retention is greater than
your statistics period. Ie, if jobs are purged from the catalog, you won't be
able to use them.

Now, you can use the \textbf{update stats [days=num]} console command to fill the
JobStat table with new Job records.

The \textbf{Statistics Retention = \lt{}time\gt{}} director directive defines
the length of time that Bacula will keep statistics job records in the Catalog
database after the Job End time. (In \texttt{JobStat} table) When this time
period expires, and if user runs \texttt{prune stats} command, Bacula will
prune (remove) Job records that are older than the specified period.

These statistics records aren't used for restore purpose, but mainly for
capacity planning, billings, etc.

You can use the following Job resource in your nightly \textbf{BackupCatalog} job to maintain
statistics.
\begin{verbatim}
Job {
  Name = BackupCatalog
  ...
  RunScript {
    Console = "update stats days=3"
    Console = "prune stats yes"
    RunsWhen = After
    RunsOnClient = no
  }
}
\end{verbatim}

\item [Spooling Enhancements]
A new job directive permits to specify the spool size per job. This is used
in advanced job tunning. {\bf SpoolSize={\it bytes}}

\end{description}

\section{Building Bacula Plugins}
There is currently one sample program {\bf example-plugin-fd.c} and
one working plugin {\bf bpipe-fd.c} that can be found in the Bacula
{\bf src/plugins/fd} directory.  Both are built with the following:

\begin{verbatim}
 cd <bacula-source>
 ./configure <your-options>
 make
 ...
 cd src/plugins/fd
 make
 make test
\end{verbatim}

After building Bacula and changing into the src/plugins/fd directory,
the {\bf make} command will build the {\bf bpipe-fd.so} plugin, which 
is a very useful and working program.

The {\bf make test} command will build the {\bf example-plugin-fd.so}
plugin and a binary named main, which is build from the source
code located in {\bf src/filed/fd\_plugins.c}. 

If you execute {\bf ./main}, it will load and run the example-plugin-fd
plugin simulating a small number of the calling sequences that Bacula uses
in calling a real plugin.  This allows you to do initial testing of 
your plugin prior to trying it with Bacula.

You can get a good idea of how to write your own plugin by first 
studying the example-plugin-fd, and actually running it.  Then
it can also be instructive to read the bpipe-fd.c code as it is 
a real plugin, which is still rather simple and small.

When actually writing your own plugin, you may use the example-plugin-fd.c
code as a template for your code.

\section{Bacula FD Plugin API}
To write a Bacula plugin, you cread a dynamic shared object
program (or dll on Win32) with a particular name and two 
entry points, place it in the {\bf Plugins Directory}, and when the FD
starts, it will load all the plugins found in that directory.
Once it loads them, it calls the {\bf loadPlugin} entry point (see below)
then later, it will call particular functions that are defined by the
{\bf loadPlugin} interface.  When Bacula is finished with the plugin 
(when Bacula is going to exit), it will call the {\bf unloadPlugin}
entry point.

The two entry points are:

\begin{verbatim}
bRC loadPlugin(bInfo *lbinfo, bFuncs *lbfuncs, pInfo **pinfo, pFuncs **pfuncs)

and

bRC unloadPlugin()
\end{verbatim}

both these entry points to the shared object are defined as C entry points
to avoid name mangling complications with C++.  However, the shared object
can actually be written in any language.

The definitions for {\bf bRC} and the arguments are {\bf
src/filed/fd-plugins.h} and so this header file needs to be included in
your plug.  It along with {\bf lib/plugins.h} define basically the whole
plugin interface.  Within this header file, it includes the fillowing
files:

\begin{verbatim}
#include <sys/types.h>
#include "config.h"
#include "bc_types.h"
#include "lib/plugins.h"
#include <sys/stat.h>
\end{verbatim}

Aside from the {\bf bc\_types.h} header, the plugin definition uses the
minimum code from Bacula.  The bc\_types.h file is required to ensure that
the data type defintions in arguments correspond to the Bacula core code.

At a future point in time, we hope to make the Bacula libbac.a into a
shared object so that the plugin can use much more of Bacula's
infrastructure, but for this first cut, we have tried to minimize the
dependence on Bacula.

\subsection{loadPlugin}
As previously mentioned, the {\bf loadPlugin} entry point in the plugin
is called immediately after Bacula loads the plugin.  In calling the
plugin, the first two arguments are information from Bacula that
is passed to the plugin, and the last two arguments are information
about the plugin that is returned to Bacula.  The call is:

\begin{verbatim}
bRC loadPlugin(bInfo *lbinfo, bFuncs *lbfuncs, pInfo **pinfo, pFuncs **pfuncs)
\end{verbatim}

and the arguments are:

\begin{description}
\item [lbinfo]
This is information about Bacula in general. Currently, the only value
defined in the bInfo structure is version, which is the Bacula plugin 
interface version, currently defined as 1.
The exact definition as of this writing is: 

\begin{verbatim}
typedef struct s_baculaInfo {
   uint32_t size;
   uint32_t version;
} bInfo;
\end{verbatim}

\item [lbfuncs]
The bFuncs structure defines the callback entry points within Bacula
that the plugin can use register events, get Bacula values, set
Bacula values, and send messages to the Job output.

The exact definition as of this writing is:

\begin{verbatim}
ypedef struct s_baculaFuncs {
   uint32_t size;
   uint32_t version;
   bRC (*registerBaculaEvents)(bpContext *ctx, ...);
   bRC (*getBaculaValue)(bpContext *ctx, bVariable var, void *value);
   bRC (*setBaculaValue)(bpContext *ctx, bVariable var, void *value);
   bRC (*JobMessage)(bpContext *ctx, const char *file, int line,
       int type, time_t mtime, const char *fmt, ...);
   bRC (*DebugMessage)(bpContext *ctx, const char *file, int line,
       int level, const char *fmt, ...);
} bFuncs;
\end{verbatim}

We will discuss these entry points and how to use them a bit later when
describing the plugin code.

\item [pInfo]
When the loadPlugin entry point is called, the plugin must initialize
an information structure about the plugin and return a pointer to
this structure to Bacula.

The exact definition as of this writing is:

\begin{verbatim}
typedef struct s_pluginInfo {
   uint32_t size;
   uint32_t version;
   const char *plugin_magic;
   const char *plugin_license;
   const char *plugin_author;
   const char *plugin_date;
   const char *plugin_version;
   const char *plugin_description;
} pInfo;
\end{verbatim}

Where:
 \begin{description}
 \item [version] is the current plugin interface version, currently
   set to 1.
 \item [plugin\_magic] is a pointer to the string "*FDPluginData*", a
   sort of sanity check.
 \item [plugin\_license] is a pointer to a string that describes the
   plugin license. 
 \item [plugin\_author] is a pointer to the name of the author of the program.
 \item [plugin\_date] is the pointer string containing the date of the plugin.
 \item [plugin\_version] is a pointer to a string containing the version of
   the plugin.
 \item [plugin\_description] is a pointer to a string describing what the
   plugin does.
 \end{description}

The pInfo structure must be defined in static memory because Bacula does not
copy it and may refer to the values at any time while the plugin is
loaded.

\item [pFuncs]
When the loadPlugin entry point is called, the plugin must initialize
an entry point structure about the plugin and return a pointer to
this structure to Bacula. This structure contains pointer to each
of the entry points that the plugin must provide for Bacula. When
Bacula is actually running the plugin, it will call the defined
entry points at particular times.  All entry points must be defined.

The pFuncs structure must be defined in static memory because Bacula does not
copy it and may refer to the values at any time while the plugin is
loaded.


The exact definition as of this writing is:

\begin{verbatim}
typedef struct s_pluginFuncs {
   uint32_t size;
   uint32_t version;
   bRC (*newPlugin)(bpContext *ctx);
   bRC (*freePlugin)(bpContext *ctx);
   bRC (*getPluginValue)(bpContext *ctx, pVariable var, void *value);
   bRC (*setPluginValue)(bpContext *ctx, pVariable var, void *value);
   bRC (*handlePluginEvent)(bpContext *ctx, bEvent *event, void *value);
   bRC (*startBackupFile)(bpContext *ctx, struct save_pkt *sp);
   bRC (*endBackupFile)(bpContext *ctx);
   bRC (*startRestoreFile)(bpContext *ctx, const char *cmd);
   bRC (*endRestoreFile)(bpContext *ctx);
   bRC (*pluginIO)(bpContext *ctx, struct io_pkt *io);
   bRC (*createFile)(bpContext *ctx, struct restore_pkt *rp);
   bRC (*setFileAttributes)(bpContext *ctx, struct restore_pkt *rp);
} pFuncs;
\end{verbatim}

Where:
 \begin{description}
 \item [size] is the size of the structure.
 \item [version] is the plugin interface version.
 \item [newPlugin] is the entry point that Bacula will call
   when a new instance of the plugin is created. This typically
   happens at the beginning of a Job.  If 10 Jobs are running
   simultaneously, there will be at least 10 instances of the
   plugin.
    
   The bpContext structure will be passed to the plugin, and
   during this call, if the plugin needs to have any private
   working storage that is associated with the particular
   instance of the plugin, it should create it from the heap
   (malloc the memory).  The plugin then puts a pointer to
   its private working storage in the {\bf pContext} variable.

\begin{verbatim}
typedef struct s_bpContext {
  void *pContext;   /* Plugin private context */
  void *bContext;   /* Bacula private context */
} bpContext;

\end{verbatim}
   
  This context pointer will be passed as the first argument to all
  the entry points that Bacula can call within the plugin.  Needless
  to say, the plugin should not change the bContext variable, which
  is Bacula's private context pointer for this instance of this
  plugin.

 \item [freePlugin] this entry point is called when the
   this instance of the plugin is no longer needed (the Job is
   ending), and the plugin should release any memory it may
   have allocated for the pContext.

 \item [getPluginValue] Bacula will call this entry point to get
   a value from the plugin.  This entry point is currently not called.

 \item [setPluginValue] Bacula will call this entry point to set
   a value in the plugin.  This entry point is currently not called.
 
 \item [handlePluginEvent] This entry point is called when Bacula
   encounters certain events. Bacula passes the pointer to an event
   structure (bEvent), which currently has one item, the eventType:

\begin{verbatim}
typedef struct s_bEvent {
   uint32_t eventType;
} bEvent;
\end{verbatim}

  which defines what event has been triggered, and for each event,
  Bacula will pass a pointer to a value associated with that event.
  If no value is associated with a particular event, Bacula will 
  pass a NULL pointer, so you must always check for it.
  
  The current list of events are:

\begin{verbatim}
typedef enum {
  bEventJobStart        = 1,
  bEventJobEnd          = 2,
  bEventStartBackupJob  = 3,
  bEventEndBackupJob    = 4,
  bEventStartRestoreJob = 5,
  bEventEndRestoreJob   = 6,
  bEventStartVerifyJob  = 7,
  bEventEndVerifyJob    = 8,
  bEventBackupCommand   = 9,
  bEventRestoreCommand  = 10,
  bEventLevel           = 11,
  bEventSince           = 12,
} bEventType;

\end{verbatim}
 
Most of which are pretty explanatory.
 \end{description}

\end{description}