4 \chapter{Automatic Volume Recycling}
5 \label{RecyclingChapter}
6 \index[general]{Recycling!Automatic Volume }
7 \index[general]{Automatic Volume Recycling }
9 By default, once Bacula starts writing a Volume, it can append to the
10 volume, but it will not overwrite the existing data thus destroying it.
11 However when Bacula {\bf recycles} a Volume, the Volume becomes available
12 for being reused, and Bacula can at some later time overwrite the previous
13 contents of that Volume. Thus all previous data will be lost. If the
14 Volume is a tape, the tape will be rewritten from the beginning. If the
15 Volume is a disk file, the file will be truncated before being rewritten.
17 You may not want Bacula to automatically recycle (reuse) tapes. This would
18 require a large number of tapes though, and in such a case, it is possible
19 to manually recycle tapes. For more on manual recycling, see the section
20 entitled \ilink{Manually Recycling Volumes}{manualrecycling} below in this
23 Most people prefer to have a Pool of tapes that are used for daily backups and
24 recycled once a week, another Pool of tapes that are used for Full backups
25 once a week and recycled monthly, and finally a Pool of tapes that are used
26 once a month and recycled after a year or two. With a scheme like this, the
27 number of tapes in your pool or pools remains constant.
29 By properly defining your Volume Pools with appropriate Retention periods,
30 Bacula can manage the recycling (such as defined above) automatically.
32 Automatic recycling of Volumes is controlled by four records in the {\bf
33 Pool} resource definition in the Director's configuration file. These four
38 \item VolumeRetention = \lt{}time\gt{}
40 \item RecyclePool = \lt{}APool\gt{} %(\textit{This require bacula 2.1.4 or greater})
43 The above three directives are all you need assuming that you fill
44 each of your Volumes then wait the Volume Retention period before
45 reusing them, providing there is some non-pruned Jobs or Files on the
48 If you want Bacula to stop using a Volume and recycle
49 it before it is full, you will need to use one or more additional
53 \item Use Volume Once = yes
54 \item Volume Use Duration = ttt
55 \item Maximum Volume Jobs = nnn
56 \item Maximum Volume Bytes = mmm
60 the \ilink{Basic Volume Management}{DiskChapter} chapter
61 of this manual for more complete examples.
63 Automatic recycling of Volumes is performed by Bacula only when it wants a
64 new Volume and no appendable Volumes are available in the Pool. It will then
65 search the Pool for any Volumes with the {\bf Recycle} flag set and the
66 Volume Status is {\bf Purged}. At that point, it will choose the oldest
67 purged volume and recycle it.
69 If there are no volumes with Status {\bf Purged}, then the recycling occurs
73 The first is that the Catalog for a Volume must be pruned of all Jobs (i.e.
74 Purged) and Files contained on that Volume.
77 The second step is the actual recycling of the Volume. Only Volumes marked
78 {\bf Full} or {\bf Used} will be considerd for pruning. The Volume will be
79 purged if the VolumeRetention period has expired. When a Volume is marked
80 as Purged, it means that no Catalog records reference that Volume, and the
81 Volume can be recycled and reused even though the Volume Retention period
82 has not expired. Until recycling actually occurs, the Volume data remains
83 intact. If no Volumes can be found for recycling for any of the reasons
84 stated above, Bacula will request operator intervention (i.e. it will ask
85 you to label a new volume).
87 A key point mentioned above, that can be a source of frustration, is that
88 Bacula will only recycle purged Volumes if there is no other appendable
89 Volume available, otherwise, it will always write to an appendable Volume
90 before recycling even if there are Volume marked as Purged. This preserves
91 your data as long as possible. So, if you wish to "force" Bacula to use a
92 purged Volume, you must first ensure that no other Volume in the Pool is
93 marked {\bf Append}. If necessary, you can manually set a volume to {\bf
94 Full}. The reason for this is that Bacula wants to preserve the data on
95 your old tapes (even though purged from the catalog) as long as absolutely
96 possible before overwriting it. There are also a number of directives such
98 {\bf Volume Use Duration} that will automatically mark a volume as {\bf
99 Used} and thus no longer appendable.
102 \section{Automatic Pruning}
103 \index[general]{Automatic Pruning}
104 \index[general]{Pruning!Automatic}
106 As Bacula writes files to tape, it keeps a list of files, jobs, and volumes
107 in a database called the catalog. Among other things, the database helps
108 Bacula to decide which files to back up in an incremental or differential
109 backup, and helps you locate files on past backups when you want to restore
110 something. However, the catalog will grow larger and larger as time goes
111 on, and eventually it can become unacceptably large.
113 Bacula's process for removing entries from the catalog is called Pruning.
114 The default is Automatic Pruning, which means that once a Job record
115 reaches a certain age (e.g. 30 days old) and a pruning occurs, it will be
116 removed from the catalog. Note that Job records that are required for
117 current restore won't be removed automatically, and File records are needed
118 for VirtualFull and Accurate backups. Once a job has been pruned, you can
119 still restore it from the backup Volume, provided that the Volume has not
120 been recycled, but one additional step is required: scanning the volume
121 with bscan. The alternative to Automatic Pruning is Manual Pruning, in
122 which you explicitly tell Bacula to erase the catalog entries for a volume.
123 You'd usually do this when you want to reuse a Bacula volume, because
124 there's no point in keeping a list of files that USED TO BE on a volume.
125 Or, if the catalog is starting to get too big, you could prune the oldest
126 jobs to save space. Manual pruning is done with the
127 \borgxrlink{prune}{ManualPruning}{console}{command} in the \consoleman{}
128 (thanks to Bryce Denney for the above explanation).
130 \section{Pruning Directives}
131 \index[general]{Pruning Directives }
132 \index[general]{Directives!Pruning }
134 There are three pruning durations. All apply to catalog database records
135 and not to the actual data in a Volume. The pruning (or retention)
136 durations are for: Volumes (Media records), Jobs (Job records), and Files
137 (File records). The durations inter-depend a bit because if Bacula prunes
138 a Volume, it automatically removes all the Job records, and all the File
139 records. Also when a Job record is pruned, all the File records for that
140 Job are also pruned (deleted) from the catalog.
142 Having the File records in the database means that you can examine all the
143 files backed up for a particular Job. They take the most space in the catalog
144 (probably 90-95\% of the total). When the File records are pruned, the Job
145 records can remain, and you can still examine what Jobs ran, but not the
146 details of the Files backed up. In addition, without the File records, you
147 cannot use the Console restore command to restore the files.
149 When a Job record is pruned, the Volume (Media record) for that Job can still
150 remain in the database, and if you do a "list volumes", you will see the
151 volume information, but the Job records (and its File records) will no longer
154 In each case, pruning removes information about where older files are, but it
155 also prevents the catalog from growing to be too large. You choose the
156 retention periods in function of how many files you are backing up and the
157 time periods you want to keep those records online, and the size of the
158 database. You can always re-insert the records (with 98\% of the original data)
159 by using "bscan" to scan in a whole Volume or any part of the volume that
162 By setting {\bf AutoPrune} to {\bf yes} you will permit {\bf Bacula} to
163 automatically prune all Volumes in the Pool when a Job needs another Volume.
164 Volume pruning means removing records from the catalog. It does not shrink the
165 size of the Volume or affect the Volume data until the Volume gets
166 overwritten. When a Job requests another volume and there are no Volumes with
167 Volume Status {\bf Append} available, Bacula will begin volume pruning. This
168 means that all Jobs that are older than the {\bf VolumeRetention} period will
169 be pruned from every Volume that has Volume Status {\bf Full} or {\bf Used}
170 and has Recycle set to {\bf yes}. Pruning consists of deleting the
171 corresponding Job, File, and JobMedia records from the catalog database. No
172 change to the physical data on the Volume occurs during the pruning process.
173 When all files are pruned from a Volume (i.e. no records in the catalog), the
174 Volume will be marked as {\bf Purged} implying that no Jobs remain on the
175 volume. The Pool records that control the pruning are described below.
179 \item [AutoPrune = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}]
180 \index[console]{AutoPrune }
181 If AutoPrune is set to {\bf yes} (default), Bacula
182 will automatically apply the Volume retention period when running a Job and
183 it needs a new Volume but no appendable volumes are available. At that point,
184 Bacula will prune all Volumes that can be pruned (i.e. AutoPrune set) in an
185 attempt to find a usable volume. If during the autoprune, all files are
186 pruned from the Volume, it will be marked with VolStatus {\bf Purged}. The
187 default is {\bf yes}. Note, that although the File and Job records may be
188 pruned from the catalog, a Volume will be marked Purged (and hence
189 ready for recycling) if the Volume status is Append, Full, Used, or Error.
190 If the Volume has another status, such as Archive, Read-Only, Disabled,
191 Busy, or Cleaning, the Volume status will not be changed to Purged.
193 \item [Volume Retention = \lt{}time-period-specification\gt{}]
194 \index[console]{Volume Retention}
195 The Volume Retention record defines the length of time that Bacula will
196 guarantee that the Volume is not reused counting from the time the last
197 job stored on the Volume terminated, providing that all the File records
198 on the Volume have not been pruned. A key point is that this time
199 period is not even considered as long at the Volume remains appendable.
200 The Volume Retention period count down begins only when the Append
201 status has been changed to some othe status (Full, Used, Purged, ...).
202 Note, when all the File records have been removed that are on the
203 Volume, the Volume will marked Purged (i.e. it has no more valid
204 Files stored on it), and the Volume may be recycled even if the Volume
205 Retention period has not expired.
207 When this time period expires, and if {\bf AutoPrune} is set to {\bf
208 yes}, and a new Volume is needed, but no appendable Volume is available,
209 Bacula will prune (remove) Job records that are older than the specified
210 Volume Retention period even if the Job or File retention has not been
213 The Volume Retention period takes precedence over any Job Retention
214 period you have specified in the Client resource. It should also be
215 noted, that the Volume Retention period is obtained by reading the
216 Catalog Database Media record rather than the Pool resource record.
217 This means that if you change the VolumeRetention in the Pool resource
218 record, you must ensure that the corresponding change is made in the
219 catalog by using the {\bf update pool} command. Doing so will insure
220 that any new Volumes will be created with the changed Volume Retention
221 period. Any existing Volumes will have their own copy of the Volume
222 Retention period that can only be changed on a Volume by Volume basis
223 using the {\bf update volume} command.
225 When all file catalog entries are removed from the volume, its VolStatus is
226 set to {\bf Purged}. The files remain physically on the Volume until the
227 volume is overwritten.
229 Retention periods are specified in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,
230 months, quarters, or years on the record. See the
231 \ilink{Configuration chapter}{Time} of this manual for
232 additional details of time specification.
234 The default is 1 year.
235 % TODO: if that is the format, should it be in quotes? decide on a style
237 \item [Recycle = \lt{}yes|no\gt{}]
239 This statement tells Bacula whether or not the particular Volume can be
240 recycled (i.e. rewritten). If Recycle is set to {\bf no} (the
241 default), then even if Bacula prunes all the Jobs on the volume and it
242 is marked {\bf Purged}, it will not consider the tape for recycling. If
243 Recycle is set to {\bf yes} and all Jobs have been pruned, the volume
244 status will be set to {\bf Purged} and the volume may then be reused
245 when another volume is needed. If the volume is reused, it is relabeled
246 with the same Volume Name, however all previous data will be lost.
249 It is also possible to "force" pruning of all Volumes in the Pool
250 associated with a Job by adding {\bf Prune Files = yes} to the Job resource.
253 \label{RecyclingAlgorithm}
254 \section{Recycling Algorithm}
255 \index[general]{Algorithm!Recycling }
256 \index[general]{Recycling Algorithm }
258 After all Volumes of a Pool have been pruned (as mentioned above, this happens
259 when a Job needs a new Volume and no appendable Volumes are available), Bacula
260 will look for the oldest Volume that is Purged (all Jobs and Files expired),
261 and if the {\bf Recycle} flag is on (Recycle=yes) for that Volume, Bacula will
262 relabel it and write new data on it.
264 As mentioned above, there are two key points for getting a Volume
265 to be recycled. First, the Volume must no longer be marked Append (there
266 are a number of directives to automatically make this change), and second
267 since the last write on the Volume, one or more of the Retention periods
268 must have expired so that there are no more catalog backup job records
269 that reference that Volume. Once both those conditions are satisfied,
270 the volume can be marked Purged and hence recycled.
272 The full algorithm that Bacula uses when it needs a new Volume is:
273 \index[general]{New Volume Algorithm}
274 \index[general]{Algorithm!New Volume}
276 The algorithm described below assumes that AutoPrune is enabled,
277 that Recycling is turned on, and that you have defined
278 appropriate Retention periods, or used the defaults for all these
282 \item If the request is for an Autochanger device, look only
283 for Volumes in the Autochanger (i.e. with InChanger set and that have
284 the correct Storage device).
285 \item Search the Pool for a Volume with VolStatus=Append (if there is more
286 than one, the Volume with the oldest date last written is chosen. If
287 two have the same date then the one with the lowest MediaId is chosen).
288 \item Search the Pool for a Volume with VolStatus=Recycle and the InChanger
289 flag is set true (if there is more than one, the Volume with the oldest
290 date last written is chosen. If two have the same date then the one
291 with the lowest MediaId is chosen).
292 \item Try recycling any purged Volumes.
293 \item Prune volumes applying Volume retention period (Volumes with VolStatus
294 Full, Used, or Append are pruned). Note, when all the File and Job
295 records are pruned from a Volume, the Volume may be marked Purged
296 prior to the expiration of the Volume retention period.
297 \item Search the Pool for a Volume with VolStatus=Purged
298 \item If a Pool named "Scratch" exists, search for a Volume and if found
299 move it to the current Pool for the Job and use it. Note, when
300 the Scratch Volume is moved into the current Pool, the basic
301 Pool defaults are applied as if it is a newly labeled Volume
302 (equivalent to an {\bf update volume from pool} command).
303 \item If we were looking for Volumes in the Autochanger, go back to
304 step 2 above, but this time, look for any Volume whether or not
305 it is in the Autochanger.
306 \item Attempt to create a new Volume if automatic labeling is enabled.
307 However, if the maximum number of Volumes
308 specified for the pool is reached, a new Volume will not be created.
309 \item Prune the oldest Volume if RecycleOldestVolume=yes (the Volume with the
310 oldest LastWritten date and VolStatus equal to Full, Recycle, Purged, Used,
311 or Append is chosen). This record ensures that all retention periods are
313 \item Purge the oldest Volume if PurgeOldestVolume=yes (the Volume with the
314 oldest LastWritten date and VolStatus equal to Full, Recycle, Purged, Used,
315 or Append is chosen). We strongly recommend against the use of {\bf
316 PurgeOldestVolume} as it can quite easily lead to loss of current backup
318 \item Give up and ask operator.
321 The above occurs when Bacula has finished writing a Volume or when no Volume
322 is present in the drive.
324 On the other hand, if you have inserted a different Volume after the last job,
325 and Bacula recognizes the Volume as valid, it will request authorization from
326 the Director to use this Volume. In this case, if you have set {\bf Recycle
327 Current Volume = yes} and the Volume is marked as Used or Full, Bacula will
328 prune the volume and if all jobs were removed during the pruning (respecting
329 the retention periods), the Volume will be recycled and used.
331 The recycling algorithm in this case is:
333 \item If the VolStatus is {\bf Append} or {\bf Recycle}
334 is set, the volume will be used.
335 \item If {\bf Recycle Current Volume} is set and the volume is marked {\bf
336 Full} or {\bf Used}, Bacula will prune the volume (applying the retention
337 period). If all Jobs are pruned from the volume, it will be recycled.
340 This permits users to manually change the Volume every day and load tapes in
341 an order different from what is in the catalog, and if the volume does not
342 contain a current copy of your backup data, it will be used.
344 A few points from Alan Brown to keep in mind:
347 \item If a pool doesn't have maximum volumes defined then Bacula will prefer to
348 demand new volumes over forcibly purging older volumes.
350 \item If volumes become free through pruning and the Volume retention period has
351 expired, then they get marked as "purged" and are immediately available for
352 recycling - these will be used in preference to creating new volumes.
354 \item If the Job, File, and Volume retention periods are different, then
355 it's common to see a tape with no files or jobs listed in the database,
356 but which is still not marked as "purged".
360 \section{Recycle Status}
361 \index[general]{Status!Recycle }
362 \index[general]{Recycle Status }
364 Each Volume inherits the Recycle status (yes or no) from the Pool resource
365 record when the Media record is created (normally when the Volume is labeled).
366 This Recycle status is stored in the Media record of the Catalog. Using
367 the Console program, you may subsequently change the Recycle status for each
368 Volume. For example in the following output from {\bf list volumes}:
372 +----------+-------+--------+---------+------------+--------+-----+
373 | VolumeNa | Media | VolSta | VolByte | LastWritte | VolRet | Rec |
374 +----------+-------+--------+---------+------------+--------+-----+
375 | File0001 | File | Full | 4190055 | 2002-05-25 | 14400 | 1 |
376 | File0002 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
377 | File0003 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
378 | File0004 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
379 | File0005 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
380 | File0006 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
381 | File0007 | File | Purged | 1896466 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
382 +----------+-------+--------+---------+------------+--------+-----+
386 all the volumes are marked as recyclable, and the last Volume, {\bf
387 File0007} has been purged, so it may be immediately recycled. The other
388 volumes are all marked recyclable and when their Volume Retention period
389 (14400 seconds or four hours) expires, they will be eligible for pruning,
390 and possibly recycling. Even though Volume {\bf File0007} has been purged,
391 all the data on the Volume is still recoverable. A purged Volume simply
392 means that there are no entries in the Catalog. Even if the Volume Status
393 is changed to {\bf Recycle}, the data on the Volume will be recoverable.
394 The data is lost only when the Volume is re-labeled and re-written.
396 To modify Volume {\bf File0001} so that it cannot be recycled, you use the
397 {\bf update volume pool=File} command in the console program, or simply {\bf
398 update} and Bacula will prompt you for the information.
402 +----------+------+-------+---------+-------------+-------+-----+
403 | VolumeNa | Media| VolSta| VolByte | LastWritten | VolRet| Rec |
404 +----------+------+-------+---------+-------------+-------+-----+
405 | File0001 | File | Full | 4190055 | 2002-05-25 | 14400 | 0 |
406 | File0002 | File | Full | 1897236 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
407 | File0003 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
408 | File0004 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
409 | File0005 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
410 | File0006 | File | Full | 1896460 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
411 | File0007 | File | Purged| 1896466 | 2002-05-26 | 14400 | 1 |
412 +----------+------+-------+---------+-------------+-------+-----+
416 In this case, {\bf File0001} will never be automatically recycled. The same
417 effect can be achieved by setting the Volume Status to Read-Only.
419 As you have noted, the Volume Status (VolStatus) column in the
420 catalog database contains the current status of the Volume, which
421 is normally maintained automatically by Bacula. To give you an
422 idea of some of the values it can take during the life cycle of
423 a Volume, here is a picture created by Arno Lehmann:
427 A typical volume life cycle is like this:
429 because job count or size limit exceeded
430 Append ----------------------------------------> Used
432 | First Job writes to Retention time passed |
433 | the volume and recycling takes |
436 Recycled <-------------------------------------- Purged
437 Volume is selected for reuse
443 \section{Making Bacula Use a Single Tape}
445 \index[general]{Tape!Making Bacula Use a Single}
446 \index[general]{Making Bacula Use a Single Tape}
448 Most people will want Bacula to fill a tape and when it is full, a new tape
449 will be mounted, and so on. However, as an extreme example, it is possible
450 for Bacula to write on a single tape, and every night to rewrite it. To
451 get this to work, you must do two things: first, set the VolumeRetention to
452 less than your save period (one day), and the second item is to make Bacula
453 mark the tape as full after using it once. This is done using {\bf
454 UseVolumeOnce = yes}. If this latter record is not used and the tape is
455 not full after the first time it is written, Bacula will simply append to
456 the tape and eventually request another volume. Using the tape only once,
457 forces the tape to be marked
458 {\bf Full} after each use, and the next time {\bf Bacula} runs, it will
461 An example Pool resource that does this is:
467 Use Volume Once = yes
470 VolumeRetention = 12h # expire after 12 hours
476 \section{Daily, Weekly, Monthly Tape Usage Example}
478 \index[general]{Daily, Weekly, Monthly Tape Usage Example }
479 \index[general]{Example!Daily Weekly Monthly Tape Usage }
481 This example is meant to show you how one could define a fixed set of volumes
482 that Bacula will rotate through on a regular schedule. There are an infinite
483 number of such schemes, all of which have various advantages and
486 We start with the following assumptions:
489 \item A single tape has more than enough capacity to do a full save.
490 \item There are ten tapes that are used on a daily basis for incremental
491 backups. They are prelabeled Daily1 ... Daily10.
492 \item There are four tapes that are used on a weekly basis for full backups.
493 They are labeled Week1 ... Week4.
494 \item There are 12 tapes that are used on a monthly basis for full backups.
495 They are numbered Month1 ... Month12
496 \item A full backup is done every Saturday evening (tape inserted Friday
497 evening before leaving work).
498 \item No backups are done over the weekend (this is easy to change).
499 \item The first Friday of each month, a Monthly tape is used for the Full
501 \item Incremental backups are done Monday - Friday (actually Tue-Fri
503 % TODO: why this "actually"? does this need to be explained?
506 We start the system by doing a Full save to one of the weekly volumes or one
507 of the monthly volumes. The next morning, we remove the tape and insert a
508 Daily tape. Friday evening, we remove the Daily tape and insert the next tape
509 in the Weekly series. Monday, we remove the Weekly tape and re-insert the
510 Daily tape. On the first Friday of the next month, we insert the next Monthly
511 tape in the series rather than a Weekly tape, then continue. When a Daily tape
512 finally fills up, {\bf Bacula} will request the next one in the series, and
513 the next day when you notice the email message, you will mount it and {\bf
514 Bacula} will finish the unfinished incremental backup.
516 What does this give? Well, at any point, you will have the last complete
517 Full save plus several Incremental saves. For any given file you want to
518 recover (or your whole system), you will have a copy of that file every day
519 for at least the last 14 days. For older versions, you will have at least three
520 and probably four Friday full saves of that file, and going back further, you
521 will have a copy of that file made on the beginning of the month for at least
524 So you have copies of any file (or your whole system) for at least a year, but
525 as you go back in time, the time between copies increases from daily to weekly
528 What would the Bacula configuration look like to implement such a scheme?
534 Run = Level=Full Pool=Monthly 1st sat at 03:05
535 Run = Level=Full Pool=Weekly 2nd-5th sat at 03:05
536 Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Daily tue-fri at 03:05
542 Client = LocalMachine
547 Schedule = "NightlySave"
549 # Definition of file storage device
554 Password = XXXXXXXXXXXXX
561 Options { signature=MD5 }
562 File = fffffffffffffffff
570 VolumeRetention = 10d # recycle in 10 days
576 Use Volume Once = yes
579 VolumeRetention = 30d # recycle in 30 days (default)
584 Use Volume Once = yes
587 VolumeRetention = 365d # recycle in 1 year
593 \section{ Automatic Pruning and Recycling Example}
594 \label{PruningExample}
595 \index[general]{Automatic Pruning and Recycling Example }
596 \index[general]{Example!Automatic Pruning and Recycling }
598 Perhaps the best way to understand the various resource records that come into
599 play during automatic pruning and recycling is to run a Job that goes through
600 the whole cycle. If you add the following resources to your Director's
606 Name = "30 minute cycle"
607 Run = Level=Full Pool=File Messages=Standard Storage=File
609 Run = Level=Full Pool=File Messages=Standard Storage=File
621 Schedule = "30 minute cycle"
623 # Definition of file storage device
626 Address = XXXXXXXXXXX
628 Password = XXXXXXXXXXXXX
635 Options { signature=MD5 }
636 File = fffffffffffffffff
642 Use Volume Once = yes
653 Where you will need to replace the {\bf ffffffffff}'s by the appropriate files
654 to be saved for your configuration. For the FileSet Include, choose a
655 directory that has one or two megabytes maximum since there will probably be
656 approximately eight copies of the directory that {\bf Bacula} will cycle through.
658 In addition, you will need to add the following to your Storage daemon's
666 Archive Device = /tmp
669 AutomaticMount = yes;
676 With the above resources, Bacula will start a Job every half hour that saves a
677 copy of the directory you chose to /tmp/File0001 ... /tmp/File0012. After 4
678 hours, Bacula will start recycling the backup Volumes (/tmp/File0001 ...). You
679 should see this happening in the output produced. Bacula will automatically
680 create the Volumes (Files) the first time it uses them.
682 To turn it off, either delete all the resources you've added, or simply
683 comment out the {\bf Schedule} record in the {\bf Job} resource.
685 \section{Manually Recycling Volumes}
686 \label{manualrecycling}
687 \index[general]{Volumes!Manually Recycling }
688 \index[general]{Manually Recycling Volumes }
690 Although automatic recycling of Volumes is implemented in version 1.20 and
692 \ilink{Automatic Recycling of Volumes}{RecyclingChapter} chapter of
693 this manual), you may want to manually force reuse (recycling) of a Volume.
695 Assuming that you want to keep the Volume name, but you simply want to write
696 new data on the tape, the steps to take are:
699 \item Use the {\bf update volume} command in the Console to ensure that the
700 {\bf Recycle} field is set to {\bf 1}
701 \item Use the {\bf purge jobs volume} command in the Console to mark the
702 Volume as {\bf Purged}. Check by using {\bf list volumes}.
705 Once the Volume is marked Purged, it will be recycled the next time a Volume
708 If you wish to reuse the tape by giving it a new name, follow the following
712 \item Use the {\bf purge jobs volume} command in the Console to mark the
713 Volume as {\bf Purged}. Check by using {\bf list volumes}.
714 \item In Bacula version 1.30 or greater, use the Console {\bf relabel}
715 command to relabel the Volume.
718 Please note that the relabel command applies only to tape Volumes.
720 For Bacula versions prior to 1.30 or to manually relabel the Volume, use the
724 \item Use the {\bf delete volume} command in the Console to delete the Volume
726 \item If a different tape is mounted, use the {\bf unmount} command,
727 remove the tape, and insert the tape to be renamed.
728 \item Write an EOF mark in the tape using the following commands:
732 mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind
737 where you replace {\bf /dev/nst0} with the appropriate device name on your
739 \item Use the {\bf label} command to write a new label to the tape and to
740 enter it in the catalog.
743 Please be aware that the {\bf delete} command can be dangerous. Once it is
744 done, to recover the File records, you must either restore your database as it
745 was before the {\bf delete} command, or use the {\bf bscan} utility program to
746 scan the tape and recreate the database entries.