Both restore interfaces accomplish the same 3 steps in different ways. Those steps are to select jobs to restore from, give the user the opportunity to select files and directories and then run the restore job.
Start the standard restore procedure by either pressing the restore button in the task bar. There are also two options in the joblist context sensitive menu to start a restore. They are restore from time or restore from job.
This interface is intended as a high performance restore option. It is a server side interaction to perform the steps by utilizing the text based restore capabilities of bacula. It interprets interactions with the server and displays a graphical front end for the user.
The Opening interface will allow the user to choose selection criterion to inform the server how to determine the set of backup job ids to use in the restore. This best possible set will be the most recent full backup, the most recent differential backup done since the most recent full, and all the incremental backups done since the most recent full or differential. Then the server will use this set of jobs to create a file structure that will be the most recent version of each file found in this job list.
After the select box OK button has been pushed, a limitation in bat will occur that will be resolved in future. The restore process will take control of the connection to the server and will not allow any other communication to the server by any other interface.
The second interface will allow the user to browse this file structure and choose the files and directories to restore. This will be done in an explorer type interface with a directory tree on the left. In the right pane of a splitter will be a table showing a list of files and directories that are the contents of the directory selected in the left pane. The user can mark and unmark either with the buttons on the top or by double clicking on the check mark icon to toggle whether an item is selected or not. Double clicking an item which is a directory on a part of the table which is not the check icon will open that directory. Clicking on OK will complete the selection process.
The third step is a drop down interface that appears to be similar to the first but is different. It is the Restore Run interface and will run the job after allowing the user to inform the bacula server details of what host and where to restore the files to.
The Version Browser restore option does not have the same connection limitations as the standard restore during the file and directory selection process. The user can have an unlimited number of selection windows open at a time for viewing the cataloged jobs, directories, files and versions.
This restore interface is NOT intended to preform major restores of directory structures with large numbers of directories and files. It should work, however it is a chatty interface and will perform a number of sql queries of the server proportional to the number of files and directories selected and the number of exceptions to defaults selected. It IS intended to allow the user to browse for specific files and choose between the different versions of those files that are available in the catalog to restore.
The interface contains a horizontal splitter. The bottom pane contains some controlling widgets for the interface. The top pane contains a vertical splitter with 4 widgets for viewing the cataloged information. The left widget is for viewing and further sub selecting of jobs. The second pane is for viewing the directory tree. The third is for viewing a list of files in a selected directory that has been selected. Then lastly the fourth widget is for viewing a table of versions of a single file that has been selected from the file widget.
The version browser accomplishes the 3 restore steps, but does it a little differently.
To select jobs and populate the directory tree, press the refresh button. The job table will contain selected jobs. The selection criterion of the three drop downs and the 2 limits will be used as the filtering criterion for populating the job table the first time the refresh button is pushed. After the refresh button has been pushed, the job table has check marks that can select and unselect jobs. Re-pressing the refresh button will do one of 2 things and this is dependent on whether the widgets in the bottom control pane display the same data as the previous time the refresh button was pressed. If changed the jobs table will be repopulated from the selection criterion. If unchanged any jobs that have been unchecked will then be excluded from the process of selecting directories, files and versions. The directory tree will be immediately repopulated. There is a text label underneath the refresh button to inform the user as to which of these two will happen.
The user can browse the directory tree and click on a directory folder which will then populate the file table with the files that are contained in the selected directory path. Selecting or unselecting a directory will select or unselect all files and all directories in the tree hierarchy beneath it. If there are any exceptions already selected beneath that directory, those exceptions will be deleted.
With the file table populated, the user can unselect a file in a selected directory and also select a file in an unselected directory.
With a file selected the version table will populate with all the instances a file has been written to tape. The user can choose a specific version of a file for restore and override the default which is to restore the most recent version.
Pressing the restore button will initiate a procedure of preparing to perform the restore of the requested files. The same Restore Run interface that was the third step in the standard restore will then be displayed. It will allow the user to instruct the bacula server of the details of what host and what path to restore the files to. This part of the restore will take a hold of the connection to the server and not allow any other communication to the server by the other interfaces.
There are two progress bars that will appear when refreshing or restoring to allow the user to understand how much time it may take to complete any tasks that could take a long time period.