+Item 14: Include timestamp of job launch in "stat clients" output
+ Origin: Mark Bergman <mark.bergman@uphs.upenn.edu>
+ Date: Tue Aug 22 17:13:39 EDT 2006
+ Status:
+
+ What: The "stat clients" command doesn't include any detail on when
+ the active backup jobs were launched.
+
+ Why: Including the timestamp would make it much easier to decide whether
+ a job is running properly.
+
+ Notes: It may be helpful to have the output from "stat clients" formatted
+ more like that from "stat dir" (and other commands), in a column
+ format. The per-client information that's currently shown (level,
+ client name, JobId, Volume, pool, device, Files, etc.) is good, but
+ somewhat hard to parse (both programmatically and visually),
+ particularly when there are many active clients.
+
+
+Item 15: Message mailing based on backup types
+ Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
+ Date: January 6, 2006
+ Status:
+
+ What: In the "Messages" resource definitions, allowing messages
+ to be mailed based on the type (backup, restore, etc.) and level
+ (full, differential, etc) of job that created the originating
+ message(s).
+
+ Why: It would, for example, allow someone's boss to be emailed
+ automatically only when a Full Backup job runs, so he can
+ retrieve the tapes for offsite storage, even if the IT dept.
+ doesn't (or can't) explicitly notify him. At the same time, his
+ mailbox wouldnt be filled by notifications of Verifies, Restores,
+ or Incremental/Differential Backups (which would likely be kept
+ onsite).
+
+ Notes: One way this could be done is through additional message types, for
+ example:
+
+ Messages {
+ # email the boss only on full system backups
+ Mail = boss@mycompany.com = full, !incremental, !differential, !restore,
+ !verify, !admin
+ # email us only when something breaks
+ MailOnError = itdept@mycompany.com = all
+ }
+
+ Notes: Kern: This should be rather trivial to implement.
+
+
+Item 16: Ability to import/export Bacula database entities
+ Date: 26 April 2009
+ Origin: Eric
+ Status:
+
+ What: Create a Bacula ASCII SQL database independent format that permits
+ importing and exporting database catalog Job entities.
+
+ Why: For achival, database clustering, tranfer to other databases
+ of any SQL engine.
+
+ Notes: Job selection should be by Job, time, Volume, Client, Pool and possibly
+ other criteria.
+
+
+Item 17: Implementation of running Job speed limit.
+Origin: Alex F, alexxzell at yahoo dot com
+Date: 29 January 2009
+
+What: I noticed the need for an integrated bandwidth limiter for
+ running jobs. It would be very useful just to specify another
+ field in bacula-dir.conf, like speed = how much speed you wish
+ for that specific job to run at
+
+Why: Because of a couple of reasons. First, it's very hard to implement a
+ traffic shaping utility and also make it reliable. Second, it is very
+ uncomfortable to have to implement these apps to, let's say 50 clients
+ (including desktops, servers). This would also be unreliable because you
+ have to make sure that the apps are properly working when needed; users
+ could also disable them (accidentally or not). It would be very useful
+ to provide Bacula this ability. All information would be centralized,
+ you would not have to go to 50 different clients in 10 different
+ locations for configuration; eliminating 3rd party additions help in
+ establishing efficiency. Would also avoid bandwidth congestion,
+ especially where there is little available.
+
+
+Item 18: Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types
+Date: 19 Jan 2005
+Origin: Chad Slater <chad.slater@clickfox.com>
+Status:
+
+ What: Adding a FullStorage=BigTapeLibrary in the Schedule resource
+ would help those of us who use different storage devices for different
+ backup levels cope with the "auto-upgrade" of a backup.
+
+ Why: Assume I add several new devices to be backed up, i.e. several
+ hosts with 1TB RAID. To avoid tape switching hassles, incrementals are
+ stored in a disk set on a 2TB RAID. If you add these devices in the
+ middle of the month, the incrementals are upgraded to "full" backups,
+ but they try to use the same storage device as requested in the
+ incremental job, filling up the RAID holding the differentials. If we
+ could override the Storage parameter for full and/or differential
+ backups, then the Full job would use the proper Storage device, which
+ has more capacity (i.e. a 8TB tape library.
+
+
+Item 19: Automatic promotion of backup levels based on backup size
+ Date: 19 January 2006
+ Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
+ Status:
+
+ What: Other backup programs have a feature whereby it estimates the space
+ that a differential, incremental, and full backup would take. If
+ the difference in space required between the scheduled level and the
+ next level up is beneath some user-defined critical threshold, the
+ backup level is bumped to the next type. Doing this minimizes the
+ number of volumes necessary during a restore, with a fairly minimal
+ cost in backup media space.
+
+ Why: I know at least one (quite sophisticated and smart) user for whom the
+ absence of this feature is a deal-breaker in terms of using Bacula;
+ if we had it it would eliminate the one cool thing other backup
+ programs can do and we can't (at least, the one cool thing I know
+ of).
+
+
+Item 20: Allow FileSet inclusion/exclusion by creation/mod times
+ Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
+ Date: January 11, 2006
+ Status:
+
+ What: In the vein of the Wild and Regex directives in a Fileset's
+ Options, it would be helpful to allow a user to include or exclude
+ files and directories by creation or modification times.
+
+ You could factor the Exclude=yes|no option in much the same way it
+ affects the Wild and Regex directives. For example, you could exclude
+ all files modified before a certain date:
+
+ Options {
+ Exclude = yes
+ Modified Before = ####
+ }
+
+ Or you could exclude all files created/modified since a certain date:
+
+ Options {
+ Exclude = yes
+ Created Modified Since = ####
+ }
+
+ The format of the time/date could be done several ways, say the number
+ of seconds since the epoch:
+ 1137008553 = Jan 11 2006, 1:42:33PM # result of `date +%s`
+
+ Or a human readable date in a cryptic form:
+ 20060111134233 = Jan 11 2006, 1:42:33PM # YYYYMMDDhhmmss
+
+ Why: I imagine a feature like this could have many uses. It would
+ allow a user to do a full backup while excluding the base operating
+ system files, so if I installed a Linux snapshot from a CD yesterday,
+ I'll *exclude* all files modified *before* today. If I need to
+ recover the system, I use the CD I already have, plus the tape backup.
+ Or if, say, a Windows client is hit by a particularly corrosive
+ virus, and I need to *exclude* any files created/modified *since* the
+ time of infection.
+
+ Notes: Of course, this feature would work in concert with other
+ in/exclude rules, and wouldnt override them (or each other).
+
+ Notes: The directives I'd imagine would be along the lines of
+ "[Created] [Modified] [Before|Since] = <date>".
+ So one could compare against 'ctime' and/or 'mtime', but ONLY 'before'
+ or 'since'.
+
+
+Item 21: Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
+ Date: Nov. 24/2005
+ Origin: Ray Pengelly [ray at biomed dot queensu dot ca
+ Status:
+
+ What: The ability to archive data to storage based on certain parameters
+ such as age, size, or location. Once the data has been written to
+ storage and logged it is then pruned from the originating
+ filesystem. Note! We are talking about user's files and not
+ Bacula Volumes.
+
+ Why: This would allow fully automatic storage management which becomes
+ useful for large datastores. It would also allow for auto-staging
+ from one media type to another.
+
+ Example 1) Medical imaging needs to store large amounts of data.
+ They decide to keep data on their servers for 6 months and then put
+ it away for long term storage. The server then finds all files
+ older than 6 months writes them to tape. The files are then removed
+ from the server.
+
+ Example 2) All data that hasn't been accessed in 2 months could be
+ moved from high-cost, fibre-channel disk storage to a low-cost
+ large-capacity SATA disk storage pool which doesn't have as quick of
+ access time. Then after another 6 months (or possibly as one
+ storage pool gets full) data is migrated to Tape.
+
+
+Item 22: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
+ Origin: Dmitriy Pinchukov <absh@bossdev.kiev.ua>
+ Date: 16 August 2006
+ Status: Patch made by Nigel Stepp
+
+ What: When I do update -> Volume parameters -> All Volumes
+ from Pool, then I have to select pools one by one. I'd like
+ console to have an option like "0: All Pools" in the list of
+ defined pools.
+
+ Why: I have many pools and therefore unhappy with manually
+ updating each of them using update -> Volume parameters -> All
+ Volumes from Pool -> pool #.
+
+
+Item 23: Automatic disabling of devices
+ Date: 2005-11-11
+ Origin: Peter Eriksson <peter at ifm.liu dot se>
+ Status:
+
+ What: After a configurable amount of fatal errors with a tape drive
+ Bacula should automatically disable further use of a certain
+ tape drive. There should also be "disable"/"enable" commands in
+ the "bconsole" tool.
+
+ Why: On a multi-drive jukebox there is a possibility of tape drives
+ going bad during large backups (needing a cleaning tape run,
+ tapes getting stuck). It would be advantageous if Bacula would
+ automatically disable further use of a problematic tape drive
+ after a configurable amount of errors has occurred.
+
+ An example: I have a multi-drive jukebox (6 drives, 380+ slots)
+ where tapes occasionally get stuck inside the drive. Bacula will
+ notice that the "mtx-changer" command will fail and then fail
+ any backup jobs trying to use that drive. However, it will still
+ keep on trying to run new jobs using that drive and fail -
+ forever, and thus failing lots and lots of jobs... Since we have
+ many drives Bacula could have just automatically disabled
+ further use of that drive and used one of the other ones
+ instead.
+
+
+Item 24: Ability to defer Batch Insert to a later time
+ Date: 26 April 2009
+ Origin: Eric
+ Status:
+
+ What: Instead of doing a Job Batch Insert at the end of the Job
+ which might create resource contention with lots of Job,
+ defer the insert to a later time.
+
+ Why: Permits to focus on getting the data on the Volume and
+ putting the metadata into the Catalog outside the backup
+ window.
+
+ Notes: Will use the proposed Bacula ASCII database import/export
+ format (i.e. dependent on the import/export entities project).
+
+
+Item 25: Add MaxVolumeSize/MaxVolumeBytes to Storage resource
+ Origin: Bastian Friedrich <bastian.friedrich@collax.com>
+ Date: 2008-07-09
+ Status: -
+
+ What: SD has a "Maximum Volume Size" statement, which is deprecated and
+ superseded by the Pool resource statement "Maximum Volume Bytes".
+ It would be good if either statement could be used in Storage
+ resources.
+
+ Why: Pools do not have to be restricted to a single storage type/device;
+ thus, it may be impossible to define Maximum Volume Bytes in the
+ Pool resource. The old MaxVolSize statement is deprecated, as it
+ is SD side only. I am using the same pool for different devices.
+
+ Notes: State of idea currently unknown. Storage resources in the dir
+ config currently translate to very slim catalog entries; these
+ entries would require extensions to implement what is described
+ here. Quite possibly, numerous other statements that are currently
+ available in Pool resources could be used in Storage resources too
+ quite well.
+
+
+Item 26: Enable persistent naming/number of SQL queries
+ Date: 24 Jan, 2007
+ Origin: Mark Bergman
+ Status:
+
+ What:
+ Change the parsing of the query.sql file and the query command so that
+ queries are named/numbered by a fixed value, not their order in the
+ file.
+
+
+ Why:
+ One of the real strengths of bacula is the ability to query the
+ database, and the fact that complex queries can be saved and
+ referenced from a file is very powerful. However, the choice
+ of query (both for interactive use, and by scripting input
+ to the bconsole command) is completely dependent on the order
+ within the query.sql file. The descriptve labels are helpful for
+ interactive use, but users become used to calling a particular
+ query "by number", or may use scripts to execute queries. This
+ presents a problem if the number or order of queries in the file
+ changes.
+
+ If the query.sql file used the numeric tags as a real value (rather
+ than a comment), then users could have a higher confidence that they
+ are executing the intended query, that their local changes wouldn't
+ conflict with future bacula upgrades.
+
+ For scripting, it's very important that the intended query is
+ what's actually executed. The current method of parsing the
+ query.sql file discourages scripting because the addition or
+ deletion of queries within the file will require corresponding
+ changes to scripts. It may not be obvious to users that deleting
+ query "17" in the query.sql file will require changing all
+ references to higher numbered queries. Similarly, when new
+ bacula distributions change the number of "official" queries,
+ user-developed queries cannot simply be appended to the file
+ without also changing any references to those queries in scripts
+ or procedural documentation, etc.
+
+ In addition, using fixed numbers for queries would encourage more
+ user-initiated development of queries, by supporting conventions
+ such as:
+
+ queries numbered 1-50 are supported/developed/distributed by
+ with official bacula releases
+
+ queries numbered 100-200 are community contributed, and are
+ related to media management
+
+ queries numbered 201-300 are community contributed, and are
+ related to checksums, finding duplicated files across
+ different backups, etc.
+
+ queries numbered 301-400 are community contributed, and are
+ related to backup statistics (average file size, size per
+ client per backup level, time for all clients by backup level,
+ storage capacity by media type, etc.)
+
+ queries numbered 500-999 are locally created
+
+ Notes:
+ Alternatively, queries could be called by keyword (tag), rather
+ than by number.
+
+
+Item 27: Bacula Dir, FD and SD to support proxies
+Origin: Karl Grindley @ MIT Lincoln Laboratory <kgrindley at ll dot mit dot edu>
+Date: 25 March 2009
+Status: proposed
+
+What: Support alternate methods for nailing up a TCP session such
+ as SOCKS5, SOCKS4 and HTTP (CONNECT) proxies. Such a feature
+ would allow tunneling of bacula traffic in and out of proxied
+ networks.
+
+Why: Currently, bacula is architected to only function on a flat network, with
+ no barriers or limitations. Due to the large configuration states of
+ any network and the infinite configuration where file daemons and
+ storage daemons may sit in relation to one another, bacula often is
+ not usable on a network where filtered or air-gaped networks exist.
+ While often solutions such as ACL modifications to firewalls or port
+ redirection via SNAT or DNAT will solve the issue, often however,
+ these solutions are not adequate or not allowed by hard policy.
+
+ In an air-gapped network with only a highly locked down proxy services
+ are provided (SOCKS4/5 and/or HTTP and/or SSH outbound) ACLs or
+ iptable rules will not work.
+
+Notes: Director resource tunneling: This configuration option to utilize a
+ proxy to connect to a client should be specified in the client
+ resource Client resource tunneling: should be configured in the client
+ resource in the director config file? Or configured on the bacula-fd
+ configuration file on the fd host itself? If the ladder, this would
+ allow only certain clients to use a proxy, where others do not when
+ establishing the TCP connection to the storage server.
+
+ Also worth noting, there are other 3rd party, light weight apps that
+ could be utilized to bootstrap this. Instead of sockifing bacula
+ itself, use an external program to broker proxy authentication, and
+ connection to the remote host. OpenSSH does this by using the
+ "ProxyCommand" syntax in the client configuration and uses stdin and
+ stdout to the command. Connect.c is a very popular one.
+ (http://bent.latency.net/bent/darcs/goto-san-connect-1.85/src/connect.html).
+ One could also possibly use stunnel, netcat, etc.
+
+
+Item 28: Add Minumum Spool Size directive
+Date: 20 March 2008
+Origin: Frank Sweetser <fs@wpi.edu>