- What: In the Bacula implementation a backup is finished after all data
- and attributes are successfully written to storage. When using a
- tape backup it is very annoying that a backup can take a day,
- simply because the current tape (or whatever) is full and the
- administrator has not put a new one in. During that time the
- system cannot be taken off-line, because there is still an open
- session between the storage daemon and the file daemon on the
- client.
-
- Although this is a very good strategy for making "safe backups"
- This can be annoying for e.g. laptops, that must remain
- connected until the backup is completed.
-
- Using a new feature called "migration" it will be possible to
- spool first to harddisk (using a special 'spool' migration
- scheme) and then migrate the backup to tape.
-
- There is still the problem of getting the attributes committed.
- If it takes a very long time to do, with the current code, the
- job has not terminated, and the File daemon is not freed up. The
- Storage daemon should release the File daemon as soon as all the
- file data and all the attributes have been sent to it (the SD).
- Currently the SD waits until everything is on tape and all the
- attributes are transmitted to the Director before signaling
- completion to the FD. I don't think I would have any problem
- changing this. The reason is that even if the FD reports back to
- the Dir that all is OK, the job will not terminate until the SD
- has done the same thing -- so in a way keeping the SD-FD link
- open to the very end is not really very productive ...
-
- Why: Makes backup of laptops much faster.
-
-
-
-Item 14: Implement huge exclude list support using hashing.
- Date: 28 October 2005
- Origin: Kern
- Status:
-
- What: Allow users to specify very large exclude list (currently
- more than about 1000 files is too many).
-
- Why: This would give the users the ability to exclude all
- files that are loaded with the OS (e.g. using rpms
- or debs). If the user can restore the base OS from
- CDs, there is no need to backup all those files. A
- complete restore would be to restore the base OS, then
- do a Bacula restore. By excluding the base OS files, the
- backup set will be *much* smaller.
-
-
-Item 15: Allow skipping execution of Jobs
- Date: 29 November 2005
- Origin: Florian Schnabel <florian.schnabel at docufy dot de>
- Status:
-
- What: An easy option to skip a certain job on a certain date.
- Why: You could then easily skip tape backups on holidays. Especially
- if you got no autochanger and can only fit one backup on a tape
- that would be really handy, other jobs could proceed normally
- and you won't get errors that way.
-
-
-Item 16: Tray monitor window cleanups
- Origin: Alan Brown ajb2 at mssl dot ucl dot ac dot uk
- Date: 24 July 2006
- Status:
- What: Resizeable and scrollable windows in the tray monitor.
-
- Why: With multiple clients, or with many jobs running, the displayed
- window often ends up larger than the available screen, making
- the trailing items difficult to read.
-
-
-Item 17: Split documentation
- Origin: Maxx <maxxatworkat gmail dot com>
- Date: 27th July 2006
- Status:
-
- What: Split documentation in several books
-
- Why: Bacula manual has now more than 600 pages, and looking for
- implementation details is getting complicated. I think
- it would be good to split the single volume in two or
- maybe three parts:
-
- 1) Introduction, requirements and tutorial, typically
- are useful only until first installation time
-
- 2) Basic installation and configuration, with all the
- gory details about the directives supported 3)
- Advanced Bacula: testing, troubleshooting, GUI and
- ancillary programs, security managements, scripting,
- etc.
-
-
-
-Item 18: Automatic promotion of backup levels
- Date: 19 January 2006
- Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
- Status: Blue sky
-
- What: Amanda has 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
- Amanda can do and we can't (at least, the one cool thing I know of).
-
-
-Item 19: Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types.