Projects:
Bacula Projects Roadmap
- Status updated 7 July 2007
- After re-ordering in vote priority
+ Status updated 18 August 2007
+ After removing items completed in version
+ 2.2.0 and renumbering
Items Completed:
-Item: 2 Implement a Bacula GUI/management tool.
-Item: 18 Quick release of FD-SD connection after backup.
-Item: 23 Implement from-client and to-client on restore command line.
-Item: 25 Implement huge exclude list support using dlist
-Item: 41 Enable to relocate files and directories when restoring
-Item: 42 Batch attribute inserts (ten times faster)
-Item: 43 More concurrency in SD using micro-locking
-Item: 44 Performance enhancements (POSIX/Win32 OS file access hints).
-Item: 40 Include JobID in spool file name
Summary:
-Item: 1 Accurate restoration of renamed/deleted files
-Item: 2* Implement a Bacula GUI/management tool.
-Item: 3 Allow FD to initiate a backup
-Item: 4 Merge multiple backups (Synthetic Backup or Consolidation).
-Item: 5 Deletion of Disk-Based Bacula Volumes
-Item: 6 Implement Base jobs.
-Item: 7 Implement creation and maintenance of copy pools
-Item: 8 Directive/mode to backup only file changes, not entire file
-Item: 9 Implement a server-side compression feature
-Item: 10 Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management.
-Item: 11 Allow skipping execution of Jobs
-Item: 12 Add a scheduling syntax that permits weekly rotations
-Item: 13 Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
-Item: 14 Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
-Item: 15 Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
-Item: 16 Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
-Item: 17 Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
-Item: 18* Quick release of FD-SD connection after backup.
-Item: 19 Implement a Python interface to the Bacula catalog.
-Item: 20 Archive data
-Item: 21 Split documentation
-Item: 22 Implement support for stacking arbitrary stream filters, sinks.
-Item: 23* Implement from-client and to-client on restore command line.
-Item: 24 Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types.
-Item: 25* Implement huge exclude list support using hashing.
-Item: 26 Implement more Python events in Bacula.
-Item: 27 Incorporation of XACML2/SAML2 parsing
-Item: 28 Filesystem watch triggered backup.
-Item: 29 Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
-Item: 30 Tray monitor window cleanups
-Item: 31 Implement multiple numeric backup levels as supported by dump
-Item: 32 Automatic promotion of backup levels
-Item: 33 Clustered file-daemons
-Item: 34 Commercial database support
-Item: 35 Automatic disabling of devices
-Item: 36 An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
-Item: 37 Add an item to the restore option where you can select a pool
-Item: 38 Include timestamp of job launch in "stat clients" output
-Item: 39 Message mailing based on backup types
-Item: 40* Include JobID in spool file name
-Item: 41* Enable to relocate files and directories when restoring
-Item: 42* Batch attribute inserts (ten times faster)
-Item: 43* More concurrency in SD using micro-locking
-Item: 44* Performance enhancements (POSIX/Win32 OS file access hints).
+Item 1: Accurate restoration of renamed/deleted files
+Item 2: Allow FD to initiate a backup
+Item 3: Merge multiple backups (Synthetic Backup or Consolidation)
+Item 4: Implement Catalog directive for Pool resource in Director
+Item 5: Add an item to the restore option where you can select a Pool
+Item 6: Deletion of disk Volumes when pruned
+Item 7: Implement Base jobs
+Item 8: Implement Copy pools
+Item 9: Scheduling syntax that permits more flexibility and options
+Item 10: Message mailing based on backup types
+Item 11: Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
+Item 12: Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
+Item 13: Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
+Item 14: Add an override in Schedule for Pools based on backup types
+Item 15: Implement more Python events and functions
+Item 16: Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
+Item 17: Automatic promotion of backup levels based on backup size
+Item 18: Better control over Job execution
+Item 19: Automatic disabling of devices
+Item 20: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
+Item 21: Include timestamp of job launch in "stat clients" output
+Item 22: Implement Storage daemon compression
+Item 23: Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management
+Item 24: Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
+Item 25: Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
+
Item 1: Accurate restoration of renamed/deleted files
Date: 28 November 2005
rely on this working, otherwise the merged backups will not be
truly equivalent to a Full backup.
- Kern: notes shortened. This can be done without the need for
+ Note: Kern: notes shortened. This can be done without the need for
inodes. It is essentially the same as the current Verify job,
but one additional database record must be written, which does
not need any database change.
- Kern: see if we can correct restoration of directories if
+ Notes: Kern: see if we can correct restoration of directories if
replace=ifnewer is set. Currently, if the directory does not
exist, a "dummy" directory is created, then when all the files
are updated, the dummy directory is newer so the real values
are not updated.
-Item 2: Implement a Bacula GUI/management tool.
- Origin: Kern
- Date: 28 October 2005
- Status: In progress
-
- What: Implement a Bacula console, and management tools
- probably using Qt3 and C++.
-
- Why: Don't we already have a wxWidgets GUI? Yes, but
- it is written in C++ and changes to the user interface
- must be hand tailored using C++ code. By developing
- the user interface using Qt designer, the interface
- can be very easily updated and most of the new Python
- code will be automatically created. The user interface
- changes become very simple, and only the new features
- must be implement. In addition, the code will be in
- Python, which will give many more users easy (or easier)
- access to making additions or modifications.
-
- Notes: There is a partial Python-GTK implementation
- Lucas Di Pentima <lucas at lunix dot com dot ar> but
- it is no longer being developed.
-
-Item 3: Allow FD to initiate a backup
+Item 2: Allow FD to initiate a backup
Origin: Frank Volf (frank at deze dot org)
Date: 17 November 2005
Status:
Why: Makes backup of laptops much easier.
-Item 4: Merge multiple backups (Synthetic Backup or Consolidation).
+Item 3: Merge multiple backups (Synthetic Backup or Consolidation)
Origin: Marc Cousin and Eric Bollengier
Date: 15 November 2005
- Status: Waiting implementation. Depends on first implementing
- project Item 2 (Migration) which is now done.
+ Status:
What: A merged backup is a backup made without connecting to the Client.
It would be a Merge of existing backups into a single backup.
data can then be pruned (or not) from the catalog, possibly
allowing older volumes to be recycled
-Item 5: Deletion of Disk-Based Bacula Volumes
+Item 4: Implement Catalog directive for Pool resource in Director
+ Origin: Alan Davis adavis@ruckus.com
+ Date: 6 March 2007
+ Status: Submitted
+
+ What: The current behavior is for the director to create all pools
+ found in the configuration file in all catalogs. Add a
+ Catalog directive to the Pool resource to specify which
+ catalog to use for each pool definition.
+
+ Why: This allows different catalogs to have different pool
+ attributes and eliminates the side-effect of adding
+ pools to catalogs that don't need/use them.
+
+ Notes: Kern: I think this is relatively easy to do, and it is really
+ a pre-requisite to a number of the Copy pool, ... projects
+ that are listed here.
+
+Item 5: Add an item to the restore option where you can select a Pool
+ Origin: kshatriyak at gmail dot com
+ Date: 1/1/2006
+ Status:
+
+ What: In the restore option (Select the most recent backup for a
+ client) it would be useful to add an option where you can limit
+ the selection to a certain pool.
+
+ Why: When using cloned jobs, most of the time you have 2 pools - a
+ disk pool and a tape pool. People who have 2 pools would like to
+ select the most recent backup from disk, not from tape (tape
+ would be only needed in emergency). However, the most recent
+ backup (which may just differ a second from the disk backup) may
+ be on tape and would be selected. The problem becomes bigger if
+ you have a full and differential - the most "recent" full backup
+ may be on disk, while the most recent differential may be on tape
+ (though the differential on disk may differ even only a second or
+ so). Bacula will complain that the backups reside on different
+ media then. For now the only solution now when restoring things
+ when you have 2 pools is to manually search for the right
+ job-id's and enter them by hand, which is a bit fault tolerant.
+
+ Notes: Kern: This is a nice idea. It could also be the way to support
+ Jobs that have been Copied (similar to migration, but not yet
+ implemented).
+
+
+
+Item 6: Deletion of disk Volumes when pruned
Date: Nov 25, 2005
Origin: Ross Boylan <RossBoylan at stanfordalumni dot org> (edited
by Kern)
The migration project should also remove a Volume that is
migrated. This might also work for tape Volumes.
-Item 6: Implement Base jobs.
+Item 7: Implement Base jobs
Date: 28 October 2005
Origin: Kern
Status:
FD a list of files/attribs, and the FD must search the
list and compare it for each file to be saved.
-Item 7: Implement creation and maintenance of copy pools
+
+Item 8: Implement Copy pools
Date: 27 November 2005
Origin: David Boyes (dboyes at sinenomine dot net)
Status:
simple.
Restores would use the copy of the data on the first
- available volume, in order of copy pool chain definition.
+ available volume, in order of Copy pool chain definition.
This is also a major scalability issue -- as the number of
clients increases beyond several thousand, and the volume
Notes: I would commit some of my developers' time if we can agree
on the design and behavior.
-Item 8: Directive/mode to backup only file changes, not entire file
- Date: 11 November 2005
- Origin: Joshua Kugler <joshua dot kugler at uaf dot edu>
- Marek Bajon <mbajon at bimsplus dot com dot pl>
- Status:
-
- What: Currently when a file changes, the entire file will be backed up in
- the next incremental or full backup. To save space on the tapes
- it would be nice to have a mode whereby only the changes to the
- file would be backed up when it is changed.
-
- Why: This would save lots of space when backing up large files such as
- logs, mbox files, Outlook PST files and the like.
-
- Notes: This would require the usage of disk-based volumes as comparing
- files would not be feasible using a tape drive.
-
-Item 9: Implement a server-side compression feature
- Date: 18 December 2006
- Origin: Vadim A. Umanski , e-mail umanski@ext.ru
- Status:
- What: The ability to compress backup data on server receiving data
- instead of doing that on client sending data.
- Why: The need is practical. I've got some machines that can send
- data to the network 4 or 5 times faster than compressing
- them (I've measured that). They're using fast enough SCSI/FC
- disk subsystems but rather slow CPUs (ex. UltraSPARC II).
- And the backup server has got a quite fast CPUs (ex. Dual P4
- Xeons) and quite a low load. When you have 20, 50 or 100 GB
- of raw data - running a job 4 to 5 times faster - that
- really matters. On the other hand, the data can be
- compressed 50% or better - so losing twice more space for
- disk backup is not good at all. And the network is all mine
- (I have a dedicated management/provisioning network) and I
- can get as high bandwidth as I need - 100Mbps, 1000Mbps...
- That's why the server-side compression feature is needed!
- Notes:
-
-Item 10: Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management.
- Date: 8 November 2005, November 11, 2005
- Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton at sinenomine dot net>,
- Arno Lehmann <al at its-lehmann dot de>
- Status:
-
- What: Make Bacula manage tape life cycle information, tape reuse
- times and drive cleaning cycles.
-
- Why: All three parts of this project are important when operating
- backups.
- We need to know which tapes need replacement, and we need to
- make sure the drives are cleaned when necessary. While many
- tape libraries and even autoloaders can handle all this
- automatically, support by Bacula can be helpful for smaller
- (older) libraries and single drives. Limiting the number of
- times a tape is used might prevent tape errors when using
- tapes until the drives can't read it any more. Also, checking
- drive status during operation can prevent some failures (as I
- [Arno] had to learn the hard way...)
-
- Notes: First, Bacula could (and even does, to some limited extent)
- record tape and drive usage. For tapes, the number of mounts,
- the amount of data, and the time the tape has actually been
- running could be recorded. Data fields for Read and Write
- time and Number of mounts already exist in the catalog (I'm
- not sure if VolBytes is the sum of all bytes ever written to
- that volume by Bacula). This information can be important
- when determining which media to replace. The ability to mark
- Volumes as "used up" after a given number of write cycles
- should also be implemented so that a tape is never actually
- worn out. For the tape drives known to Bacula, similar
- information is interesting to determine the device status and
- expected life time: Time it's been Reading and Writing, number
- of tape Loads / Unloads / Errors. This information is not yet
- recorded as far as I [Arno] know. A new volume status would
- be necessary for the new state, like "Used up" or "Worn out".
- Volumes with this state could be used for restores, but not
- for writing. These volumes should be migrated first (assuming
- migration is implemented) and, once they are no longer needed,
- could be moved to a Trash pool.
-
- The next step would be to implement a drive cleaning setup.
- Bacula already has knowledge about cleaning tapes. Once it
- has some information about cleaning cycles (measured in drive
- run time, number of tapes used, or calender days, for example)
- it can automatically execute tape cleaning (with an
- autochanger, obviously) or ask for operator assistance loading
- a cleaning tape.
-
- The final step would be to implement TAPEALERT checks not only
- when changing tapes and only sending the information to the
- administrator, but rather checking after each tape error,
- checking on a regular basis (for example after each tape
- file), and also before unloading and after loading a new tape.
- Then, depending on the drives TAPEALERT state and the known
- drive cleaning state Bacula could automatically schedule later
- cleaning, clean immediately, or inform the operator.
-
- Implementing this would perhaps require another catalog change
- and perhaps major changes in SD code and the DIR-SD protocol,
- so I'd only consider this worth implementing if it would
- actually be used or even needed by many people.
-
- Implementation of these projects could happen in three distinct
- sub-projects: Measuring Tape and Drive usage, retiring
- volumes, and handling drive cleaning and TAPEALERTs.
-
-Item 11: Allow skipping execution of Jobs
- Date: 29 November 2005
- Origin: Florian Schnabel <florian.schnabel at docufy dot de>
- Status:
+ Notes: I get the idea, but would like more details on the precise
+ syntax of the necessary directives and what they would do.
- 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 12: Add a scheduling syntax that permits weekly rotations
+Item 9: Scheduling syntax that permits more flexibility and options
Date: 15 December 2006
- Origin: Gregory Brauer (greg at wildbrain dot com)
+ Origin: Gregory Brauer (greg at wildbrain dot com) and
+ Florian Schnabel <florian.schnabel at docufy dot de>
Status:
What: Currently, Bacula only understands how to deal with weeks of the
A solution would be to add a new syntax that defines (at least)
a start timestamp, and repetition period.
- Why: Rotated backups done at weekly intervals are useful, and Bacula
+ An easy option to skip a certain job on a certain date.
+
+
+ Why: Rotated backups done at weekly intervals are useful, and Bacula
cannot currently do them without extensive hacking.
+ 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.
+
+
Notes: Here is an example syntax showing a 3-week rotation where full
Backups would be performed every week on Saturday, and an
incremental would be performed every week on Tuesday. Each
}
}
-Item 13: Archival (removal) of User Files to Tape
- Date: Nov. 24/2005
- Origin: Ray Pengelly [ray at biomed dot queensu dot ca
- Status:
+ Notes: Kern: I have merged the previously separate project of skipping
+ jobs (via Schedule syntax) into this.
- 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.
+Item 10: Message mailing based on backup types
+ Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
+ Date: January 6, 2006
+ Status:
- 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.
+ 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).
- 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.
+ 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).
-Item 14: Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
+ 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 11: Cause daemons to use a specific IP address to source communications
Origin: Bill Moran <wmoran@collaborativefusion.com>
Date: 18 Dec 2006
Status:
10.0.0.1 and zone transfers will always originate from
10.0.0.2.
-Item 15: Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
- Date: 27 November 2005
- Origin: Ove Risberg (Ove.Risberg at octocode dot com)
- Status:
-
- What: I want the file daemon to start multiple threads for a backup
- job so the fastest possible backup can be made.
-
- The file daemon could parse the FileSet information and start
- one thread for each File entry located on a separate
- filesystem.
-
- A confiuration option in the job section should be used to
- enable or disable this feature. The confgutration option could
- specify the maximum number of threads in the file daemon.
-
- If the theads could spool the data to separate spool files
- the restore process will not be much slower.
-
- Why: Multiple concurrent backups of a large fileserver with many
- disks and controllers will be much faster.
-Item 16: Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
+Item 12: Add Plug-ins to the FileSet Include statements.
Date: 28 October 2005
- Origin:
+ Origin: Kern
Status: Partially coded in 1.37 -- much more to do.
What: Allow users to specify wild-card and/or regular
plug-in knows how to backup his Oracle database without
stopping/starting it, for example.
-Item 17: Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
+
+Item 13: Restore only file attributes (permissions, ACL, owner, group...)
Origin: Eric Bollengier
Date: 30/12/2006
Status:
If the file isn't here, we can create an empty one and apply
rights or do nothing.
-Item 18: Quick release of FD-SD connection after backup.
- Origin: Frank Volf (frank at deze dot org)
- Date: 17 November 2005
- Status: Done -- implemented by Kern -- in CVS 26Jan07
-
- 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 19: Implement a Python interface to the Bacula catalog.
+
+Item 14: 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 15: Implement more Python events and functions
Date: 28 October 2005
Origin: Kern
Status:
- What: Implement an interface for Python scripts to access
- the catalog through Bacula.
-
- Why: This will permit users to customize Bacula through
- Python scripts.
-
-Item 20: Archive data
- Date: 15/5/2006
- Origin: calvin streeting calvin at absentdream dot com
- Status:
-
- What: The abilty to archive to media (dvd/cd) in a uncompressed format
- for dead filing (archiving not backing up)
-
- Why: At my works when jobs are finished and moved off of the main file
- servers (raid based systems) onto a simple linux file server (ide based
- system) so users can find old information without contacting the IT
- dept.
-
- So this data dosn't realy change it only gets added to,
- But it also needs backing up. At the moment it takes
- about 8 hours to back up our servers (working data) so
- rather than add more time to existing backups i am trying
- to implement a system where we backup the acrhive data to
- cd/dvd these disks would only need to be appended to
- (burn only new/changed files to new disks for off site
- storage). basialy understand the differnce between
- achive data and live data.
-
- Notes: Scan the data and email me when it needs burning divide
- into predifind chunks keep a recored of what is on what
- disk make me a label (simple php->mysql=>pdf stuff) i
- could do this bit ability to save data uncompresed so
- it can be read in any other system (future proof data)
- save the catalog with the disk as some kind of menu
- system
-
-Item 21: 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 22: Implement support for stacking arbitrary stream filters, sinks.
-Date: 23 November 2006
-Origin: Landon Fuller <landonf@threerings.net>
-Status: Planning. Assigned to landonf.
-
- What: Implement support for the following:
- - Stacking arbitrary stream filters (eg, encryption, compression,
- sparse data handling))
- - Attaching file sinks to terminate stream filters (ie, write out
- the resultant data to a file)
- - Refactor the restoration state machine accordingly
-
- Why: The existing stream implementation suffers from the following:
- - All state (compression, encryption, stream restoration), is
- global across the entire restore process, for all streams. There are
- multiple entry and exit points in the restoration state machine, and
- thus multiple places where state must be allocated, deallocated,
- initialized, or reinitialized. This results in exceptional complexity
- for the author of a stream filter.
- - The developer must enumerate all possible combinations of filters
- and stream types (ie, win32 data with encryption, without encryption,
- with encryption AND compression, etc).
-
- Notes: This feature request only covers implementing the stream filters/
- sinks, and refactoring the file daemon's restoration implementation
- accordingly. If I have extra time, I will also rewrite the backup
- implementation. My intent in implementing the restoration first is to
- solve pressing bugs in the restoration handling, and to ensure that
- the new restore implementation handles existing backups correctly.
-
- I do not plan on changing the network or tape data structures to
- support defining arbitrary stream filters, but supporting that
- functionality is the ultimate goal.
-
- Assistance with either code or testing would be fantastic.
-
-Item 23: Implement from-client and to-client on restore command line.
- Date: 11 December 2006
- Origin: Discussion on Bacula-users entitled 'Scripted restores to
- different clients', December 2006
- Status: New feature request
-
- What: While using bconsole interactively, you can specify the client
- that a backup job is to be restored for, and then you can
- specify later a different client to send the restored files
- back to. However, using the 'restore' command with all options
- on the command line, this cannot be done, due to the ambiguous
- 'client' parameter. Additionally, this parameter means different
- things depending on if it's specified on the command line or
- afterwards, in the Modify Job screens.
-
- Why: This feature would enable restore jobs to be more completely
- automated, for example by a web or GUI front-end.
-
- Notes: client can also be implied by specifying the jobid on the command
- line
-
-Item 24: 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 device 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 25: Implement huge exclude list support using hashing (dlists).
- Date: 28 October 2005
- Origin: Kern
- Status: Done in 2.1.2 but was done with dlists (doubly linked lists
- since hashing will not help. The huge list also supports
- large include lists).
-
- 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 26: Implement more Python events in Bacula.
- Date: 28 October 2005
- Origin: Kern
- Status:
-
- What: Allow Python scripts to be called at more places
- within Bacula and provide additional access to Bacula
- internal variables.
+ What: Allow Python scripts to be called at more places
+ within Bacula and provide additional access to Bacula
+ internal variables.
+
+ Implement an interface for Python scripts to access the
+ catalog through Bacula.
Why: This will permit users to customize Bacula through
Python scripts.
jobs (possibly also scheduled jobs).
-Item 27: Incorporation of XACML2/SAML2 parsing
- Date: 19 January 2006
- Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
- Status: Blue sky
-
- What: XACML is "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language" and
- "SAML is the "Security Assertion Markup Language"--an XML standard
- for making statements about identity and authorization. Having these
- would give us a framework to approach ACLs in a generic manner, and
- in a way flexible enough to support the four major sorts of ACLs I
- see as a concern to Bacula at this point, as well as (probably) to
- deal with new sorts of ACLs that may appear in the future.
-
- Why: Bacula is beginning to need to back up systems with ACLs
- that do not map cleanly onto traditional Unix permissions. I see
- four sets of ACLs--in general, mutually incompatible with one
- another--that we're going to need to deal with. These are: NTFS
- ACLs, POSIX ACLs, NFSv4 ACLS, and AFS ACLS. (Some may question the
- relevance of AFS; AFS is one of Sine Nomine's core consulting
- businesses, and having a reputable file-level backup and restore
- technology for it (as Tivoli is probably going to drop AFS support
- soon since IBM no longer supports AFS) would be of huge benefit to
- our customers; we'd most likely create the AFS support at Sine Nomine
- for inclusion into the Bacula (and perhaps some changes to the
- OpenAFS volserver) core code.)
-
- Now, obviously, Bacula already handles NTFS just fine. However, I
- think there's a lot of value in implementing a generic ACL model, so
- that it's easy to support whatever particular instances of ACLs come
- down the pike: POSIX ACLS (think SELinux) and NFSv4 are the obvious
- things arriving in the Linux world in a big way in the near future.
- XACML, although overcomplicated for our needs, provides this
- framework, and we should be able to leverage other people's
- implementations to minimize the amount of work *we* have to do to get
- a generic ACL framework. Basically, the costs of implementation are
- high, but they're largely both external to Bacula and already sunk.
-
-Item 28: Filesystem watch triggered backup.
- Date: 31 August 2006
- Origin: Jesper Krogh <jesper@krogh.cc>
- Status: Unimplemented, depends probably on "client initiated backups"
-
- What: With inotify and similar filesystem triggeret notification
- systems is it possible to have the file-daemon to monitor
- filesystem changes and initiate backup.
-
- Why: There are 2 situations where this is nice to have.
- 1) It is possible to get a much finer-grained backup than
- the fixed schedules used now.. A file created and deleted
- a few hours later, can automatically be caught.
-
- 2) The introduced load on the system will probably be
- distributed more even on the system.
-
- Notes: This can be combined with configration that specifies
- something like: "at most every 15 minutes or when changes
- consumed XX MB".
-
-Kern Notes: I would rather see this implemented by an external program
- that monitors the Filesystem changes, then uses the console
to start the appropriate job.
-Item 29: Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
+
+Item 16: Allow inclusion/exclusion of files in a fileset by creation/mod times
Origin: Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman@gmail.com>
Date: January 11, 2006
Status:
So one could compare against 'ctime' and/or 'mtime', but ONLY 'before'
or 'since'.
-
-Item 30: 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 31: Implement multiple numeric backup levels as supported by dump
-Date: 3 April 2006
-Origin: Daniel Rich <drich@employees.org>
-Status:
-What: Dump allows specification of backup levels numerically instead of just
- "full", "incr", and "diff". In this system, at any given level, all
- files are backed up that were were modified since the last backup of a
- higher level (with 0 being the highest and 9 being the lowest). A
- level 0 is therefore equivalent to a full, level 9 an incremental, and
- the levels 1 through 8 are varying levels of differentials. For
- bacula's sake, these could be represented as "full", "incr", and
- "diff1", "diff2", etc.
-
-Why: Support of multiple backup levels would provide for more advanced backup
- rotation schemes such as "Towers of Hanoi". This would allow better
- flexibility in performing backups, and can lead to shorter recover
- times.
-
-Notes: Legato Networker supports a similar system with full, incr, and 1-9 as
- levels.
-Item 32: Automatic promotion of backup levels
+Item 17: Automatic promotion of backup levels based on backup size
Date: 19 January 2006
Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
Status:
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 33: Clustered file-daemons
- Origin: Alan Brown ajb2 at mssl dot ucl dot ac dot uk
- Date: 24 July 2006
- Status:
- What: A "virtual" filedaemon, which is actually a cluster of real ones.
-
- Why: In the case of clustered filesystems (SAN setups, GFS, or OCFS2, etc)
- multiple machines may have access to the same set of filesystems
-
- For performance reasons, one may wish to initate backups from
- several of these machines simultaneously, instead of just using
- one backup source for the common clustered filesystem.
-
- For obvious reasons, normally backups of $A-FD/$PATH and
- B-FD/$PATH are treated as different backup sets. In this case
- they are the same communal set.
-
- Likewise when restoring, it would be easier to just specify
- one of the cluster machines and let bacula decide which to use.
-
- This can be faked to some extent using DNS round robin entries
- and a virtual IP address, however it means "status client" will
- always give bogus answers. Additionally there is no way of
- spreading the load evenly among the servers.
-
- What is required is something similar to the storage daemon
- autochanger directives, so that Bacula can keep track of
- operating backups/restores and direct new jobs to a "free"
- client.
-
- Notes:
-
-Item 34: Commercial database support
- Origin: Russell Howe <russell_howe dot wreckage dot org>
- Date: 26 July 2006
- Status:
-
- What: It would be nice for the database backend to support more
- databases. I'm thinking of SQL Server at the moment, but I guess Oracle,
- DB2, MaxDB, etc are all candidates. SQL Server would presumably be
- implemented using FreeTDS or maybe an ODBC library?
- Why: We only really have one database server, which is MS SQL Server
- 2000. Maintaining a second one for the backup software (we grew out of
- SQLite, which I liked, but which didn't work so well with our database
- size). We don't really have a machine with the resources to run
- postgres, and would rather only maintain a single DBMS. We're stuck with
- SQL Server because pretty much all the company's custom applications
- (written by consultants) are locked into SQL Server 2000. I can imagine
- this scenario is fairly common, and it would be nice to use the existing
- properly specced database server for storing Bacula's catalog, rather
- than having to run a second DBMS.
+Item 18: Better control over Job execution
+ Date: 18 August 2007
+ Origin: Kern
+ Status:
-Item 35: Automatic disabling of devices
+ What: Bacula needs a few extra features for better Job execution:
+ 1. A way to prevent multiple Jobs of the same name from
+ being scheduled at the same time (ususally happens when
+ a job is missed because a client is down).
+ 2. Directives that permit easier upgrading of Job types
+ based on a period of time. I.e. "do a Full at least
+ once every 2 weeks", or "do a differential at least
+ once a week". If a lower level job is scheduled when
+ it begins to run it will be upgraded depending on
+ the specified criteria.
+
+ Why: Obvious.
+
+
+Item 19: Automatic disabling of devices
Date: 2005-11-11
Origin: Peter Eriksson <peter at ifm.liu dot se>
Status:
further use of that drive and used one of the other ones
instead.
-Item 36: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
+Item 20: An option to operate on all pools with update vol parameters
Origin: Dmitriy Pinchukov <absh@bossdev.kiev.ua>
Date: 16 August 2006
Status:
updating each of them using update -> Volume parameters -> All
Volumes from Pool -> pool #.
-Item 37: Add an item to the restore option where you can select a pool
- Origin: kshatriyak at gmail dot com
- Date: 1/1/2006
- Status:
- What: In the restore option (Select the most recent backup for a
- client) it would be useful to add an option where you can limit
- the selection to a certain pool.
-
- Why: When using cloned jobs, most of the time you have 2 pools - a
- disk pool and a tape pool. People who have 2 pools would like to
- select the most recent backup from disk, not from tape (tape
- would be only needed in emergency). However, the most recent
- backup (which may just differ a second from the disk backup) may
- be on tape and would be selected. The problem becomes bigger if
- you have a full and differential - the most "recent" full backup
- may be on disk, while the most recent differential may be on tape
- (though the differential on disk may differ even only a second or
- so). Bacula will complain that the backups reside on different
- media then. For now the only solution now when restoring things
- when you have 2 pools is to manually search for the right
- job-id's and enter them by hand, which is a bit fault tolerant.
-
-Item 38: 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:
+Item 21: 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.
particularly when there are many active clients.
-Item 39: 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).
+Item 22: Implement Storage daemon compression
+ Date: 18 December 2006
+ Origin: Vadim A. Umanski , e-mail umanski@ext.ru
+ Status:
+ What: The ability to compress backup data on the SD receiving data
+ instead of doing that on client sending data.
+ Why: The need is practical. I've got some machines that can send
+ data to the network 4 or 5 times faster than compressing
+ them (I've measured that). They're using fast enough SCSI/FC
+ disk subsystems but rather slow CPUs (ex. UltraSPARC II).
+ And the backup server has got a quite fast CPUs (ex. Dual P4
+ Xeons) and quite a low load. When you have 20, 50 or 100 GB
+ of raw data - running a job 4 to 5 times faster - that
+ really matters. On the other hand, the data can be
+ compressed 50% or better - so losing twice more space for
+ disk backup is not good at all. And the network is all mine
+ (I have a dedicated management/provisioning network) and I
+ can get as high bandwidth as I need - 100Mbps, 1000Mbps...
+ That's why the server-side compression feature is needed!
+ Notes:
- 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).
+Item 23: Improve Bacula's tape and drive usage and cleaning management
+ Date: 8 November 2005, November 11, 2005
+ Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton at sinenomine dot net>,
+ Arno Lehmann <al at its-lehmann dot de>
+ Status:
- Notes: One way this could be done is through additional message types, for example:
+ What: Make Bacula manage tape life cycle information, tape reuse
+ times and drive cleaning cycles.
- 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
- }
+ Why: All three parts of this project are important when operating
+ backups.
+ We need to know which tapes need replacement, and we need to
+ make sure the drives are cleaned when necessary. While many
+ tape libraries and even autoloaders can handle all this
+ automatically, support by Bacula can be helpful for smaller
+ (older) libraries and single drives. Limiting the number of
+ times a tape is used might prevent tape errors when using
+ tapes until the drives can't read it any more. Also, checking
+ drive status during operation can prevent some failures (as I
+ [Arno] had to learn the hard way...)
+ Notes: First, Bacula could (and even does, to some limited extent)
+ record tape and drive usage. For tapes, the number of mounts,
+ the amount of data, and the time the tape has actually been
+ running could be recorded. Data fields for Read and Write
+ time and Number of mounts already exist in the catalog (I'm
+ not sure if VolBytes is the sum of all bytes ever written to
+ that volume by Bacula). This information can be important
+ when determining which media to replace. The ability to mark
+ Volumes as "used up" after a given number of write cycles
+ should also be implemented so that a tape is never actually
+ worn out. For the tape drives known to Bacula, similar
+ information is interesting to determine the device status and
+ expected life time: Time it's been Reading and Writing, number
+ of tape Loads / Unloads / Errors. This information is not yet
+ recorded as far as I [Arno] know. A new volume status would
+ be necessary for the new state, like "Used up" or "Worn out".
+ Volumes with this state could be used for restores, but not
+ for writing. These volumes should be migrated first (assuming
+ migration is implemented) and, once they are no longer needed,
+ could be moved to a Trash pool.
-Item 40: Include JobID in spool file name ****DONE****
- Origin: Mark Bergman <mark.bergman@uphs.upenn.edu>
- Date: Tue Aug 22 17:13:39 EDT 2006
- Status: Done. (patches/testing/project-include-jobid-in-spool-name.patch)
- No need to vote for this item.
+ The next step would be to implement a drive cleaning setup.
+ Bacula already has knowledge about cleaning tapes. Once it
+ has some information about cleaning cycles (measured in drive
+ run time, number of tapes used, or calender days, for example)
+ it can automatically execute tape cleaning (with an
+ autochanger, obviously) or ask for operator assistance loading
+ a cleaning tape.
+
+ The final step would be to implement TAPEALERT checks not only
+ when changing tapes and only sending the information to the
+ administrator, but rather checking after each tape error,
+ checking on a regular basis (for example after each tape
+ file), and also before unloading and after loading a new tape.
+ Then, depending on the drives TAPEALERT state and the known
+ drive cleaning state Bacula could automatically schedule later
+ cleaning, clean immediately, or inform the operator.
+
+ Implementing this would perhaps require another catalog change
+ and perhaps major changes in SD code and the DIR-SD protocol,
+ so I'd only consider this worth implementing if it would
+ actually be used or even needed by many people.
+
+ Implementation of these projects could happen in three distinct
+ sub-projects: Measuring Tape and Drive usage, retiring
+ volumes, and handling drive cleaning and TAPEALERTs.
+
+Item 24: Multiple threads in file daemon for the same job
+ Date: 27 November 2005
+ Origin: Ove Risberg (Ove.Risberg at octocode dot com)
+ Status:
+
+ What: I want the file daemon to start multiple threads for a backup
+ job so the fastest possible backup can be made.
+
+ The file daemon could parse the FileSet information and start
+ one thread for each File entry located on a separate
+ filesystem.
+
+ A confiuration option in the job section should be used to
+ enable or disable this feature. The confgutration option could
+ specify the maximum number of threads in the file daemon.
+
+ If the theads could spool the data to separate spool files
+ the restore process will not be much slower.
+
+ Why: Multiple concurrent backups of a large fileserver with many
+ disks and controllers will be much faster.
+
+Item 25: 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.
- What: Change the name of the spool file to include the JobID
+ 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.
- Why: JobIDs are the common key used to refer to jobs, yet the
- spoolfile name doesn't include that information. The date/time
- stamp is useful (and should be retained).
+ 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.
-============= New Freature Requests after vote of 26 Jan 2007 ========
-Item 41: Enable to relocate files and directories when restoring
- Date: 2007-03-01
- Origin: Eric Bollengier <eric@eb.homelinux.org>
- Status: Done.
+ 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.
- What: The where= option is not powerful enough. It will be
- a great feature if bacula can restore a file in the
- same directory, but with a different name, or in
- an other directory without recreating the full path.
- Why: When i want to restore a production environment to a
- development environment, i just want change the first
- directory. ie restore /prod/data/file.dat to /rect/data/file.dat.
- At this time, i have to move by hand files. You must have a big
- dump space to restore and move data after.
- When i use Linux or SAN snapshot, i mount them to /mnt/snap_xxx
- so, when a restore a file, i have to move by hand
- from /mnt/snap_xxx/file to /xxx/file. I can't replace a file
- easily.
- When a user ask me to restore a file in its personal folder,
- (without replace the existing one), i can't restore from
- my_file.txt to my_file.txt.old witch is very practical.
+========== Items on put hold by Kern ============================
-
- Notes: I think we can enhance the where= option very easily by
- allowing regexp expression.
+Item h1: Split documentation
+ Origin: Maxx <maxxatworkat gmail dot com>
+ Date: 27th July 2006
+ Status: Approved, awaiting implementation
- Since, many users think that regexp are not user friendly, i think
- that bat, bconsole or brestore must provide a simple way to
- configure where= option (i think to something like in
- openoffice "search and replace").
+ What: Split documentation in several books
- Ie, if user uses where=/tmp/bacula-restore, we keep the old
- fashion.
+ 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:
- If user uses something like where=s!/prod!/test!, files will
- be restored from /prod/xxx to /test/xxx.
+ 1) Introduction, requirements and tutorial, typically
+ are useful only until first installation time
- If user uses something like where=s/$/.old/, files will
- be restored from /prod/xxx.txt to /prod/xxx.txt.old.
+ 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.
- If user uses something like where=s/txt$/old.txt/, files will
- be restored from /prod/xxx.txt to /prod/xxx.old.txt
+ Notes: This is a project that needs to be done, and will be implemented,
+ but it is really a developer issue of timing, and does not
+ needed to be included in the voting.
- if user uses something like where=s/([a-z]+)$/old.$1/, files will
- be restored from /prod/xxx.ext to /prod/xxx.old.ext
-Item n: Implement Catalog directive for Pool resource in Director
-configuration
- Origin: Alan Davis adavis@ruckus.com
- Date: 6 March 2007
- Status: Submitted
-
- What: The current behavior is for the director to create all pools
- found in the configuration file in all catalogs. Add a
- Catalog directive to the Pool resource to specify which
- catalog to use for each pool definition.
-
- Why: This allows different catalogs to have different pool
- attributes and eliminates the side-effect of adding
- pools to catalogs that don't need/use them.
-
- Notes:
+Item h2: Implement support for stacking arbitrary stream filters, sinks.
+Date: 23 November 2006
+Origin: Landon Fuller <landonf@threerings.net>
+Status: Planning. Assigned to landonf.
+
+ What: Implement support for the following:
+ - Stacking arbitrary stream filters (eg, encryption, compression,
+ sparse data handling))
+ - Attaching file sinks to terminate stream filters (ie, write out
+ the resultant data to a file)
+ - Refactor the restoration state machine accordingly
+
+ Why: The existing stream implementation suffers from the following:
+ - All state (compression, encryption, stream restoration), is
+ global across the entire restore process, for all streams. There are
+ multiple entry and exit points in the restoration state machine, and
+ thus multiple places where state must be allocated, deallocated,
+ initialized, or reinitialized. This results in exceptional complexity
+ for the author of a stream filter.
+ - The developer must enumerate all possible combinations of filters
+ and stream types (ie, win32 data with encryption, without encryption,
+ with encryption AND compression, etc).
+
+ Notes: This feature request only covers implementing the stream filters/
+ sinks, and refactoring the file daemon's restoration implementation
+ accordingly. If I have extra time, I will also rewrite the backup
+ implementation. My intent in implementing the restoration first is to
+ solve pressing bugs in the restoration handling, and to ensure that
+ the new restore implementation handles existing backups correctly.
+
+ I do not plan on changing the network or tape data structures to
+ support defining arbitrary stream filters, but supporting that
+ functionality is the ultimate goal.
+
+ Assistance with either code or testing would be fantastic.
+
+ Notes: Kern: this project has a lot of merit, and we need to do it, but
+ it is really an issue for developers rather than a new feature
+ for users, so I have removed it from the voting list, but kept it
+ here, but at some point, it will be implemented.
+
+Item h3: Filesystem watch triggered backup.
+ Date: 31 August 2006
+ Origin: Jesper Krogh <jesper@krogh.cc>
+ Status:
+
+ What: With inotify and similar filesystem triggeret notification
+ systems is it possible to have the file-daemon to monitor
+ filesystem changes and initiate backup.
+
+ Why: There are 2 situations where this is nice to have.
+ 1) It is possible to get a much finer-grained backup than
+ the fixed schedules used now.. A file created and deleted
+ a few hours later, can automatically be caught.
+
+ 2) The introduced load on the system will probably be
+ distributed more even on the system.
+
+ Notes: This can be combined with configration that specifies
+ something like: "at most every 15 minutes or when changes
+ consumed XX MB".
+
+Kern Notes: I would rather see this implemented by an external program
+ that monitors the Filesystem changes, then uses the console
+
+
+Item h4: Directive/mode to backup only file changes, not entire file
+ Date: 11 November 2005
+ Origin: Joshua Kugler <joshua dot kugler at uaf dot edu>
+ Marek Bajon <mbajon at bimsplus dot com dot pl>
+ Status:
+
+ What: Currently when a file changes, the entire file will be backed up in
+ the next incremental or full backup. To save space on the tapes
+ it would be nice to have a mode whereby only the changes to the
+ file would be backed up when it is changed.
+
+ Why: This would save lots of space when backing up large files such as
+ logs, mbox files, Outlook PST files and the like.
+
+ Notes: This would require the usage of disk-based volumes as comparing
+ files would not be feasible using a tape drive.
+ Notes: Kern: I don't know how to implement this. Put on hold until someone
+ provides a detailed implementation plan.
+
+
+Item h5: Implement multiple numeric backup levels as supported by dump
+Date: 3 April 2006
+Origin: Daniel Rich <drich@employees.org>
+Status:
+What: Dump allows specification of backup levels numerically instead of just
+ "full", "incr", and "diff". In this system, at any given level, all
+ files are backed up that were were modified since the last backup of a
+ higher level (with 0 being the highest and 9 being the lowest). A
+ level 0 is therefore equivalent to a full, level 9 an incremental, and
+ the levels 1 through 8 are varying levels of differentials. For
+ bacula's sake, these could be represented as "full", "incr", and
+ "diff1", "diff2", etc.
-Item n: Implement NDMP protocol support
+Why: Support of multiple backup levels would provide for more advanced backup
+ rotation schemes such as "Towers of Hanoi". This would allow better
+ flexibility in performing backups, and can lead to shorter recover
+ times.
+
+Notes: Legato Networker supports a similar system with full, incr, and 1-9 as
+ levels.
+
+Notes: Kern: I don't see the utility of this, and it would be a *huge*
+ modification to existing code.
+
+Item h6: Implement NDMP protocol support
Origin: Alan Davis
Date: 06 March 2007
- Status: Submitted
+ Status:
What: Network Data Management Protocol is implemented by a number of
NAS filer vendors to enable backups using third-party
reference implementation from Traakan is known to
compile on Solaris 10.
- Notes (Kern): I am not at all in favor of this until NDMP becomes
+ Notes: Kern: I am not at all in favor of this until NDMP becomes
an Open Standard or until there are Open Source libraries
that interface to it.
-Item n: make changing "spooldata=yes|no" possible for
- manual/interactive jobs
+Item h7: Commercial database support
+ Origin: Russell Howe <russell_howe dot wreckage dot org>
+ Date: 26 July 2006
+ Status:
+
+ What: It would be nice for the database backend to support more
+ databases. I'm thinking of SQL Server at the moment, but I guess Oracle,
+ DB2, MaxDB, etc are all candidates. SQL Server would presumably be
+ implemented using FreeTDS or maybe an ODBC library?
+
+ Why: We only really have one database server, which is MS SQL Server
+ 2000. Maintaining a second one for the backup software (we grew out of
+ SQLite, which I liked, but which didn't work so well with our database
+ size). We don't really have a machine with the resources to run
+ postgres, and would rather only maintain a single DBMS. We're stuck with
+ SQL Server because pretty much all the company's custom applications
+ (written by consultants) are locked into SQL Server 2000. I can imagine
+ this scenario is fairly common, and it would be nice to use the existing
+ properly specced database server for storing Bacula's catalog, rather
+ than having to run a second DBMS.
+
+ Notes: This might be nice, but someone other than me will probably need to
+ implement it, and at the moment, proprietary code cannot legally be
+ mixed with Bacula GPLed code. This would be possible only providing
+ the vendors provide GPLed (or OpenSource) interface code.
+
+Item h8: Incorporation of XACML2/SAML2 parsing
+ Date: 19 January 2006
+ Origin: Adam Thornton <athornton@sinenomine.net>
+ Status: Blue sky
+
+ What: XACML is "eXtensible Access Control Markup Language" and
+ "SAML is the "Security Assertion Markup Language"--an XML standard
+ for making statements about identity and authorization. Having these
+ would give us a framework to approach ACLs in a generic manner, and
+ in a way flexible enough to support the four major sorts of ACLs I
+ see as a concern to Bacula at this point, as well as (probably) to
+ deal with new sorts of ACLs that may appear in the future.
+
+ Why: Bacula is beginning to need to back up systems with ACLs
+ that do not map cleanly onto traditional Unix permissions. I see
+ four sets of ACLs--in general, mutually incompatible with one
+ another--that we're going to need to deal with. These are: NTFS
+ ACLs, POSIX ACLs, NFSv4 ACLS, and AFS ACLS. (Some may question the
+ relevance of AFS; AFS is one of Sine Nomine's core consulting
+ businesses, and having a reputable file-level backup and restore
+ technology for it (as Tivoli is probably going to drop AFS support
+ soon since IBM no longer supports AFS) would be of huge benefit to
+ our customers; we'd most likely create the AFS support at Sine Nomine
+ for inclusion into the Bacula (and perhaps some changes to the
+ OpenAFS volserver) core code.)
+
+ Now, obviously, Bacula already handles NTFS just fine. However, I
+ think there's a lot of value in implementing a generic ACL model, so
+ that it's easy to support whatever particular instances of ACLs come
+ down the pike: POSIX ACLS (think SELinux) and NFSv4 are the obvious
+ things arriving in the Linux world in a big way in the near future.
+ XACML, although overcomplicated for our needs, provides this
+ framework, and we should be able to leverage other people's
+ implementations to minimize the amount of work *we* have to do to get
+ a generic ACL framework. Basically, the costs of implementation are
+ high, but they're largely both external to Bacula and already sunk.
+
+ Notes: As you indicate this is a bit of "blue sky" or in other words,
+ at the moment, it is a bit esoteric to consider for Bacula.
+
+Item h9: Archive data
+ Date: 15/5/2006
+ Origin: calvin streeting calvin at absentdream dot com
+ Status:
+
+ What: The abilty to archive to media (dvd/cd) in a uncompressed format
+ for dead filing (archiving not backing up)
+
+ Why: At work when jobs are finished and moved off of the main file
+ servers (raid based systems) onto a simple Linux file server (ide based
+ system) so users can find old information without contacting the IT
+ dept.
+
+ So this data dosn't realy change it only gets added to,
+ But it also needs backing up. At the moment it takes
+ about 8 hours to back up our servers (working data) so
+ rather than add more time to existing backups i am trying
+ to implement a system where we backup the acrhive data to
+ cd/dvd these disks would only need to be appended to
+ (burn only new/changed files to new disks for off site
+ storage). basialy understand the differnce between
+ achive data and live data.
+
+ Notes: Scan the data and email me when it needs burning divide
+ into predefined chunks keep a recored of what is on what
+ disk make me a label (simple php->mysql=>pdf stuff) i
+ could do this bit ability to save data uncompresed so
+ it can be read in any other system (future proof data)
+ save the catalog with the disk as some kind of menu
+ system
+
+ Notes: Kern: I don't understand this item, and in any case, if it
+ is specific to DVD/CDs, which we do not recommend using,
+ it is unlikely to be implemented except as a user
+ submitted patch.
+
+
+Item h10: Clustered file-daemons
+ Origin: Alan Brown ajb2 at mssl dot ucl dot ac dot uk
+ Date: 24 July 2006
+ Status:
+ What: A "virtual" filedaemon, which is actually a cluster of real ones.
+
+ Why: In the case of clustered filesystems (SAN setups, GFS, or OCFS2, etc)
+ multiple machines may have access to the same set of filesystems
+
+ For performance reasons, one may wish to initate backups from
+ several of these machines simultaneously, instead of just using
+ one backup source for the common clustered filesystem.
+
+ For obvious reasons, normally backups of $A-FD/$PATH and
+ B-FD/$PATH are treated as different backup sets. In this case
+ they are the same communal set.
+
+ Likewise when restoring, it would be easier to just specify
+ one of the cluster machines and let bacula decide which to use.
+
+ This can be faked to some extent using DNS round robin entries
+ and a virtual IP address, however it means "status client" will
+ always give bogus answers. Additionally there is no way of
+ spreading the load evenly among the servers.
+
+ What is required is something similar to the storage daemon
+ autochanger directives, so that Bacula can keep track of
+ operating backups/restores and direct new jobs to a "free"
+ client.
+
+ Notes: Kern: I don't understand the request enough to be able to
+ implement it. A lot more design detail should be presented
+ before voting on this project.
-Origin: Marc Schiffbauer <marc@schiffbauer.net>
-Date: 12 April 2007)
+========== Already implemented ================================
-Status: NEW
+Item n: make changing "spooldata=yes|no" possible for
+ manual/interactive jobs
+ Origin: Marc Schiffbauer <marc@schiffbauer.net>
+ Date: 12 April 2007)
+ Status: Already implemented by Eric
-What: Make it possible to modify the spooldata option
- for a job when being run from within the console.
- Currently it is possible to modify the backup level
- and the spooldata setting in a Schedule resource.
- It is also possible to modify the backup level when using
- the "run" command in the console.
- But it is currently not possible to to the same
- with "spooldata=yes|no" like:
+ What: Make it possible to modify the spooldata option
+ for a job when being run from within the console.
+ Currently it is possible to modify the backup level
+ and the spooldata setting in a Schedule resource.
+ It is also possible to modify the backup level when using
+ the "run" command in the console.
+ But it is currently not possible to to the same
+ with "spooldata=yes|no" like:
- run job=MyJob level=incremental spooldata=yes
+ run job=MyJob level=incremental spooldata=yes
-Why: In some situations it would be handy to be able to switch
- spooldata on or off for interactive/manual jobs based on
- which data the admin expects or how fast the LAN/WAN
- connection currently is.
+ Why: In some situations it would be handy to be able to switch
+ spooldata on or off for interactive/manual jobs based on
+ which data the admin expects or how fast the LAN/WAN
+ connection currently is.
-Notes: ./.
+ Notes: ./.
============= Empty Feature Request form ===========
Item n: One line summary ...
projects / bacula / bacula / commitdiff