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4 <td class="contentTopic"> Support for Bacula </td>
9 Please keep in mind that we are not getting paid for this.
10 Nevertheless, our desire is to see as many people using
11 <b>Bacula</b> as possible. So we are very willing to
12 provide a reasonable level of email support.
14 <p>Before asking for help, it could be useful to check against the
15 email archive as often solution to your problem has been discussed
16 or a patch has been released. Please see:
17 <a href="http://news.gmane.org/search.php?match=bacula">
18 http://news.gmane.org/search.php?match=bacula</a>.
20 <p>For support, send an email to
21 <b>bacula-users at lists.sourceforge.net</b>, and if you are
22 specific enough, some kind Bacula user will help you. Please
23 note that if you don't at least specify what version of Bacula
24 and what platform you are using, it will not be easy to get a
25 valid answer. The email address noted above
26 was modified to prevent easy use by spammers.
27 To use it, you must replace the <b>at</b> with an @ symbol. Due
28 to the increasing volumes of spam on the list, you must
29 be subscribed to it to be able to send and email to it. The
30 link to your left entitled <b>Email Lists</b> provides links
31 to where you can subscribe to each of the Bacula email lists.
33 The users constantly monitor this list and will generally provide
34 support. Please see <b>Information Needed</b> below for what to
35 include in your support request. If you don't supply the necessary
36 information, it will take longer to respond to your request, and
37 users may be afraid to try to respond,
38 if your request is too complicated or not well formulated.
41 <p>I (Kern) get a number of "off-list" emails sent
42 directly to me. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to provide
43 direct user support. However, I do read all the email sent and
44 occasionally provide a tip or two. If you do send email to me,
45 please always copy the appropriate list, if you
46 do not copy the list, I may not answer you, or I will answer by copying
47 the list. If you <em>really</em> have something confidential,
48 please clearly indicate it.</p>
50 <p>If you send a bug report or minor enhancement request because of a
51 problem to the bacula-devel list, and you do not provide the information
52 requested below, particularly the Bacula version, it is <b>very</b>
53 frustrating for us, because it is quite often the case that your problem is
54 version dependent, and likely already fixed. In such case, we will note
55 the problem, but you will be unlikely to get a response, especially if we
56 are busy, because it forces us to first ask you what version you are using
57 (or other information), then deal with your response, thus doubling the
58 time for us. If we do ask you for information, please include <b>all</b>
59 the previous correspondence in each email, otherwise you force us to search
60 the archives to find what you previously wrote. In short, if you want a
61 response, please see "Information Needed" below.
63 <p>If you are looking for live-support you might check out our irc-channel
64 in the <a href="http://www.freenode.net">Freenode</a> net, called #bacula.
66 <h3>Information Needed</h3>
67 For us to respond to a bug report, we normally need the following
68 as the minimum information, which you can enter into the appropriate
69 fields of the bug reporting system:
71 <li>Your operating system</li>
72 <li>The version of Bacula you are using</li>
73 <li>A <a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html">clear and concise</a> description of the problem</li>
74 <li>If you say "it crashes", "it doesn't work" or something
75 similar, you should include some output from Bacula that shows this.</li>
76 <li>If we respond to your email, and you answer, possibly supplying more
77 information, please be sure to include the <b>full</b> text of previous
78 emails so that we have all the information in one place.</li>
80 If you are having tape problems, please include:
82 <li>The kind of tape drive you have </li>
83 <li>Have you run the <b>btape</b> "test" command?</li>
86 If you are having database problems, please include:
88 <li>The database you are using: MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQLite3 </li>
89 <li>The version of the database you are using</li>
92 The first two of these items can be fulfilled by sending
93 us a copy of your <b>config.out</b> file, which is in the
94 main <b>Bacula</b> source directory after you have done
95 your <b>./configure</b>.
96 <p>In addition, we will sometimes need a copy of your Bacula
97 configuration files (especially bacula-dir.conf). If you
98 think it is a configuration problem, please don't hesitate
99 to send them if necessary.</td>
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103 Please read that little Bug-Report-<a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html">HowTo</a> as well.
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