Bacula
Overview
Bacula is a sophisticated open source backup management tool available for Linux and Windows.
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Terminology
The "director" is the thing which runs a backup; everything else (storage, files to backup, database) may be on the same machine or different machines.
Clients (aka "file daemons") need to add accounts for each director they authorize to contact them; this is referred to as "adding a director" on the client.
Setup
If you are happier with GUI-based configuration, you can use Webmin to set up Bacula. The following instructions assume you have Webmin installed on two machines:
- machine A is the machine "directing" the backup; it may or may not have its own storage, database, etc. (These can also be on other machines which it connects to.) The full "Bacula" package should be installed here.
- machine B has files you want to back up; it will need the "bacula-client" package installed.
Steps for connecting a client to the director:
- On B, under "File Daemon Configuration", get B's "File daemon name" (e.g. "B-fd")
- On A, under "Backup Clients", add a new client called "B-fd" (make up the password)
- On A, under "Director Configuration", get A's "Director name" (e.g. "A-dir")
- On B, under "File Daemon Directors", add a new director called "A-dir", using the same password from step 2
- You can verify that this worked from A by checking "Client Status" (under the "Backup and Restore Actions" section). The status should come back in less than a second. If it takes longer than that, it is probably having trouble connecting, and will show an error message in 10-20 seconds; just wait a bit to be sure.
Next: Need to figure out how to create a fileset on A when the files are on B; the fileset manager seems to only let you browse A's folder tree. --Woozle 21:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Catches
If you change a .conf file, the appropriate daemon needs to be restarted so it will load the modified file:
- bacula-director orchestrates the backup processes
- bacula-fd is the file daemon -- handles reading (for backup) and writing (for restore) of files in their normal format
- bacula-sd is the storage daemon -- handles reading/writing of files in their archived format
Any given system running or using bacula will have one or more of these, but not necessarily all of them.