I agree with Phil that if you look at the manual carefully, and know
where to look, it's clear. However, as a newbie the bacula
documentation can be a bit overwhelming and occasionally confusing. I
think part of this is because the basic idea of having jobs and
schedules and their interaction is not very clear to someone starting
out. I'm wondering if adding something like this paragraph under the
Understanding Pools, Volumes and Labels (maybe call it Understanding
Jobs and Schedules) would help?
In order to make bacula as flexible as possible, the "directions" given
to bacula are broken into several pieces. The main instruction is the
job resourse, which defines a job. A backup job generally consists of a
fileset, a client, a schedule for one or several types/times of backups,
a pool, as well as additional instructions. The thing that usually
defines a job is what is being backed up, so typically each
fileset/client combination will have one corresponding job. Most of the
directives, such as pools and schedules, can be mixed and matched among
the jobs. So you might have two jobs backing up different servers using
the same schedule, the same fileset (backing up the same directories on
2 machines) and maybe even the same pools. The schedule will define
what type of backup will run when (full on monday, incremental the rest
of the week), and when more than one job uses the same schedule, job
priority determines which actually runs first. If you have a lot of
jobs, you might want to use JobDefs, where you can set defaults for the
jobs, which can then be changed by the job itself, but saves rewriting
the identical parameters for each job. In addition to the file sets you
want to back up, you should also have a job that backs up your catalog.
Finally, be aware that in addition to the backup jobs there are
restore, verify, and admin jobs, which have different requirements.
I think this would have helped me catch on to bacula faster, anyway.
So, there is one data point. :-) Assuming, of course, that I have
caught on. Please let me know if I got any of this wrong. Not sure how
you guys go about adding to documentation, so also please let me know if
I am going about this the wrong way.
Btw, thanks for a great backup program!
cheers,
maria
Bennett, Silas (GE Infrastructure) wrote:
Speaking as a bacula newbie who read the documentation, It did not
seem obvious to me. Having been unfamiliar with bacula I was thinking
of running Full backup jobs and Incremental/Differential backup jobs,
not running a single job that was Full/Differential/Incremental based
upon some other requirements. Something a bit more clear was needed
for me to get it.
I really don't care whether you apply the patch or not. I just wanted
to be helpful, and offer my newbie perspective while I still have it. >
;0)
-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Stracchino [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 1:02 PM
To: Bennett, Silas (GE Infrastructure)
Cc: Kern Sibbald; bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net; Arno Lehmann
Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] Differentials Jobs referencing obsolete Full
Job
Bennett, Silas (GE Infrastructure) wrote:
Here is a diff against
http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/Configuring_Director.html
565c565,569
< performed as requested.
---
performed as requested.
<STRONG>Note: Since the director looks for a previous
full backup with the same job name of your incrimental, you cannot do
incrementals against full backups with a different job name. Even if the
Client and Filesets are the same for both jobs.</STRONG>
626c630,634
< performed as requested.
---
performed as requested.
<STRONG>Note: Since the director looks for a previous
full backup with the same job name of your differential, you cannot do
differentials against full backups with a different job name. Even if the
Client and Filesets are the same for both jobs.</STRONG>
You know, when I look at this, since the *very first* requirement
specified in the existing manual is that the reference job must have the
same job name, it seems perfectly clear to me. I really don't see how
it can be misunderstood.
--
Phil Stracchino [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker
Mobile: 603-216-7037 Landline: 603-886-3518
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