On 16 Dec 2005 at 1:25, Arno Lehmann wrote:
> > ....so....how does one force it to do it?! > > Apart from the configuration directives like "prune oldest volume" (or > something) my advice is usually "you don't". Philisophical disagreement, If I as the admin decide that, that is an appropriate thing to do, I should be able to do it in some manner. Reminds me of the unix philosophy, build a bunch of single purpose tools that you can chain together to do anything you want ..... Anyhow, on the how to do it, here's what I got from an unrelated list where I was ranting about the same problem the OP has as I had it for months also. What you need is this Volume Use Duration = added to your pool definition where the duration is equal to or less than your Volume Retention setting, in my case the relevant lines are Volume Retention = 6d Volume Use Duration = 6d With this setup, Bacula FINALLY works like I expect and how pretty much any other backup software I've used on Windows or Unix works. It will overwrite the tape in the drive, assuming 6 days has passed, it marks the tape as used and then recycles it, however it only does that at the beginning of the next job, so the recycling happens at the start of the current job. Can someone please update the documentation here http://www.bacula.org/rel-manual/Automatic_Volume_Recycling.html with this information, that should hopefully forestall this question coming up so much. >From the messages on tonights job 16-Dec 21:30 fileserver-dir: Start Backup JobId 70, Job=Company-Fileserver_Full_Back 16-Dec 21:30 fileserver-dir: Recycled current volume "Friday3" 16-Dec 21:30 fileserver-sd: Recycled volume "Friday3" on device "DDS-4" (/dev/ns This is the first week since the beginning of the year where I've not had to manually purge the tapes each day. > > Think: if the tape goes full after 3 jobs, and I have 4 each night, my last > > job will not be done. > > Or, in other words, you need enough space available. Yes, that makes perfect sense. > No, this is,in my opinion, the best way to handle backups: Avoid > overwriting valid data whenever possible. If I setup a rotation, I should be able as the administrator to decide what is the appropriate retention time > Well, your assumption is not coherent with Bacula, then. Bacula treats a > retention like "keep the data for at least this time. Only after this time has > passed consider recycling that volume." Thus, you should assume that your data > will not be overwriten until 12 days have passed after the last job on a given > volume is finished. In my experience, it still doesn't work, even 5 weeks later when I have a 6 day retention period, I still have to manually purge the tape. > Hmm. Isn't that how Bacula works? If a volume is in the right pool, > and it is flagged as recyclable, and automatic pruning for the jobs > and volumes is on, AND the retention period has passed, the volume > will be considered when Bacula looks for a recyclable volume. The key thing for the OP to remember is that bacula will not recycle the current volume if any other appendable volumes exist, seems odd to me, but that is how it is. However, from a practical pov, using the volume use duration statement seems to get around that just fine. > If you want to limit the time Bacula uses a volume, you can do so by > setting the proper volume use time or number of jobs. Yes, that needs to be added to the docs. > If I set up a pool to have backups available for a certain time, and > I've not got enough volumes, Bacula tells me so. Either I re-think my > backup strategy and modify the setup, or I buy more tapes. Even with that setup, it still doesn't recycle properly. I've seen this in several instances where I've followed the chapter on automatic volume recycling in the manual, until I was shown the info at the beginning of this email, I was looking at dumping Bacula, which is a GREAT piece of software, but for this one problem. Considering the frequency that this problem is asked about, I'd say there is definately a conceptual issue at hand. -- Harondel J. Sibble Sibble Computer Consulting Creating solutions for the small business and home computer user. [EMAIL PROTECTED] (use pgp keyid 0x3AD5C11D) http://www.pdscc.com (604) 739-3709 (voice/fax) (604) 686-2253 (pager) ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
