Hi, 23.09.2007 02:05,, Wolfgang Denk wrote:: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: >> This raised a question for me: how many catalog backups should I keep? > > Enough to cover all the history you need to keep.
Weeeelll... I disagree a bit here. > The question is, how long you want to be able to go backward in time. > Remeber that backups are not only to keep you from osing files due to > disk crashes etc., but also due to user errors like deleting vitally > important files every now and then. I would recommend to rely on the actual catalog for that purpose. For three reasons: 1. It's simpler to use. You just select the files you need to restore, and start the job. 2. Using a catalog not in sync with your actual volumes can be really dangerous. 3. It's quicker to use, because you don't have to restore and load an old catalog dump before doing the thing you really want. The downside is that a catalog going further back in time needs more disk space. Less than a catalog dump, though. >> My guess is that we don't really need to keep a large number of >> catalog backups, since frankly they'd be obsolete once the next >> catalog backup is written. At the current moment I have my catalog > > This is only true if you don't want to be able to locate older files > that may have disappeared in the meantime for one reason or another. In such a case I would recommend to modify the retention times according to your needs. >> I'm curious as to what the general consensus among the Bacula user >> community is, regarding this subject. I saw a post from Arno from last > > I frequently find myself in the position that I need to restore some > file which is not listed any more in the catalog. I am usually pretty > happy then to be able to restore a N months old copy so I need only > two steps. Which two steps would that be? I'd have thought there were more involved: Restore the old catalog dump. Load the old dump into a new database. Run Bacula with the old catalog, ensuring no backups or prunes or actually anything except your restore will happen. Run your restore job. Start Bacula with the current catalog, again. How do you run restores with an old catalog? Arno > Best regards, > > Wolfgang Denk > -- Arno Lehmann IT-Service Lehmann www.its-lehmann.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
