Hi, 27.01.2008 16:49, Tilman Schmidt wrote: > We have recently replaced a Windows-based backup server by a > Linux-based one and chosen Bacula as the new backup software. > With the old system we had a policy of monthly full backups > to tapes labeled with the name of the month, which would be > stored off-site and recycled after a year. Once a month our > tape jockey would go to the bank vault, deposit the newly > written monthly tape, and bring back the tape for the next > month. > > Reading the Bacula documentation I come to the conclusion that > using Bacula that way is discouraged, and I should let Bacula > choose by itself which tape to use.
Well, that's what I prefer, and what Bacula does best IMO. > But then we do not know > which tape to place into the bank vault and when, in order to > have a backup with a defined maximum age in case of a disaster. This can be resolved rather easily... of course, there are many approches. I prefer to do it like this: - Define a pool for full backups (in your case, for the monthly fulls to go to the vault). - After the scheduled jobs run, make sure all the volumes just used are no longer appendable. This can be achieved by setting a limited volume use time and forcing Bacula to consider the pool in questio n when looking for usable volumes, by using the bconsole command 'update volume', or accessong the catalog database directly. Basically, what I'm usually doing is using a script that looks for volumes loaded in the autochanger, which were used recently, and are in status "Append" and set those to "Used". - Then, just unload all the volumes from that pool and store them safely. Loading the next usable volumes is rather straightforward done manually... Just select the next set uf tapes, and load them to the autochanger. If you've ensured the retention periods are set up correctly (i.e., less than a year - 11 months should be ok) the volumes usable will automatically be chosen when the next jobs are running. The most important thing, in my opinion, is not to rely on volume names but rather to use Baculas front-end to select which volumes to use. Choosing the volumes to load would then only require a catalog query which prints the volume names of the volumes from the relavnt pool which were written to 11 months or more ago, or, more useful, the ones that will be out of their retention time at the next backup runs. I hope this makes sense... > What is the recommended way of handling this? Finding the fitting setup of retention times and - if necessary - a small SQL query is what I do. Arno > TIA > T. > -- Arno Lehmann IT-Service Lehmann www.its-lehmann.de ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. 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
