On 2013-12-17 03:00 PM, Greg Woods wrote: > There is some stuff I still don't understand here, and I'd like to > avoid > learning the hard way. For instance, I never realized that "File > Retention" referred to the individual file records in the database, not > to the actual files on backup. So I ended up losing many of my File > records (learning the hard way), when what I really wanted was for the > volumes containing those files to be made available for re-use when > necessary. So now I *think* I have accomplished this by setting Job > Retention and File Retention to 365 days, and Volume Retention to 30 > days. I would assume that, after 30 days since the last time a Volume > was written, it will be available for recycling, but I won't lose the > database records when that happens. In my case, I'm only using Bacula > for a dozen or so systems and VMs at home as clients, so I'm not overly > concerned with the size of the database. > > What good does it do to have database records for files that are no > longer available, you may well ask? I use Copy jobs to copy my online > backup media to my archive backup media. The former is just one big > disk, the latter is a series of disks inserted in an external USB > caddy, > implemented with vchanger. I periodically run Copy jobs to copy backups > from the main disk to the vchanger, so that if the main disk volume > gets > recycled, the files still exist on the vchanger. Since these are > separate Pools, I can and do set the Volume Retention differently for > each. But my impression is that the Copy jobs don't really create > separate File records. File Retention seems to be set only on a per > client basis, so if I want to be able to do full-feature restores from > the vchanger, I need to keep the File records around even if the volume > in the main backup Pool has been recycled. > > Am I understanding how this works correctly?
I don't know. There was a lot in the above and I couldn't parse it all just now. Instead, I'll point you to something I wrote a few years ago. If you have questions after that, please ask again. http://dan.langille.org/2010/02/08/bacula-retention-periods/ Hmmm, now that I read that, it's pretty sparse. Perhaps the Recycling Algorithm will help: http://www.bacula.org/en/dev-manual/main/main/Automatic_Volume_Recycling.html > > Next question is about volume purging. How does Bacula determine when > it > is time to recycle a volume? Will it do this automatically after the > Volume Retention period has expired? How exactly is the Volume > Retention > period measured? (Meaning, if I set it to 30 days, it's 30 days from > when?) When a volume expires, does it immediately become unusable, or > only when space is needed? When space is needed, will Bacula > automatically use a volume that is past its retention period, or do I > have to do something manually to make the expired volumes available? Bacula purges a volume as a last resort. Just because a retention period has passed does not mean the data is automatically removed. Your reading on the Recycling Algorithm above should help there. > > Sorry to be so dense here. I have spent a lot of time reading the > online > docs, and I've been using Bacula since August, but some of this is > still > not clear to me. With any feature rich product, there is always more than one can learn. -- Dan Langille - http://langille.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
