Bacula Open Source

Administrator

• The person or persons responsible for administrating the Bacula system.

Backup

• The term Backup refers to a Bacula Job that saves files.

Bootstrap File

• The bootstrap file is an ASCII file containing a compact form of commands that allow Bacula or the stand-alone file extraction utility (bextract) to restore the contents of one or more Volumes, for example, the current state of a system just backed up. With a bootstrap file, Bacula can restore your system without a Catalog. You can create a bootstrap file from a Catalog to extract any file or files you wish.

Catalog

• The Catalog is used to store summary information about the Jobs, Clients, and Files that were backed up and on what Volume or Volumes. The information saved in the Catalog permits the administrator or user to determine what jobs were run, their status as well as the important characteristics of each file that was backed up, and most importantly, it permits you to choose what files to restore. The Catalog is an online resource, but does not contain the data for the files backed up. Most of the information stored in the catalog is also stored on the backup volumes (i.e. tapes). Of course, the tapes will also have a copy of the file data in addition to the File Attributes (see below).
• The catalog feature is one part of Bacula that distinguishes it from simple backup and archive programs such as dump and tar.

Client

• In Bacula's terminology, the word Client refers to the machine being backed up, and it is synonymous with the File services or File daemon, and quite often, it is referred to it as the FD. A Client is defined in a configuration file resource.

Console

• The program that interfaces to the Director allowing the user or system administrator to control Bacula.

Daemon

• Unix terminology for a program that is always present in the background to carry out a designated task. On Windows systems, as well as some Unix systems, daemons are called Services.

Directive

• The term directive is used to refer to a statement or a record within a Resource in a configuration file that defines one specific setting. For example, the Name directive defines the name of the Resource.

Director

• The main Bacula server daemon that schedules and directs all Bacula operations. Occasionally, the project refers to the Director as DIR.

Differential

• A backup that includes all files changed since the last Full save started. Note, other backup programs may define this differently.

File Attributes

• The File Attributes are all the information necessary about a file to identify it and all its properties such as size, creation date, modification date, permissions, etc. Normally, the attributes are handled entirely by Bacula so that the user never needs to be concerned about them. The attributes do not include the file's data.

File Daemon

• The daemon running on the client computer to be backed up. This is also referred to as the File services, and sometimes as the Client services or the FD.

FileSet

• A FileSet is a Resource contained in a configuration file that defines the files to be backed up. It consists of a list of included files or directories, a list of excluded files, and how the file is to be stored (compression, encryption, signatures). For more details, see the FileSet Resource definitionFileSetResource in the Director chapter of this document.

Incremental

• A backup that includes all files changed since the last Full, Differential, or Incremental backup started. It is normally specified on the Level directive within the Job resource definition, or in a Schedule resource.

Job

• A Bacula Job is a configuration resource that defines the work that Bacula must perform to backup or restore a particular Client. It consists of the Type (backup, restore, verify, etc), the Level (full, incremental,...), the FileSet, and Storage the files are to be backed up (Storage device, Media Pool). For more details, see the Job Resource definitionJobResource in the Director chapter of this document.

Monitor

• The program that interfaces to all the daemons allowing the user or system administrator to monitor Bacula status.

Resource

• A resource is a part of a configuration file that defines a specific unit of information that is available to Bacula. It consists of several directives (individual configuration statements). For example, the Job resource defines all the properties of a specific Job: name, schedule, Volume pool, backup type, backup level,…

Restore

• A restore is a configuration resource that describes the operation of recovering a file from backup media. It is the inverse of a save, except that in most cases, a restore will normally have a small set of files to restore, while normally a Save backs up all the files on the system. Of course, after a disk crash, Bacula can be called upon to do a full Restore of all files that were on the system.

Schedule

• A Schedule is a configuration resource that defines when the Bacula Job will be scheduled for execution. To use the Schedule, the Job resource will refer to the name of the Schedule. For more details, see the Schedule Resource definitionScheduleResource in the Director chapter of this document.

Service

• This is a program that remains permanently in memory awaiting instructions. In Unix environments, services are also known as daemons.

Storage Coordinates

• The information returned from the Storage Services that uniquely locates a file on a backup medium. It consists of two parts: one part pertains to each file saved, and the other part pertains to the whole Job. Normally, this information is saved in the Catalog so that the user doesn't need specific knowledge of the Storage Coordinates. The Storage Coordinates include the File Attributes (see above) plus the unique location of the information on the backup Volume.

Storage Daemon

• The Storage daemon, sometimes referred to as the SD, is the code that writes the attributes and data to a storage Volume (usually a tape or disk).

Session

• Normally refers to the internal conversation between the File daemon and the Storage daemon. The File daemon opens a session with the Storage daemon to save a FileSet or to restore it. A session has a one-to-one correspondence to a Bacula Job (see above).

Verify

• A verify is a job that compares the current file attributes to the attributes that have previously been stored in the Bacula Catalog. This feature can be used for detecting changes to critical system files similar to what a file integrity checker like Tripwire does. One of the major advantages of using Bacula to do this is that on the machine you want protected such as a server, you can run just the File daemon, and the Director, Storage daemon, and Catalog reside on a different machine. As a consequence, if your server is ever compromised, it is unlikely that your verification database will be tampered with.
• Verify can also be used to check that the most recent Job data written to a Volume agrees with what is stored in the Catalog (i.e. it compares the file attributes), *or it can check the Volume contents against the original files on disk.

*Archive

• An Archive operation is done after a Save, and it consists of removing the Volumes on which data is saved from active use. These Volumes are marked as Archived, and may no longer be used to save files. All the files contained on an Archived Volume are removed from the Catalog. NOT YET IMPLEMENTED.

Retention Period

• There are various kinds of retention periods that Bacula recognizes. The most important are the File Retention Period, Job Retention Period, and the Volume Retention Period. Each of these retention periods applies to the time that specific records will be kept in the Catalog database. This should not be confused with the time that the data saved to a Volume is valid.
• The File Retention Period determines the time that File records are kept in the catalog database. This period is important for two reasons: the first is that as long as File records remain in the database, you can "browse" the database with a console program and restore any individual file. Once the File records are removed or pruned from the database, the individual files of a backup job can no longer be "browsed". The second reason for carefully choosing the File Retention Period is because the volume of the database File records use the most storage space in the database. As a consequence, you must ensure that regular "pruning" of the database file records is done to keep your database from growing too large. (See the Console prune command for more details on this subject).
• The Job Retention Period is the length of time that Job records will be kept in the database. Note, all the File records are tied to the Job that saved those files. The File records can be purged leaving the Job records. In this case, information will be available about the jobs that ran, but not the details of the files that were backed up. Normally, when a Job record is purged, all its File records will also be purged.
• The Volume Retention Period is the minimum of time that a Volume will be kept before it is reused. Bacula will normally never overwrite a Volume that contains the only backup copy of a file. Under ideal conditions, the Catalog would retain entries for all files backed up for all current Volumes. Once a Volume is overwritten, the files that were backed up on that Volume are automatically removed from the Catalog. However, if there is a very large pool of Volumes or a Volume is never overwritten, the Catalog database may become enormous. To keep the Catalog to a manageable size, the backup information should be removed from the Catalog after the defined File Retention Period. Bacula provides the mechanisms for the catalog to be automatically pruned according to the retention periods defined.

Scan

• A Scan operation causes the contents of a Volume or a series of Volumes to be scanned. These Volumes with the information on which files they contain are restored to the Bacula Catalog. Once the information is restored to the Catalog, the files contained on those Volumes may be easily restored. This function is particularly useful if certain Volumes or Jobs have exceeded their retention period and have been pruned or purged from the Catalog. Scanning data from Volumes into the Catalog is done by using the bscan program. See the bscan sectionbscan of the Bacula Utilities Chapter of this manual for more details.

Volume

• A Volume is an archive unit, normally a tape or a named disk file where Bacula stores the data from one or more backup jobs. All Bacula Volumes have a software label written to the Volume by Bacula so that it identifies what Volume it is really reading. (Normally there should be no confusion with disk files, but with tapes, it is easy to mount the wrong one.)