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I'm currently starting with bacula for backup and have a few questions for best practices.

Current situation:

  • I want to back up a slow changing max. 12TB (currently 8TB) dataset to a external LTO4 drive. Due to the small incremental changes I prefer the strategy to do a full backup every half a year and monthly incremental.
  • The full backups should be done alternating to 2 pools so that one can be kept offsite
  • I managed the config (see the bottom for relevant parts) and my testcases on disk base are looking good

So here are the questions:

  • How can I tell bacula how many numeral digits should be used for autolabeling (default is 4)? As my prefix is 4 digits long and tapelabels (even if I currently don't need them) only support 6 digits, I want to force bacula to autolabel with 2 numerical digits (e.g. FS1T01 - 99) to keep consistency.
  • Is it better practise to feed bacula the tapes on first backup run and let em do the labeling or to add them to the pool before running the job?

relevant config extracts:

Director:

Pool{
  Name = FullSet2
  Use Volume Once = yes
  Pool Type = Backup  
  LabelFormat = "FS2T"
  AutoPrune = yes
  VolumeRetention = 350 days
  Maximum Volumes = 15
  Recycle = yes
}

Pool{
  Name = FullSet1
  Use Volume Once = yes
  Pool Type = Backup  
  LabelFormat = "FS1T"
  AutoPrune = yes
  VolumeRetention = 350 days
  Maximum Volumes = 15
  Recycle = yes
}

Pool {
  Name = DiffSet
  Use Volume Once = yes
  Pool Type = Backup
  LabelFormat = "DS1T"
  AutoPrune = yes
  VolumeRetention = 1 day
  Maximum Volumes = 10
  Recycle = yes
}
Henrik
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2 Answers2

2

as for 1)

Label Format = "FS1T${NumVols:p/2/0/r}" # Auto label

This command pads with zeroes to 2 digits and puts the variable ${NumVols} (Number of volumes) to the right (r) of the max 2 digits.

user993553
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  • Hello user993553, welcome on Serverfault. Please extend your answer and explain what this command does, what it is intended for, and why it is needed. – sebix May 26 '15 at 08:24
  • Thanks for your help! I would love to accept you both as correct answer, buts its impossible, so I decided to give it to Hontvari, as he currently has less reputation. Nevertheless your answer is exactly what I was looking for and you got my upvote! – Henrik May 26 '15 at 10:23
1

As for 2)

I label a new tape on demand, when Bacula asks me to label one. But if I would know in advance that I will need 10 new tapes on that day then I would label all of them at once. Labelling a new tape is quite a simple thing.

  1. You may want to get an overview about your tapes by first by issuing the list volumes command in Bacula console.
  2. Unmount the current tape in the drive using the umount command in Bacula console and physically eject the current tape by pressing the button on the tape drive.
  3. Put in the new, empty tape
  4. Issue the label command in bconsole, select the pool, and enter the label you want or accept the label which is recommended by Bacula.
  5. Issue umount and remove the tape
  6. Write and affix a physical label too.
  7. Go to 3 if you want to label another tape.
Hontvári Levente
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