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Critical Items to Implement Before Production
We recommend you take your time before implementing a production a Bacula
backup system since Bacula is a rather complex program, and if you make a
mistake, you may suddenly find that you cannot restore your files in case
of a disaster. This is especially true if you have not previously used a
major backup product.
If you follow the instructions in this chapter, you will have covered most of
the major problems that can occur. It goes without saying that if you ever
find that we have left out an important point, please inform us, so
that we can document it to the benefit of everyone.
The following assumes that you have installed Bacula, you more or less
understand it, you have at least worked through the tutorial or have
equivalent experience, and that you have set up a basic production
configuration. If you haven't done the above, please do so and then come back
here. The following is a sort of checklist that points with perhaps a brief
explanation of why you should do it. In most cases, you will find the
details elsewhere in the manual. The order is more or less the order you
would use in setting up a production system (if you already are in
production, use the checklist anyway).
Although these items may not be critical, they are recommended and will help
you avoid problems.
- Read the Quick Start Guide to BaculaQuickStartChapter
- After installing and experimenting with Bacula, read and work carefully
through the examples in the
TutorialTutorialChapter chapter of this manual.
- Learn what each of the Bacula Utility Programs_UtilityChapter
does.
- Set up reasonable retention periods so that your catalog does not grow
to be too big. See the following three chapters:
Recycling your VolumesRecyclingChapter,
Basic Volume ManagementDiskChapter,
Using Pools to Manage VolumesPoolsChapter.
- Perform a bare metal recovery using the Bacula Rescue CDROM. See the
Disaster Recovery Using a Bacula Rescue CDROMRescueChapter
chapter.
If you absolutely must implement a system where you write a different
tape each night and take it offsite in the morning. We recommend that you do
several things:
- Write a bootstrap file of your backed up data and a bootstrap file
of your catalog backup to a floppy disk or a CDROM, and take that with
the tape. If this is not possible, try to write those files to another
computer or offsite computer, or send them as email to a friend. If none
of that is possible, at least print the bootstrap files and take that
offsite with the tape. Having the bootstrap files will make recovery
much easier.
- It is better not to force Bacula to load a particular tape each day.
Instead, let Bacula choose the tape. If you need to know what tape to
mount, you can print a list of recycled and appendable tapes daily, and
select any tape from that list. Bacula may propose a particular tape
for use that it considers optimal, but it will accept any valid tape
from the correct pool.
Next: A Brief Tutorial
Up: Bacula Main Reference
Previous: Installing Bacula
Contents
Index
2010-05-05