Bvfs API

To help developers of restore GUI interfaces, we have added new dot commands that permit browsing the catalog in a very simple way.

Bat has now a bRestore panel that uses Bvfs to display files and directories.

Figure 11.1: Bat Brestore Panel

The Bvfs module works correctly with BaseJobs, Copy and Migration jobs.

This project was funded by Bacula Systems.

General notes

• All fields are separated by a tab
• You can specify limit= and offset= to list smoothly records in very big directories
• All operations (except cache creation) are designed to run instantly
• At this time, Bvfs works faster on PostgreSQL than MySQL catalog. If you can contribute new faster SQL queries we will be happy, else don't complain about speed.
• The cache creation is dependent of the number of directories. As Bvfs shares information accross jobs, the first creation can be slow
• All fields are separated by a tab
• Due to potential encoding problem, it's advised to allways use pathid in queries.

Get dependent jobs from a given JobId

Bvfs allows you to query the catalog against any combination of jobs. You can combine all Jobs and all FileSet for a Client in a single session.

To get all JobId needed to restore a particular job, you can use the .bvfs_get_jobids command.

.bvfs_get_jobids jobid=num [all]

.bvfs_get_jobids jobid=10
1,2,5,10
.bvfs_get_jobids jobid=10 all
1,2,3,5,10

In this example, a normal restore will need to use JobIds 1,2,5,10 to compute a complete restore of the system.

With the all option, the Director will use all defined FileSet for this client.

Generating Bvfs cache

The .bvfs_update command computes the directory cache for jobs specified in argument, or for all jobs if unspecified.

.bvfs_update [jobid=numlist]

Example:

.bvfs_update jobid=1,2,3

You can run the cache update process in a RunScript after the catalog backup.

Get all versions of a specific file

Bvfs allows you to find all versions of a specific file for a given Client with the .bvfs_version command. To avoid problems with encoding, this function uses only PathId and FilenameId. The jobid argument is mandatory but unused.

.bvfs_versions client=filedaemon pathid=num filenameid=num jobid=1
PathId FilenameId FileId JobId LStat Md5 VolName Inchanger
PathId FilenameId FileId JobId LStat Md5 VolName Inchanger
...

Example:

.bvfs_versions client=localhost-fd pathid=1 fnid=47 jobid=1
1  47  52  12  gD HRid IGk D Po Po A P BAA I A   /uPgWaxMgKZlnMti7LChyA  Vol1  1

List directories

Bvfs allows you to list directories in a specific path.

.bvfs_lsdirs pathid=num path=/apath jobid=numlist limit=num offset=num
PathId  FilenameId  FileId  JobId  LStat  Path
PathId  FilenameId  FileId  JobId  LStat  Path
PathId  FilenameId  FileId  JobId  LStat  Path
...

You need to pathid or path. Using path="" will list ``/'' on Unix and all drives on Windows. If FilenameId is 0, the record listed is a directory.

.bvfs_lsdirs pathid=4 jobid=1,11,12
4       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     .
5       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     ..
3       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     regress/

In this example, to list directories present in regress/, you can use

.bvfs_lsdirs pathid=3 jobid=1,11,12
3       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     .
4       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     ..
2       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     tmp/

List files

Bvfs allows you to list files in a specific path.

.bvfs_lsfiles pathid=num path=/apath jobid=numlist limit=num offset=num
PathId  FilenameId  FileId  JobId  LStat  Path
PathId  FilenameId  FileId  JobId  LStat  Path
PathId  FilenameId  FileId  JobId  LStat  Path
...

You need to pathid or path. Using path="" will list ``/'' on Unix and all drives on Windows. If FilenameId is 0, the record listed is a directory.

.bvfs_lsfiles pathid=4 jobid=1,11,12
4       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     .
5       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     ..
1       0       0       0       A A A A A A A A A A A A A A     regress/

In this example, to list files present in regress/, you can use

.bvfs_lsfiles pathid=1 jobid=1,11,12
1   47   52   12    gD HRid IGk BAA I BMqcPH BMqcPE BMqe+t A     titi
1   49   53   12    gD HRid IGk BAA I BMqe/K BMqcPE BMqe+t B     toto
1   48   54   12    gD HRie IGk BAA I BMqcPH BMqcPE BMqe+3 A     tutu
1   45   55   12    gD HRid IGk BAA I BMqe/K BMqcPE BMqe+t B     ficheriro1.txt
1   46   56   12    gD HRie IGk BAA I BMqe/K BMqcPE BMqe+3 D     ficheriro2.txt

Restore set of files

Bvfs allows you to create a SQL table that contains files that you want to restore. This table can be provided to a restore command with the file option.

.bvfs_restore fileid=numlist dirid=numlist hardlink=numlist path=b2num
OK
restore file=?b2num ...

To include a directory (with dirid), Bvfs needs to run a query to select all files. This query could be time consuming.

hardlink list is always composed of a serie of two numbers (jobid, fileindex). This information can be found in the LinkFI field of the LStat packet.

The path argument represents the name of the table that Bvfs will store results. The format of this table is b2[0-9]+. (Should start by b2 and followed by digits).

Example:

.bvfs_restore fileid=1,2,3,4 hardlink=10,15,10,20 jobid=10 path=b20001
OK

Cleanup after Restore

To drop the table used by the restore command, you can use the .bvfs_cleanup command.

.bvfs_cleanup path=b20001

Clearing the BVFS Cache

To clear the BVFS cache, you can use the .bvfs_clear_cache command.

.bvfs_clear_cache yes
OK