Anyone using bareos for disk backups

[John Maag]

What is the configuration necessary to get bareos to create a single file for a single backup? I want a backup regardless of full, incremental to go to its own file

It is clear that bacula/bareos wants a tape changer because as of now it adds on to the end of a file even though the backup is from a completely different client

[Douglas K. Rand]

On 09/11/17 09:45, John Maag wrote:
> What is the configuration necessary to get bareos to create a single file
> for a single backup? I want a backup regardless of full, incremental to go
> to its own file

Somehow I can't help myself: Why do you care if Bareos stores each backup in a
single file?

But the docs clearly have a configuration knob for this: Maximum Volume Files.
Also see the deprecated Use Volume Once knob, which says to set Maximum Volume
Files to 1.

> It is clear that bacula/bareos wants a tape changer because as of now it
> adds on to the end of a file even though the backup is from a completely
> different client

I don't think this is clear at all. I do both on-disk backups and to tape
backups with Bareos easily.

[John Maag]

>
> Somehow I can't help myself: Why do you care if Bareos stores each backup in a single file?

Because I want to be able role these files to tertiary cloud storage

> I don't think this is clear at all. I do both on-disk backups and to tape
> backups with Bareos easily.

Really, you have to change settings to get it to behave like it is using disk even though you give it a specification of using a mount point instead of tape. No software writing disk backups would append to a backup file except one that wants to write to a tape and has to be told via settings to behave differently.

[Bruno Friedmann]

I will try to believe that you just didn't know how it works, and your
assumption is done because you're still too new to know correctly the
software.

Bareos, as Bacula, can be setup the way you want, (sometimes you will have to
think differently), but it can do almost everything.

Yes as any complex and highly configurable software, it take time to get it.
There's partner, and consultants (Bareos GmbH being one) around that can offer
you support, help for setup and configuration, and/or trainings.

The manual is almost one thousand page (A4) long.

And by default the configuration proposed (on community, or subscription
binary) contain all needed to make file disk backup, with GFS rotation.
Which can be a good start to learn how it works.
Every line in the conf file is also commented, with back reference to the
manual.

Have a nice day.

--

Bruno Friedmann
Ioda-Net Sàrl www.ioda-net.ch
Bareos Partner, openSUSE Member, fsfe fellowship
GPG KEY : D5C9B751C4653227
irc: tigerfoot

openSUSE Tumbleweed
Linux 4.12.9-1-default x86_64 GNU/Linux, nvidia: 384.69
Qt: 5.9.1, KDE Frameworks: 5.37.0, Plasma: 5.10.5, kmail2 5.6.0

[John Maag]

> Bareos, as Bacula, can be setup the way you want, (sometimes you will have to think differently), but it can do almost everything.

This may be true but why does it have to be such a fight? Bacula was designed to write to a tape changer because years ago that is the way to did backup but as all things technology moves on. Right now the direction of backup and in general the direction of all IT is to move to cloud. Fo rme personally, if I can afford the storage I am also interested in cloud because it gives me instant off site storage.

> Yes as any complex and highly configurable software, it take time to get it.

Here is where I think we part some I think. I have read that Bacula/Bareos is difficult to configure for people with a lack of experience or background and therefore the "blame" is placed on the person. If software is hard to configure ti is because of a software problem.

Look at it this way. Should I have to configure each and every part on my car to get them to work in unison to get me to and fro? No, of course not. The same with Bareos. I believe the storage daemon should be configure to work optimally for disk storage since the default is to store files in /var/lib/bareos/storage. If the default were /dev/nst0 then I would hold a different opinion

> There's partner, and consultants (Bareos GmbH being one) around that can offer you support, help for setup and configuration, and/or trainings. The manual is almost one thousand page (A4) long.

This might be a direction I want to go. I am still weighing if I want to go forward with Bareos.

> And by default the configuration proposed (on community, or subscription
> binary) contain all needed to make file disk backup, with GFS rotation.
> Which can be a good start to learn how it works.
> Every line in the conf file is also commented, with back reference to the
> manual.

I am not sure I am tracking here. Are you speaking of the suggestions made in this group or are you speaking of what paid support can do?

[Bruno Friedmann]

On mercredi, 13 septembre 2017 15.34:32 h CEST John Maag wrote:
> > Bareos, as Bacula, can be setup the way you want, (sometimes you will have
> > to think differently), but it can do almost everything.
> This may be true but why does it have to be such a fight? Bacula was
> designed to write to a tape changer because years ago that is the way to
> did backup but as all things technology moves on. Right now the direction
> of backup and in general the direction of all IT is to move to cloud. Fo
> rme personally, if I can afford the storage I am also interested in cloud
> because it gives me instant off site storage.
> > Yes as any complex and highly configurable software, it take time to get
> > it.
> Here is where I think we part some I think. I have read that Bacula/Bareos
> is difficult to configure for people with a lack of experience or
> background and therefore the "blame" is placed on the person. If software
> is hard to configure ti is because of a software problem.

Come on, that's not a yet another notes taking apps for smartphone ;-)

> Look at it this way. Should I have to configure each and every part on my
> car to get them to work in unison to get me to and fro? No, of course not.
> The same with Bareos. I believe the storage daemon should be configure to
> work optimally for disk storage since the default is to store files in
> /var/lib/bareos/storage. If the default were /dev/nst0 then I would hold a
> different opinion
> > There's partner, and consultants (Bareos GmbH being one) around that can
> > offer you support, help for setup and configuration, and/or trainings.
> > The manual is almost one thousand page (A4) long.
> This might be a direction I want to go. I am still weighing if I want to go
> forward with Bareos.
> > And by default the configuration proposed (on community, or subscription
> > binary) contain all needed to make file disk backup, with GFS rotation.
> > Which can be a good start to learn how it works.
> > Every line in the conf file is also commented, with back reference to the
> > manual.
>
> I am not sure I am tracking here. Are you speaking of the suggestions made
> in this group or are you speaking of what paid support can do?

Where did you grab your bareos binaries. The one offered on bareos.org are
good starting point to experiment with, and (I know well rpm based one)
they are setup to automagically offer you a way to backup to disk just after
the install.

That's why I quite surprized about you have to do all the work from scratch ?
Bareos try to make a lot of effort to lower the barrier of configuration.

So I'm interested by the fact you can't find those information on your
installation and thus asking myself about from where did you get it?

--

Bruno Friedmann
Ioda-Net Sàrl www.ioda-net.ch
Bareos Partner, openSUSE Member, fsfe fellowship
GPG KEY : D5C9B751C4653227
irc: tigerfoot

openSUSE Tumbleweed

Linux 4.12.11-1-default x86_64 GNU/Linux, nvidia: 384.69

[Damiano Verzulli]

2017-09-13 15:34 GMT+02:00 John Maag <maag...@gmail.com>:

> [...]

> Yes as any complex and highly configurable software, it take time to get it.

[...]

If software is hard to configure ti is because of a software problem.

Look at it this way. Should I have to configure each and every part on my car to get them to work in unison to get me to and fro? No, of course not.

Every single day, I drive my Citroen C5.

I turn it on by slightly moving the key with a circular movement, than simply move (a single move) the "gear" (automatic, BTW) and then.... gas (and brakes). Nothing else.

Am I satisfied? Yes. Am I happy whis this? Yes.

A couple of years ago I got _REALLY_LUCKY_, when I was invited to Imola racing circuit, to drive a Ferrari 458.

Still a car. That's for sure.

But it was not much similar to my C5. I needed _ONE_ whole preliminary lap, the very first one, sitting aside the "professional driver", to let him explain me several things, including "how to turn the engine on/off", "how to properly scale gears upword/downword", "how to handle brakes and accelerator", "how to properly handle the steer", etc. etc.

I was REALLY IMPRESSED by details that you need to take care, when driving a racing car. Still a "car". Only a "racing" one :-)

Ok. You got the idea.

BareOS is a "racing Ferrari". Is not simply a "car".

Back to your comment, I suggest you viewing it from a different angle. You say:

I have read that Bacula/Bareos is difficult to configure for people with a lack of experience or background

IMHO, you should focus on "people with a lack of experience of background", and not on the "difficult to configure".

Should you have asked me 15 years ago something like: "I need a backup infrastructure! Can you help me?" I would have replyed promptly with a (working) solution. Thinking to such a solution nowaday, let me laugh due to the missing details that I would "push" to my proposed solution.

Backup infrastructure (expecially the enterprise-ones) are really complex and IMHO people, expecially technical people, tend to oversimplify or even miss LOTS of details.

 

 

[...]

> And by default the configuration proposed (on community, or subscription
> binary) contain all needed to make file disk backup, with GFS rotation.
> Which can be a good start to learn how it works.
> Every line in the conf file is also commented, with back reference to the
> manual.

I am not sure I am tracking here. Are you speaking of the suggestions made in this group or are you speaking of what paid support can do?

You have been already answered on this from Bruno.

I only add that BareOS documention is really detailed and "impressive" as of general quality, with respect to other F/OSS products.
Nevertheless... reading the documention requires LOTS of time. And even I.... have still to spend time... reading it.

IMHO there are NO mid-way: you work _HARD_ in understanding the whole figure (that is really complex) or... simply pay for someone else (swapping your money with your time).

And don't forget: BareOS is a "racing Ferrari". Is not a "car".

HTH.

Bye,

DV