1Bacula(8) System Manager's Manual Bacula(8)
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6 Bacula - The Network Backup Solution
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9 bacula-dir - Director
10 bacula-fd - File daemon or Client
11 bacula-sd - Storage daemon
12 bconsole - Console to control Bacula
13 wx-console - GUI Console
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16 Bacula is a set of computer programs that permits you (or the system
17 administrator) to manage backup, recovery, and verification of computer
18 data across a network of computers of different kinds. In technical
19 terms, it is a network Client/Server based backup program. Bacula is
20 relatively easy to use and efficient, while offering many advanced
21 storage management features that make it easy to find and recover lost
22 or damaged files. Due to its modular design, Bacula is scalable from
23 small single computer systems to systems consisting of hundreds of com‐
24 puters located over a large network.
25 Bacula Director service consists of the program that supervises all the
28 backup, restore, verify and archive operations. The system administra‐
29 tor uses the Bacula Director to schedule backups and to recover files.
30 For more details see the Director Services Daemon Design Document in
31 the Bacula Developer's Guild. The Director runs as a daemon or a ser‐
32 vice (i.e. in the background).
33 Bacula Console services is the program that allows the administrator or
36 user to communicate with the Bacula Director (see above). Currently,
37 the Bacula Console is available in three versions. The first and sim‐
38 plest is to run the Console program in a shell window (i.e. TTY inter‐
39 face). Most system administrators will find this completely adequate.
40 The second version is a GNOME GUI interface that for the moment (07
41 October 2005) is far from complete, but quite functional as it has most
42 the capabilities of the shell Console. The third version is a wxWid‐
43 gets GUI with an interactive file restore. It also has most of the
44 capabilities of the shell console, allows command completion with tabu‐
45 lation, and gives you instant help about the command you are typing.
46 Bacula File services (or Client program) is the software program that
49 is installed on the machine to be backed up. It is specific to the
50 operating system on which it runs and is responsible for providing the
51 file attributes and data when requested by the Director. The File ser‐
52 vices are also responsible for the file system dependent part of
53 restoring the file attributes and data during a recovery operation.
54 For more details see the File Services Daemon Design Document in the
55 Bacula Developer's Guide. This program runs as a daemon on the machine
56 to be backed up, and in some of the documentation, the File daemon is
57 referred to as the Client (for example in Bacula's configuration file).
58 In addition to Unix/Linux File daemons, there is a Windows File daemon
59 (normally distributed in binary format). The Windows File daemon runs
60 on all currently known Windows versions (98, Me, NT, 2K, 2003, XP).
61 Bacula Storage services consist of the software programs that perform
64 the storage and recovery of the file attributes and data to the physi‐
65 cal backup media or volumes. In other words, the Storage daemon is
66 responsible for reading and writing your tapes (or other storage media,
67 e.g. files). For more details see the Storage Services Daemon Design
68 Document in the Bacula Developer's Guild. The Storage services runs as
69 a daemon on the machine that has the backup device (usually a tape
70 drive).
71 Catalog services are comprised of the software programs responsible for
74 maintaining the file indexes and volume databases for all files backed
75 up. The Catalog services permit the System Administrator or user to
76 quickly locate and restore any desired file. The Catalog services sets
77 Bacula apart from simple backup programs like tar and bru, because the
78 catalog maintains a record of all Volumes used, all Jobs run, and all
79 Files saved, permitting efficicient restoration and Volume management.
80 Bacula currently supports three different databases, MySQL, PostgreSQL,
81 and SQLite, one of which must be chosen when building Bacula.
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85 See the HTML/PDF documentation at:
86 <http://www.bacula.org>
87 for details of the command line options.
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92 Each daemon has its own configuration file which must be tailored for
93 each particular installation. Please see the HTML/PDF documentation
94 for the details.
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98 The HTML manual installed on your system (typically found in
99 /usr/share/doc/bacula-<version>) or the online manual at:
100 <http://www.bacula.org>
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104 See <http://bugs.bacula.org>
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108 Kern Sibbald
109 Current maintainer
111 Kern Sibbald
112 Contributors
114 An enormous list of past and former persons who have devoted their time
115 and energy to this project -- thanks.
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119 Bacula is distributed under a modified GPL version 2.0, as described in
120 the file LICENSE included with the source distribution.
121 The Network Backup Solution Bacula(8)