Bacula(8)Bacula(8)NAME
Bacula - The Network Backup Solution
SYNOPSIS
bacula-dir - Director
bacula-fd - File daemon or Client
bacula-sd - Storage daemon
bconsole - Console to control Bacula
wx-console - GUI Console
DESCRIPTION
Bacula is a set of computer programs that permits you (or the system
administrator) to manage backup, recovery, and verification of computer
data across a network of computers of different kinds. In technical
terms, it is a network Client/Server based backup program. Bacula is
relatively easy to use and efficient, while offering many advanced
storage management features that make it easy to find and recover lost
or damaged files. Due to its modular design, Bacula is scalable from
small single computer systems to systems consisting of hundreds of com‐
puters located over a large network.
Bacula Director service consists of the program that supervises all the
backup, restore, verify and archive operations. The system administra‐
tor uses the Bacula Director to schedule backups and to recover files.
For more details see the Director Services Daemon Design Document in
the Bacula Developer's Guild. The Director runs as a daemon or a ser‐
vice (i.e. in the background).
Bacula Console services is the program that allows the administrator or
user to communicate with the Bacula Director (see above). Currently,
the Bacula Console is available in two versions. The first and sim‐
plest is to run the Console program in a shell window (i.e. TTY inter‐
face). Most system administrators will find this completely adequate.
The second version is a Qt 4.2 GUI interface named bat that has more
features than the bconsole program.
Bacula File services (or Client program) is the software program that
is installed on the machine to be backed up. It is specific to the
operating system on which it runs and is responsible for providing the
file attributes and data when requested by the Director. The File ser‐
vices are also responsible for the file system dependent part of
restoring the file attributes and data during a recovery operation.
For more details see the File Services Daemon Design Document in the
Bacula Developer's Guide. This program runs as a daemon on the machine
to be backed up, and in some of the documentation, the File daemon is
referred to as the Client (for example in Bacula's configuration file).
In addition to Unix/Linux File daemons, there is a Windows File daemon
(normally distributed in binary format). The Windows File daemon runs
on all currently known Windows versions (2K, 2003, XP, and Vista).
Bacula Storage services consist of the software programs that perform
the storage and recovery of the file attributes and data to the physi‐
cal backup media or volumes. In other words, the Storage daemon is
responsible for reading and writing your tapes (or other storage media,
e.g. files). For more details see the Storage Services Daemon Design
Document in the Bacula Developer's Guide. The Storage services runs as
a daemon on the machine that has the backup device (usually a tape
drive).
Catalog services are comprised of the software programs responsible for
maintaining the file indexes and volume databases for all files backed
up. The Catalog services permit the System Administrator or user to
quickly locate and restore any desired file. The Catalog services sets
Bacula apart from simple backup programs like tar and bru, because the
catalog maintains a record of all Volumes used, all Jobs run, and all
Files saved, permitting efficient restoration and Volume management.
Bacula currently supports three different databases, MySQL, PostgreSQL,
and SQLite3, one of which must be chosen when building Bacula.
OPTIONS
See the HTML/PDF documentation at:
<http://www.bacula.org>
for details of the command line options.
CONFIGURATION
Each daemon has its own configuration file which must be tailored for
each particular installation. Please see the HTML/PDF documentation
for the details.
SEE ALSO
The HTML manual installed on your system (typically found in
/usr/share/doc/bacula-<version>) or the online manual at:
<http://www.bacula.org>
BUGS
See <http://bugs.bacula.org>
AUTHOR
Kern Sibbald
Current maintainer
Kern Sibbald
Contributors
An enormous list of past and former persons who have devoted their time
and energy to this project -- thanks. See the AUTHORS file in the main
Bacula source directory.
COPYRIGHT
Bacula is distributed under a modified AGPL version 3.0, as described
in the file LICENSE included with the source distribution.
The Network Backup Solution Bacula(8)
