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<A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></A>
<UL>
<LI><A NAME="tex2html1379"
HREF="Critical_Items_Implement_Be.html#SECTION001510000000000000000">Critical Items</A>
<LI><A NAME="tex2html1380"
HREF="Critical_Items_Implement_Be.html#SECTION001520000000000000000">Recommended Items</A>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION001500000000000000000"></A>
<A NAME="CriticalChapter"></A>
<BR>
Critical Items to Implement Before Production
</H1>
<A NAME="4795"></A>
<A NAME="4796"></A>
<P>
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.
<P>
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.
<P>
<A NAME="Critical"></A>
<H1><A NAME="SECTION001510000000000000000">
Critical Items</A>
</H1>
<A NAME="4799"></A>
<A NAME="4800"></A>
<P>
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).
<P>
<UL>
<LI>Test your tape drive for compatibility with Bacula by using the test
command in the btapebtape program.
</LI>
<LI>Better than doing the above is to walk through the nine steps in the
Tape TestingTapeTestingChapter chapter of the manual. It
may take you a bit of time, but it will eliminate surprises.
</LI>
<LI>Test the end of tape handling of your tape drive by using the
fill command in the btapebtape program.
</LI>
<LI>If you are using a Linux 2.4 kernel, make sure that /lib/tls is disabled. Bacula
does not work with this library. See the second point under
Supported Operating Systems.SupportedOSes
</LI>
<LI>Do at least one restore of files. If you backup multiple OS types
(Linux, Solaris, HP, MacOS, FreeBSD, Win32, ...),
restore files from each system type. The
Restoring FilesRestoreChapter chapter shows you how.
</LI>
<LI>Write a bootstrap file to a separate system for each backup job. The
Write Bootstrap directive is described in the
Director Configurationwritebootstrap chapter of the
manual, and more details are available in the
Bootstrap FileBootstrapChapter chapter. Also, the default
bacula-dir.conf comes with a Write Bootstrap directive defined. This allows
you to recover the state of your system as of the last backup.
</LI>
<LI>Backup your catalog. An example of this is found in the default
bacula-dir.conf file. The backup script is installed by default and
should handle any database, though you may want to make your own local
modifications. See also Backing Up Your Bacula Database -
Security Considerations BackingUpBaculaSecurityConsiderations for more
information.
</LI>
<LI>Write a bootstrap file for the catalog. An example of this is found in
the default bacula-dir.conf file. This will allow you to quickly restore your
catalog in the event it is wiped out - otherwise it is many excruciating
hours of work.
</LI>
<LI>Make a copy of the bacula-dir.conf, bacula-sd.conf, and
bacula-fd.conf files that you are using on your server. Put it in a safe
place (on another machine) as these files can be difficult to
reconstruct if your server dies.
</LI>
<LI>Make a Bacula Rescue CDROM! See the
Disaster Recovery Using a Bacula Rescue
CDROMRescueChapter chapter. It is trivial to make such a CDROM,
and it can make system recovery in the event of a lost hard disk infinitely
easier.
</LI>
<LI>Bacula assumes all filenames are in UTF-8 format. This is important
when saving the filenames to the catalog. For Win32 machine, Bacula will
automatically convert from Unicode to UTF-8, but on Unix, Linux, *BSD,
and MacOS X machines, you must explicitly ensure that your locale is set
properly. Typically this means that the bf LANG environment variable
must end in <B>.UTF-8</B>. An full example is <B>en_US.UTF-8</B>. The
exact syntax may vary a bit from OS to OS, and exactly how you define it
will also vary.
<P>
On most modern Win32 machines, you can edit the conf files with <B> notepad</B> and choose output encoding UTF-8.
</LI>
</UL>
<P>
<H1><A NAME="SECTION001520000000000000000">
Recommended Items</A>
</H1>
<A NAME="4826"></A>
<A NAME="4827"></A>
<P>
Although these items may not be critical, they are recommended and will help
you avoid problems.
<P>
<UL>
<LI>Read the Quick Start Guide to BaculaQuickStartChapter
</LI>
<LI>After installing and experimenting with Bacula, read and work carefully
through the examples in the
TutorialTutorialChapter chapter of this manual.
</LI>
<LI>Learn what each of the Bacula Utility Programs_UtilityChapter
does.
</LI>
<LI>Set up reasonable retention periods so that your catalog does not grow
to be too big. See the following three chapters:
<BR>
Recycling your VolumesRecyclingChapter,
<BR>
Basic Volume ManagementDiskChapter,
<BR>
Using Pools to Manage VolumesPoolsChapter.
</LI>
<LI>Perform a bare metal recovery using the Bacula Rescue CDROM. See the
Disaster Recovery Using a Bacula Rescue CDROMRescueChapter
chapter.
</LI>
</UL>
<P>
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:
<UL>
<LI>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.
</LI>
<LI>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.
</LI>
</UL>
<P>
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