On 08/13/2010 11:50 PM, Timo Neuvonen wrote:
>>> How do I configure Bacula to use a new set of tapes for each month?
>>>
>>> I'm trying to configure Bacula to not use tapes across months. This way
>>> for each month I'll have a set of tapes that I can send off-side.
>>>
>>> For example on the 1st of February all tapes that were used in January
>>> should be marked "used" and Bacula should try to find other appendable
>>> tapes to use for February's backups.
>>>
>>> I tried to use "Volume Use Duration = 1 months" but this is not very
>>> accurate. Some months are longer then others and if for some reason a
>>> tape is marked in "error" then Bacula pulls another tape and the cycle
>>> starts in the middle of the month.
>>>
>>> Is there any way to tell Bacula that if it's the 1st of the month mark
>>> the append-able tapes as "used" and look for other tapes?
>>>
>>> Or any other idea to handle the off-side issue?
>>>
>>
>> Here is 1 idea:
>> Odd / even month pools. Use schedule resource to schedule jobs to the
>> appropriate pool depending if you are in an odd or even month.
>>
>
> Depending on the amount of data vs. tape size, this approach may also fail:
> if all monthly data fits to one tape, volume use duration must be set to
> handle months with 31 days. But if some months require another tape and tape
> change happened during the last couple of days of the month, that tape may
> still be appendable eg. the first of March. If more than 2 monthly tapes are
> required anyway, then one could set the volume use duration to less than 28
> days, and this problem disappears.
>
> --
> TiN

Good point. Things are even more complicated if multiple tapes are 
required for the backup.

If each tape can hold 20 days worth of data then the Jan 1st tape will 
get full on Jan 20th. Then Bacula will pull a new tape to use on Jan 
21st that can be used till Feb 18 if volume use duration is 28 days.

Seems like Andrea Conti's solution will work best. An external script 
that runs on the 1st and changes the status from Append to Use before 
the backup jobs start. I'd actually use bconsole commands, wrapped in a 
shell script instead of sql update queries. Seems cleaner to me and 
independent to the database schema.

Thanks all.

--
Peter

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