Re: [Bacula-users] Two installation problems, btape & bacula-fd

At 03:54 PM 9/20/2008, Arno Lehmann wrote:

> I noticed... "Could not stat
> /home/jonathan/.gvfs: ERR=Permission denied." (As before, bconsole was
> running as a superuser.)

It doesn't matter what user bconsole is running as; the file daemon is
what matters.

I'm sorry I was not more explicit -- all of the daemons were running as superusers.

Even if it runs as root, additional security enhancements beyond
classic file system permissions could apply... ubuntu as far as I know doesn't use
SElinux or AppArmor by default, I suspect it's either a NFS-related
problem or your FD doesn't run as root.

It could be a security problem, but not NFS -- the machine isn't networked, except for its connection to the Internet. And since FD was running as root, the problem must be somewhere else. (BTW, if FD had not been running as root it wouldn't have been able to back up anything, because the whole directory being backed up was inaccessible to my logged-in user.)

In any case this may now be moot. When I hooked up my Ubuntu disk again, I found that something had blown the partition table. I sent Symantec a diagnostic report generated by one of their utilities, and I'm waiting to hear whether there is anything I can do to repair the table. If not, I will have to reinstall Ubuntu, reinstall Bacula, and start over. Since I hadn't finished testing Bacula yet, I don't have a backup!

I'll respond to some of your other comments now. Any suggestions you have may be useful when I get back to this point.

> I tried repeating the original test anyway. It said it succeeded, but it
> didn't write anything -- I think because it was supposed to be creating
> an incremental backup and nothing had changed, although I had deleted
> the original full backup in the meantime.

How did you delete it? By using bconsole commands delete or purge, or
by simply removing the backup volume?

That was an error -- I later realized that I did not delete the backup, just the test restore I did from it. Again, moot.

>...the "Permission denied" message ...cause for concern?

It is as long as you don't know what causes it.

> what should I make of the fact that the test which previously
> failed now succeeds...?

This issue should be resolved. As long as you see backups not working
and don't know the reasons the whole backup process is, in my opinion,
nearly worthless.

Thank you for those responses! Your approach to problem-solving is similar to mine.

> the missing scripts... make me suspect that my Bacula distribution...
> is incomplete.

That seems to be the case....
Bacula is not that hard to build... depending on... your understanding
of the required software... this can be simple or prove to be a
time-consuming process.

> My goal is not to master Bacula; it is to do software development in Linux.

Then the idea to compile and install Bacula from source should not be
a concern. You'll have to learn the stuff anyway.

Well, not necessarily. For the present all of my development work will be in PHP, where the whole concept of doing a build is meaningless. But I think you're right that I'll have to try.

I have done plenty of C and C++ programming in the past, but that was years ago, and I never did much on UNIX platforms. I expect little trouble with the concepts, but much with the details -- as has been my experience with Bacula.

What you should do now is to
- decide if you will do this yourself, or let someone else do the
dirty work for you.

I'm going to do it myself, because at present there is no one else to do it, and I can't afford to hire someone. At this point, though, I'm not sure how much I can work on it. It may take months.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by the Moblin Your Move Developer's challenge
Build the coolest Linux based applications with Moblin SDK & win great prizes
Grand prize is a trip for two to an Open Source event anywhere in the world
http://moblin-contest.org/redirect.php?banner_id=100&url=/

_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users