On 5/10/2013 3:09 AM, Kern Sibbald wrote:
> Hello John,
>
> vchanger gets the job done as does the "disk-changer" script in
> Bacula, from which vchanger was derived (and extended) if
> I remember right. The disk-changer script works fine, but we
> use it only for "tape" regression testing with our Virtual Tape driver.
Yes. As the developer of vchanger, I remember. :) Vchanger began as a
shell script derived from disk-changer, was subsequently developed as an
open source C/C++ program several years ago, and is now on Sourceforge
at http://sourceforge.net/projects/vchanger/. Its purpose was never to
replace the built-in disk storage handling, but rather more specifically
for use with removable disks such as USB, eSATA, etc. drives. In
particular, I wanted to use laptop-type USB drives for offsite storage.
My clients are mostly small businesses with smaller needs and tape
libraries are expensive to them, while at the time, USB drives were
falling rapidly in price while the capacity was growing.
The built-in disk storage handling works perfectly and is simple,
However, if using a number of removable drives and rotating them in and
out of a fire safe or offsite location, it doesn't provide any means to
easily identify which removable drive should be reattached when needed.
Vchanger treats each removable drive like a magazine in a magazine-based
library. Each magazine is labeled and its volumes use that magazine
label as the first part of the volume barcode (and filename). This makes
it is easy to identify which removable drive is needed.
Personally, I use vchanger for removable disk and always recommend using
the built-in disk storage handling for fixed-disk.
> I am a bit surprised that no one mentioned Bacula's built-in virtual
> autochanger feature that has been there for years.
This is particularly surprising to me, because it is discussed in the
first paragraph of the Introduction section in the vchanger HowTo
shipped with the vchanger source. :) Looking at it though, I can see
that I didn't explain it very well.
> The syntax for
> enabling it is a bit of a "kludge" in my opinion, but it is the way
> that Bacula
> Systems is recommending to handle multiple disk backup.
>
> In the bacula-dir.conf file, define the autochanger in
> the normal way for a physical tape autochanger library.
>
> In the bacula-sd.conf, one defines:
>
> Autochanger {
> Name = FileChgr1
> Device = FileChgr1-Dev1, FileChgr1-Dev2
> Changer Command = ""
> Changer Device = /dev/null
> }
>
> Device {
> Name = FileChgr1-Dev1
> Media Type = File1
> Archive Device = /tmp
> LabelMedia = yes # lets Bacula label unlabeled media
> Random Access = Yes
> AutomaticMount = yes # when device opened, read it
> RemovableMedia = no
> AlwaysOpen = no
> Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 5
> }
>
> Device {
> Name = FileChgr1-Dev2
> Media Type = File1
> Archive Device = /tmp
> LabelMedia = yes # lets Bacula label unlabeled media
> Random Access = Yes
> AutomaticMount = yes # when device opened, read it
> RemovableMedia = no
> AlwaysOpen = no
> Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 5
> }
>
> You will have a virtual autochanger, which should do what most people
> want in a very simple way. Of course, the above is an example. I definitely
> do not recommend writing your Bacula Volumes to /tmp. Needless to say,
> you can have multiple autochangers (but you probably want different Media
> Types), and you can have a large number of drives in each one. No symlinks
> are involved and any volume that is in the Archive Device can be mounted on
> any Device.
>
> Best regards,
> Kern
>
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