Bacula-users

Re: [Bacula-users] Recover full backup from the incrementals

2014-10-16 04:19:42
Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] Recover full backup from the incrementals
From: Sieu Truc <sieutruc AT gmail DOT com>
To: Bryn Hughes <linux AT nashira DOT ca>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:13:47 +0200
Thank for your answer, it gets me more understanding bacula.

But now, if i have 2 full backups like

Schedule {
    Name = "schedule_test"
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Monday Monday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Tuesday Tuesday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Wednesday Wednesday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Thursday Thursday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Friday Friday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Saturday Saturday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Full Pool=even_sunday w02 w04 w06 w08 w10 w12 w14 w16 w18 w20 w22 w24 w26 w28 w30 w32 w34 w36 w38 w40 w42 w44 w46 w48 w50 w52 Sunday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Full Pool=odd_sunday w01 w03 w05 w07 w09 w11 w13 w15 w17 w19 w21 w23 w25 w27 w29 w31 w33 w35 w37 w39 w41 w43 w45 w47 w49 w51 w53 Sunday at 22:00
}

After 3 week, i have 3 full backups named even_sunday_1, odd_sunday_2 , even_sunday_3.
If i lose odd_sunday_2, can i recover it from even_sunday_1 and the incremental backups during 2 weeks ? The incrementals of the second week are based on the odd_sunday_2 so can they be applied to even_sunday_1 ?

Thanks in advance,

PHAM Ngoc Truc

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:53 PM, Bryn Hughes <linux AT nashira DOT ca> wrote:
Really it would come down to what files you needed to restore...

If the files you need are all in the incremental then Bacula will restore them without touching the full backup at all.

If you need to restore a full filesystem including files that will not have changed since the last full, you will possibly loose some data, depending on what has changed.

In the scenario you are talking about (w2 being damaged), you could do a full restore of w1 plus the incrementals that depended on it which would take you to the end of Saturday, and then you could do a restore of all the incrementals going forwards from there.  You would miss any data changed after the Saturday incremental run after w1 but before the full w2 was run - the first incremental after w2 would have caught any changes after w2.  So you would loose about a day's worth of data - depending on what type of data changes you are dealing with that may or may not be acceptable to you.  The restore would be more complex than just saying "restore everything to the specified date".

Whether or not this would give you a usable restore point depends heavily on your workload - if you are dealing entirely with files that are updated in place you would be fine, the end result would be the same as if w2 wasn't damaged at all.  If you are dealing with something like a busy mail server with a bunch of maildirs - a large number of files being created and deleted regularly, you would have a mess. You'd be missing a day's worth of mail plus you potentially would have 'undeleted' quite a bit of data since you would be restoring files that may have been later deleted.

So the short answer is 'it depends' - this will be true of nearly any backup software when using the approach you describe.

Bryn

On 14-10-15 03:02 AM, Sieu Truc wrote:
Hello,

I have a question about bacula's recovering mechanism.

I do an full backup every week, and the dailly incremental backups, specified in the following configuration :

Schedule {
    Name = "schedule_test"
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Monday Monday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Tuesday Tuesday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Wednesday Wednesday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Thursday Thursday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Friday Friday at 22:00
    Run = Level=Incremental Pool=Saturday Saturday at 22:00
     Run = Level=Full Pool=fullBK Sunday at 22:0
}

After 3 weeks, i have 3 full backup named w1,w2,w3 corresponding to each week.

If for some reasons, the backup w2 is damaged, would i lose all the incremental backup in the second week from monday to friday ?
And can i restore the backup w2 with w1 ?

Thanks,

PHAM Ngoc Truc


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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comprehensive Server Monitoring with Site24x7.
Monitor 10 servers for $9/Month.
Get alerted through email, SMS, voice calls or mobile push notifications.
Take corrective actions from your mobile device.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/Zoho
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