Message Format Explanation

The messages generated by any Bacula component are all structured the same way:

  • A message starts with an optional time stamp. The time stamp can be shown or hidden depending on command or options used. TODO details and links to list/llist, -td

  • The name of the component generating the message follows. To be able to distinguish different message sources, convention is to use suffixes of -fd, -sd, -dir for File Daemon, Storage Daemon, and Director names, respectively.

  • The next field of the message is the Job Id that caused the message. If messages are created that are not related to a Job, they get the Job Id 0 (zero) assigned. Such messages can refer to routine activity, such as volume pruning triggered by status commands, but they can also indicate noteworthy events, such as failing authentication due to an on-going brute force attack. Proper message resources will ensure that important messages are forwarded to responsible administrators and routine messages do not clutter logging facilities.

  • The messages text follows. A messages Text can contain arbitrary characters (in particular, line breaks). Messages are intended for human readers, and a certain expertise with both Bacula and the systems involved is assumed.

    In recent versions of the Bacula software, a structured message characterisation has been introduced, which consists of a severity level keyword and a coded identifier at the beginning of a messages text. An example:

    2022-11-14 18:18:10 bsys-demo-sd JobId 1984: Warning: [SW0201] Out of freespace caused End of Volume "Vol-0045" at 245 on device "DiskAutochanger_Dev0" (/opt/bacula/archive). Write of 64512 bytes got 3851.

    The text will remain complete and human readable, but the severity indication Warning and the message cause identifier SW0201 make automated processing much easier.

    The identifier will always consist of two letters and four digits:

    • The first letter will be D, S or F for Director, Storage Daemon or File Daemon, respectively.

    • The second letter will indicate the severity level:

      Character

      Severity Level

      A

      Abort

      F

      Fatal

      E

      Error

      W

      Warning

      S

      Security

      I

      Informational

      D

      Debug

      O

      Ok, i.e. normal completion

    Note that this list is a bit less granular than the message types documented in Messages Resource.

    • The numerical identifier of the message will never change, even if the text will be adapted or translated.

      There is no particular structure in assignment of the numbers for each message, so filtering or processing by ranges is not suitable. Also, message id numbers will not be allocated sequentially.

    Currently, not all messages have been converted to the new format, and this will only be completed after some more releases of the software.

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