Naming Resources

There are a lot of resources you will need to configure in Bacula. Therefore it is a very good practice to define and standardize the naming. The goal is to avoid ending up using Jobs named Job1, Job2, etc., which do not describe what they do and will be difficult to understand after several months of use. Your configuration will gain clarity.

Examples

Here are some naming examples for your configuration:

Director/Storage Daemon(s)/Clients should be named with their location and hostname. If they are dedicated, one can add a description. At the end we add -dir / -sd / -fd
```
Europe-bacula1-dir
Iceland-baculabkp-DR-dir
NewYork-storage1-dedup-sd
Houston-clt2314-vsphere-fd
```
Autochangers will be easy to find if their name starts with the Storage Daemons name, then a description and a trailing -autochanger
```
NewYork-storage1-dedup-xfs-autochanger
```
Devices should refer to the naming of the Storage Daemon they are attached to, as well as, in the case of a Device inside an autochanger, its name and a number. A -device can be added at the end.
```
NewYork-storage1-dedup-xfs-autochanger-tape1-device
NewYork-storage1-dedup-xfs-autochanger-tape2-device
```
Jobs will have the name of the client, the main function and a trailing -job:
```
ActiveDirectorySrv1-SystemState-job
DataServ-MySQL-job
RedHat6-vSphere-job
```
JobDefs can be named according to the group of clients they for, with a trailing -jd
```
MainProduction-jd
TestMachines-jd
DedupHomes-jd
DataBase-jd
```

Copy/Migration Jobs can have a trailing -copyjob or -migrationjob:

ActiveDirectory-SystemState-copyjob
DataServ-MySQL-migrationjob
RedHat6-vSphere-copyjob

FileSets can be named according to what they do with a trailing -fs
```
WindowsAllDrives-fs
WindowsC-fs
Home-fs
TypicalUnixServer-fs
```
Pools can be named according to the location or name of the Storage Daemon, the Media Type, the frequency, the level of the backup and a trailing -pool
```
ParisWeeklyDiskFull-pool
NewYorkDailyDedupFull-pool
SafeHouseMonthlyVirtualFull-pool
Bacula-sd2-ZFS-Differential-pool
```
Clients could be named with the hostname and a trailing -fd
```
hrserver.domain-fd
ceolaptop.domain-fd
```
Schedules might contain the frequency and/or the purpose, plus a trailing -sched
```
DailyMorningCatalog-sched
DailyEveningVM-sched
```
Console should be named with the hostname and a description followed by a trailing -console
```
NewYorkSDrestrictedRestore-console
VPSalesBackup-console
```
Messages resources can be customized per daemon or per Job and a trailing -messages:
```
Europe-bacula1-dir-messages
ActiveDirectory-SystemState-job-messages
```

Note

Don’t use spaces in naming, it will work but requires the directives to be quoted.
You can also define acronyms, like DR for Disaster Recovery, EX for External storage or countries such as FR for France. However, using a consistent and fixed scheme is essential.
Use the “Description” directive to add even more details for your resources (when possible).
Stick to your naming convention regarding “-”, “_”, format. Do not rename resources after they were set and used (See section Naming Bacula Resources on renaming resources for more details).
Resource names are limited to a fixed number of characters. Currently the limit is defined to be 127 characters.