Fundamentals: Jobs

The Job is a basic unit in Bacula, and is run by the Director. Each Job resource definition contains the name of a Client and a FileSet, a Schedule for the Job, location for data to be stored, and specification for Pools of Volumes to be used. In effect, each Job resource must specify:

Who

In Bacula’s terminology is the Client or the machine that is to be backed up.

See the Client Resource chapter to know more about the Client.

What

FileSet or the list of files to include and/or exclude.

A FileSet resource is required for each backup Job. It consists of a list of files or directories to be included, a list of files or directories to be excluded and various backup options such as compression, encryption, and signatures that are to be applied to each file.

To get more details, see the FileSet Resource chapter.

Where

It is defined by the Storage, Pool, and Catalog, where the Storage specifies on what physical device to backup the files, the Pool defines on what specific Volume, and the Catalog specifies where to keep track of it all.

Bacula Enterprise supports the following type of storage:

Local disk on the host running the SD
Local file system via remote storage (SAN, NFS)
Cloud Storage (Azure, Oracle, GCP, Private clouds, Amazon among others)
Deduplicated storage (ZFS, NetApp, DELL/EMC, HPE among others) via the Aligned plugin
Local storage or NFS storage with the Global Endpoint Deduplication plugin
Tape libraries supported by the Linux Kernel through mt
FiFo

Director Storage

Each Storage resource is configured in the Director, and it defines the Storage that can be used in Jobs. Each Director Storage resource points to an Autochanger or individual device on a Storage Daemon server.

To get more details, see the Storage Resource chapter.

Storage Daemon Autochangers

In Bacula, SD Autochanger resources may contain one or more tape or drive devices. Autochangers are a way to group multiple devices into one resource. Jobs can be configured to use an Autochanger, and Bacula will automatically choose the tape or drive device that will be used to read or write the data. When multiple concurrent jobs are using the same Autochanger, Bacula is able to spread the jobs among the available devices in the Autochanger.

To get more details, see the Autochanger Resource chapter.

Storage Daemon Device

The SD Device resource allows configuring a device used for writing to and reading from backup volumes. The Device can point to a tape drive or directory on the filesystem. Multiple Devices can be grouped into an Autochanger.

To get more details, see the Device Resource chapter.

When

It is defined by what Schedule is used.

The Schedule resource provides a means of automatically starting Jobs at specific intervals.

To get more details, see the Schedule Resource chapter.

Types of Jobs

Those jobs are defined in the Job Resource. There are several types of jobs in Bacula: