Introduction To BWeb New Layout with Bacula 14.0

Bacula Enterprise 14.0 brings a new BWeb layout that simplifies its usage. All features from previous BWeb versions are kept and new ones were added. We can achieve the same tasks with the new BWeb in a more structured way.

This document describes the key changes, the new layout, its menu and also describes the main dashboard and the different overview pages.

Key Changes

BWeb 14 offers quick access to the key Backup and Restore tasks from its main screen. It offers a search tool that provides quick access to all BWeb elements. Resource name or configuration searches are not yet implemented.

The workset page that permits you to see staged Bacula configuration changes is also easily accessible from the upper right corner via a new bell icon. There is still a Workset menu entry under Configuration

The bell can indicate that Bacula configuration changes within the workset have not yet been applied by displaying a number.

The useful wizards for setting up a new client, a new backup policy, a new storage, and more are now available from the bottom right corner with the blue (+) sign. They were available from the Workset page in previous BWeb versions.

The menu on the left offers all options from a single menu. Monitoring and configuration tasks are grouped under this menu. For example the jobs history page can be reached from the entry Jobs and Job Overview. Please find more information about the menu below in the Menu Description section.

The Configuration menu allows you to configure Bacula deamons running locally on the server and remote ones as well. Every time a Director, a File Daemon, a Storage Daemon or a Console daemon is selected, the upper left selector allows you to verify that the changes will be applied to the correct resource. For example in the screenshot below, the Messages resource of the File Daemon “wa-centos7-gui-fd” will be changed.

Storages, Media, and Deduplication storages are all grouped under a single main menu named Storage and Media. More information can be found below in the Menu Description section about the different menu entries.

The VMware Center wizard allows you to configure the automation of VMware VM backups. It is accessible from every client configuration if no VMware backup job has been run. To reach it, the menu entry Configuration should be chosen, then Director and Clients. Editing the client will make it available.

If VMware plugin backup jobs exist in the catalog, then a menu entry named Virtual Machines will be present. It offers a VM overview page, Single Item Restore and Instant Recovery for VMs. Please find more information in the Virtual Machines menu description below.

If database plugin backup jobs exist in the catalog, a menu entry named Databases will be present. It offers a Database overview page and a filter to render a table which allows you to perform some actions, like a Database backup or restore.

Menu Description

Main Dashboard

The menu that leads to different parts of BWeb is now entirely on the left side. Two buttons and one search field offer the ability to restore data, backup data and search for any BWeb element keyword. The Main Dashboard gives a broad overview of your backup environment and is conveniently available at the top of the menu. It shows the number of clients, the size of the Catalog, the total backed up data size and the number of Volumes and finally the number of Jobs recorded in the catalog. It also shows a list of running jobs that can be quickly accessed, canceled or stopped. The Job Size Statistics graph can help you to notice large increases in Job sizes, which should be investigated. The Last Jobs list offers quick access to recent Jobs.

Configuration

All configuration tasks are under the Configuration menu entry. For example, in order to edit a FileSet configuration, the Configuration entry will be selected, then the Director entry as a FileSet is defined in the Director resource, then FileSets. Please check the upper left selector to verify that the changes will be applied to the correct resource, as illustrated above.

The Health Overview page is available from the menu under Configuration. This is a health overview of the internal tools used for Bacula or BWeb. It gives a broad overview of BWeb capabilities and setup. Its content is key for performance fine tuning and capabilities of BWeb to manage the plugins installed.

It checks the configuration of the PostgreSQL or MySQL Catalog database based on best practices available in the Performance Tuning of Director and Catalog Host documentation. It also gives information about your browser compatiblity with BWeb as well as the version of the Bacula components installed locally on the system running BWeb.

It also checks the available features for plugins and additional features. For example, in the section Checking Push Bacula Windows component configuration to remote hosts, it will check if the required Windows binaries and other modules are installed so that Windows Client configurations may be pushed from BWeb. The Checking Available Features section checks which tools are installed to offer wider usage of BWeb in regards to plugins, among others.

Finally, the Testing BWeb configuration : bweb_testconfig lists if any settings in BWeb or Bacula are not correct. Usually, any errors in this list will need to be corrected.

The BWeb Configuration menu allows you to review the BWeb configuration. These are the options that were setup when BWeb was first started.

The Workset page lists all changes made in the configuration that are not yet applied to production. The Autocommit slider in the top right, when enabled, automatically commits any changes you make as soon as you click ‘save’. When enabled, the Workset page is no longer necessary and will always be blank.

The Director entry lists all resources that can be configured, added, or modified in the Director configuration.

The File Daemon (FD) allows you to manage the Clients or File Daemon parts of the backup infrastructure. From here, a new FD can be pushed with its configuration and more.

The Storage Deamon (SD) allows you to manage the locations where backed up data is sent. It comes with a lot of options like Deduplication, Cloud Storage, Tape Libraries, Disk Autochangers, and more.

The Console entry manages all the console resources configured in the Bacula infrastructure.

Jobs

The Jobs menu provides the overview of all backup, Verify, Copy, and Restore jobs.

The Job Overview is available from the menu under Jobs. It offers a broad overview about backup jobs termination status at the top. The number of running Jobs, Jobs terminated with errors or warnings, and OK Jobs are shown at the top.

The table at the bottom can be filtered in order to fine tune the list of the jobs.

You may quickly add a new Job with the Add New Job wizard. It offers you the possibility to create backup, copy, migration or verify jobs. You may also create Linux BMR (Bare Metal Recovery) jobs (available with a LinuxBMR plugin subscription).

The Missing Jobs menu item will share the backup jobs that have not run for the last 7 days. It lists an overview of jobs that may need to be rescheduled manually so a consistent backup is created.

The Next Jobs menu item lists the next jobs planned to run based on their schedule.

If the Single Item Restore plugin is installed and the VSS plugin that can backup Exchange is used, an Exchange Restore menu entry will be displayed which will allow you to start an Exchange restore.

Clients

The Client Overview

The Client Overview is available from the menu under Clients. It lists all Clients or File Daemons configured in the Director. The pie charts at the top show the versions of the configured clients and the operating systems on which they run.

A set of actions are proposed below the client table for the client selected.

The Add New Client menu item allows you to setup a new client easily using the Configure a new Client resource wizard and permits you to push the binaries and configuration to the remote client.

The Groups menu item allows you to group clients in order to gather statistics about a group of client, list their jobs, allow specific BWeb users access to certain groups of clients, and more.

Virtual Machines

The VM Overview item under the Virtual Machines menu item shows the VM overview page. It lists all VMs backed up from any hypervisor plugin (vSphere, Hyper-V, Proxmox, etc). The graphics and the table filter help to monitor VM backup jobs. The action button for every ObjectId allows you to run a backup, a VM restore, a Single Item Restore or perform the Instant Recovery of the selected ObjectId. You may also jump directly to an individual VM backup joblog by clicking on the Job’s Job Status icon.

The VMware Center menu item allows you to manage the vCenter and ESXi host connection configurations. The different VMware wizards can also be run from here, for example the VMware datacenter autodiscovery and backup automation wizard.

The Adv. VM Restore menu item gives access to the Single Item Restore and the Instant Recovery tools. Note that accessing these tools can be also achieved from the VM Overview of the Virtual Machines menu which is usually simpler as only one VM can be selected for restore purpose.

Microsoft 365

The Microsoft 365 menu entry allows you to configure the Microsoft 365 plugin if subscribed.

Databases

The Databases menu entry is visible if you have any databases backed up using one of the database plugins. This Databases page gives a detailed overview of backed up databases. A filter can be applied to the table. New backups or restores can be triggered from the table. Specific joblogs can also be accessed from the table.

Storage and Media

This menu entry allows you to manage and configure your Storage Daemons (SD). This is here that you can verify disk volumes or tapes are well recycled, that some are free for next backup jobs and more.

The Media Overview page is available from the menu under Storage and Media. It offers a broad overview of the media status on top. The filter permits to list media by selecting different options. An action offered by the buttons at the bottom of the table can be applied to selected media.

The Pool Overiew page is available from the menu under Storage and Media. It offers a Pool view, for example every pool configuration in regards to retention and number volumes used. It also displays some graphics about pool occupancy.

The Storages Overview is available from the menu under Storage and Media. It gives a broad overview of a the selected storage’s status. The jobs running, their speed, the tape or disk volumes loaded, the storage capacity of the storage and more is displayed on this page. A network test can be executed as well.

The Deduplicaton (GED) overview is available from the menu under Storage and Media. It produces detailed information about any deduplication storage setup. Information about dedup ratio, the disk occupancy and any issue with the deduplication engine are shown.

The + Add Media menu item allows you to label a tape or add new disk volumes.

The + Add New Storage menu item starts the new Storage resource wizard to add Device resources into an existing storage, create a new Storage Daemon (SD) Device resources or create a new Director Storage resource.

The Locations menu item allows you to manage media location, usually tapes.

The Tapes menu item offers two tape-only actions: Load Media and Eject Media.

Security Center

The Security Center is the place where security features like events, users, SSL certificates and ssh keys can be managed.

The Events page allows you to filter and review all events recorded. It allows you to see reloads of the Director configuration, connections to the console, and much more. Please see Event and Auditing for more information.

The User Management menu item allows you to manage BWeb user access and select the permissions allowed for each configured user.

The SSH Keys menu item sllows you to set up SSL certificates and SSH keys.

Statistics

This page offers plenty of options in regards to Bacula activities and statistics.

The Stats Dashboard is available from the menu under Statistics. Different kinds of statistics can be generated to monitor the Bacula infrastructure, see if any unusual activities in regards to data volume backed up or number of files changes, generate reports for decision makers and more.

For example, statistics can be generated about:

• The longest running jobs

• The slowest or fastest jobs

• The job sizes

• The files backed up per day

• The size of backup jobs by time

• The number of files per backup job by time

The Jobs Timeline gives the opportunity to generate graphics about different parameters with jobs.