Sorry for not qualifying myself. I do not hate Baclua, but it is not
the best for small operations!!

Bacula is is _extremely_ well documented!!  However, the people that
were likely to replace me still would have to spend at least 2-3 days
learning it. On top of that I absolutely gurantee they would not spend
the time learning it until they needed a file restored.

For a large operation, 15+ servers I think Bacula would be great solution! 

Brock

On 4/13/05, Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 11:20:29AM -0500, Brock Noland wrote:
> > The biggest problem I had was that if I left, no one else would ANY
> > idea about how to use it.
> 
> It is a very well documented software package.  I find it hard to
> believe that your replacement would be illiterate.  A well documented
> deployment, as we all should probably have, would definitely help as
> well.
> 
>   bacula - Network backup, recovery and verification (Meta-package)
>   bacula-client - Network backup, recovery and verification (Client meta-package)
>   bacula-common - Network backup, recovery and verification (Common Support files)
>   bacula-console - Network backup, recovery and verification (Mgmt. Console)
>   bacula-console-gnome - Network backup, recovery and verification (Console, Gnome version)
>   bacula-director-common - Network backup, recovery and verification (Director common files)
>   bacula-director-mysql - Network backup, recovery and verification (Director daemon)
>   bacula-director-pgsql - Network backup, recovery and verification (Director daemon)
>   bacula-director-sqlite - Network backup, recovery and verification (Director daemon)
>   bacula-doc - Network backup, recovery and verification - Documentation
>   bacula-fd - Network backup, recovery and verification (Filer daemon)
>   bacula-sd - Network backup, recovery and verification (Storage daemon)
>   bacula-server - Network backup, recovery and verification (Server meta-package)
>   bacula-wxconsole - Network backup, recovery and verification (Console, Gnome version)
> 
> > The BIGGEST problem for me was that there was no way to let users
> > restore there own files.
> 
> Traditional and many commercial backup system don't allow this.
> Bacula was designed to compete with these.  I will point out that the
> documentation for Bacula hints to a wxWidget application called
> Console::
> 
>     Bacula Console services is the program that allows the
>     administrator or user to communicate with the Bacula Director (see
>     above). Currently, the Bacula Console is available in three
>     versions. The first and simplest is to run the Console program in
>     a shell window (i.e. TTY interface). Most system administrators
>     will find this completely adequate. The second version is a GNOME
>     GUI interface that for the moment (23 November 2003) is far from
>     complete, but quite functional as it has most the capabilities of
>     the shell Console. The third version is a wxWidgets GUI with an
>     interactive file restore. It also has most the capabilities of the
>     shell console, allows command completion with tabulation, and
>     gives you instant help about the command you are typing. For more
>     details see the Bacula Console Design Document.
> 
> As far as a project that has promise for the future, Bacula is
> something worth looking into, as far as I'm concerned.  It is quite
> attractive compared to home-rolled systems (no offense intended),
> though it sounds like BackupPC is quite featureful.
> 
>   backuppc - high-performance, enterprise-grade system for backing up PCs
>   libfile-rsyncp-perl - A perl based implementation of an Rsync client
> 
> Personally, I'm quite happy with Amanda Backup, though I have had a
> long history with it and understand how to set it up quickly.  Now
> that you can back up to hard drive fairly easily, it's even more
> useful to me.  My favorite feature of Amanda is its ability to
> automatically plan full and incremental backups and balance them
> across the full tapeset.  Amanda is VERY good at efficiently using the
> entire "tape" (whether the tape is physical or a virtual filesystem
> based one).  Where it lacks is in front-end utilities...  Again,
> Brock's biggest feature need would not be met: user-initiated and
> controlled restores.
> 
>   amanda-client - Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Client)
>   amanda-common - Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Libs)
>   amanda-server - Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver (Server)
>   cdrw-taper - taper replacement for amanda to support backups to CD-RW or DVD+RW
>   mtx - controls tape autochangers
> 
> Amanda has recently received more attention, both from a development
> and a user standpoint.  I expect to see more user-friendly tools in
> the relatively near future.  Were I to invest time into learning a new
> system, Bacula would probably be it.
> 
> Other backup packages that matched the search for "amanda":
> 
>   chiark-backup - backup system for small systems and networks
>   flexbackup - Flexible backup tool for small to medium sized installations
> 
> One other project to look at is Mondo Backup and Restore.  Very cool
> idea.  Makes it simple to create recovery CD's for your Linux and
> Windows systems: basically any filesystem that Linux can read/write.
> Optionally, it'll use partimage to make a dd image copy of partitions
> it can't read.  You could, and people have, set up a mondo backup
> routine that creates images on an NFS/SMB share.
> 
>   mindi - creates boot/root disks based on your system
>   mindi-busybox - Collection of shell utilities in a single executable for Mindi/Mondo
>   mindi-kernel - failsafe Linux kernel for Mindi/Mondo
>   mindi-partimagehack - disk partition imaging utility for Mindi/Mondo
>   mondo - powerful disaster recovery suite
>   mondo-doc - manual for Mondo, a powerful disaster recovery suite
> 
> --
> Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>           http://www.wookimus.net/
>            assert(expired(knowledge)); /* core dump */
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> 


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