Bacula & Multiple Tape Devices, and so on
- by Tom O'Connor
Bacula won't make use of 2 tape devices simultaneously. (Search for #-#-# for the TL;DR)
A little background, perhaps.
In the process of trying to get a decent working backup solution (backing up 20TB ain't cheap, or easy) at $dayjob, we bought a bunch of things to make it work.
Firstly, there's a Spectra Logic T50e autochanger, 40 slots of LTO5 goodness, and that robot's got a pair of IBM HH5 Ultrium LTO5 drives, connected via FibreChannel Arbitrated Loop to our backup server.
There's the backup server.. A Dell R715 with 2x 16 core AMD 62xx CPUs, and 32GB of RAM. Yummy.
That server's got 2 Emulex FCe-12000E cards, and an Intel X520-SR dual port 10GE NIC.
We were also sold Commvault Backup (non-NDMP).
Here's where it gets really complicated.
Spectra Logic and Commvault both sent respective engineers, who set up the library and the software. Commvault was running fine, in so far as the controller was working fine. The Dell server has Ubuntu 12.04 server, and runs the MediaAgent for CommVault, and mounts our BlueArc NAS as NFS to a few mountpoints, like /home, and some stuff in /mnt.
When backing up from the NFS mountpoints, we were seeing ~= 290GB/hr throughput. That's CRAP, considering we've got 20-odd TB to get through, in a <48 hour backup window. The rated maximum on the BlueArc is 700MB/s (2460GB/hr), the rated maximum write speed on the tape devices is 140MB/s, per drive, so that's 492GB/hr (or double it, for the total throughput).
So, the next step was to benchmark NFS performance with IOzone, and it turns out that we get epic write performance (across 20 threads), and it's like 1.5-2.5TB/hr write, but read performance is fecking hopeless. I couldn't ever get higher than 343GB/hr maximum. So let's assume that the 343GB/hr is a theoretical maximum for read performance on the NAS, then we should in theory be able to get that performance out of a) CommVault, and b) any other backup agent.
Not the case. Commvault seems to only ever give me 200-250GB/hr throughput, and out of experimentation, I installed Bacula to see what the state of play there is. If, for example, Bacula gave consistently better performance and speeds than Commvault, then we'd be able to say "**$.$ Refunds Plz $.$**"
#-#-#
Alas, I found a different problem with Bacula.
Commvault seems pretty happy to read from one part of the mountpoint with one thread, and stream that to a Tape device, whilst reading from some other directory with the other thread, and writing to the 2nd drive in the autochanger.
I can't for the life of me get Bacula to mount and write to two tape drives simultaneously.
Things I've tried:
Setting Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 20 in the Director, File and Storage Daemons
Setting Prefer Mounted Volumes = no in the Job Definition
Setting multiple devices in the Autochanger resource.
Documentation seems to be very single-drive centric, and we feel a little like we've strapped a rocket to a hamster, with this one. The majority of example Bacula configurations are for DDS4 drives, manual tape swapping, and FreeBSD or IRIX systems.
I should probably add that I'm not too bothered if this isn't possible, but I'd be surprised. I basically want to use Bacula as proof to stick it to the software vendors that they're overpriced ;)
I read somewhere that @KyleBrandt has done something similar with a modern Tape solution..
Configuration Files:
*bacula-dir.conf*
#
# Default Bacula Director Configuration file
Director { # define myself
Name = backuphost-1-dir
DIRport = 9101 # where we listen for UA connections
QueryFile = "/etc/bacula/scripts/query.sql"
WorkingDirectory = "/var/lib/bacula"
PidDirectory = "/var/run/bacula"
Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 20
Password = "yourekiddingright" # Console password
Messages = Daemon
DirAddress = 0.0.0.0
#DirAddress = 127.0.0.1
}
JobDefs {
Name = "DefaultFileJob"
Type = Backup
Level = Incremental
Client = backuphost-1-fd
FileSet = "Full Set"
Schedule = "WeeklyCycle"
Storage = File
Messages = Standard
Pool = File
Priority = 10
Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/%c.bsr"
}
JobDefs {
Name = "DefaultTapeJob"
Type = Backup
Level = Incremental
Client = backuphost-1-fd
FileSet = "Full Set"
Schedule = "WeeklyCycle"
Storage = "SpectraLogic"
Messages = Standard
Pool = AllTapes
Priority = 10
Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/%c.bsr"
Prefer Mounted Volumes = no
}
#
# Define the main nightly save backup job
# By default, this job will back up to disk in /nonexistant/path/to/file/archive/dir
Job {
Name = "BackupClient1"
JobDefs = "DefaultFileJob"
}
Job {
Name = "BackupThisVolume"
JobDefs = "DefaultTapeJob"
FileSet = "SpecialVolume"
}
#Job {
# Name = "BackupClient2"
# Client = backuphost-12-fd
# JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
#}
# Backup the catalog database (after the nightly save)
Job {
Name = "BackupCatalog"
JobDefs = "DefaultFileJob"
Level = Full
FileSet="Catalog"
Schedule = "WeeklyCycleAfterBackup"
# This creates an ASCII copy of the catalog
# Arguments to make_catalog_backup.pl are:
# make_catalog_backup.pl <catalog-name>
RunBeforeJob = "/etc/bacula/scripts/make_catalog_backup.pl MyCatalog"
# This deletes the copy of the catalog
RunAfterJob = "/etc/bacula/scripts/delete_catalog_backup"
Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/%n.bsr"
Priority = 11 # run after main backup
}
#
# Standard Restore template, to be changed by Console program
# Only one such job is needed for all Jobs/Clients/Storage ...
#
Job {
Name = "RestoreFiles"
Type = Restore
Client=backuphost-1-fd
FileSet="Full Set"
Storage = File
Pool = Default
Messages = Standard
Where = /srv/bacula/restore
}
FileSet {
Name = "SpecialVolume"
Include {
Options {
signature = MD5
}
File = /mnt/SpecialVolume
}
Exclude {
File = /var/lib/bacula
File = /nonexistant/path/to/file/archive/dir
File = /proc
File = /tmp
File = /.journal
File = /.fsck
}
}
# List of files to be backed up
FileSet {
Name = "Full Set"
Include {
Options {
signature = MD5
}
File = /usr/sbin
}
Exclude {
File = /var/lib/bacula
File = /nonexistant/path/to/file/archive/dir
File = /proc
File = /tmp
File = /.journal
File = /.fsck
}
}
Schedule {
Name = "WeeklyCycle"
Run = Full 1st sun at 23:05
Run = Differential 2nd-5th sun at 23:05
Run = Incremental mon-sat at 23:05
}
# This schedule does the catalog. It starts after the WeeklyCycle
Schedule {
Name = "WeeklyCycleAfterBackup"
Run = Full sun-sat at 23:10
}
# This is the backup of the catalog
FileSet {
Name = "Catalog"
Include {
Options {
signature = MD5
}
File = "/var/lib/bacula/bacula.sql"
}
}
# Client (File Services) to backup
Client {
Name = backuphost-1-fd
Address = localhost
FDPort = 9102
Catalog = MyCatalog
Password = "surelyyourejoking" # password for FileDaemon
File Retention = 30 days # 30 days
Job Retention = 6 months # six months
AutoPrune = yes # Prune expired Jobs/Files
}
#
# Second Client (File Services) to backup
# You should change Name, Address, and Password before using
#
#Client {
# Name = backuphost-12-fd
# Address = localhost2
# FDPort = 9102
# Catalog = MyCatalog
# Password = "i'mnotjokinganddontcallmeshirley" # password for FileDaemon 2
# File Retention = 30 days # 30 days
# Job Retention = 6 months # six months
# AutoPrune = yes # Prune expired Jobs/Files
#}
# Definition of file storage device
Storage {
Name = File
# Do not use "localhost" here
Address = localhost # N.B. Use a fully qualified name here
SDPort = 9103
Password = "lalalalala"
Device = FileStorage
Media Type = File
}
Storage {
Name = "SpectraLogic"
Address = localhost
SDPort = 9103
Password = "linkedinmakethebestpasswords"
Device = Drive-1
Device = Drive-2
Media Type = LTO5
Autochanger = yes
}
# Generic catalog service
Catalog {
Name = MyCatalog
# Uncomment the following line if you want the dbi driver
# dbdriver = "dbi:sqlite3"; dbaddress = 127.0.0.1; dbport =
dbname = "bacula"; DB Address = ""; dbuser = "bacula"; dbpassword = "bbmaster63"
}
# Reasonable message delivery -- send most everything to email address
# and to the console
Messages {
Name = Standard
mailcommand = "/usr/lib/bacula/bsmtp -h localhost -f \"\(Bacula\) \<%r\>\" -s \"Bacula: %t %e of %c %l\" %r"
operatorcommand = "/usr/lib/bacula/bsmtp -h localhost -f \"\(Bacula\) \<%r\>\" -s \"Bacula: Intervention needed for %j\" %r"
mail = root@localhost = all, !skipped
operator = root@localhost = mount
console = all, !skipped, !saved
#
# WARNING! the following will create a file that you must cycle from
# time to time as it will grow indefinitely. However, it will
# also keep all your messages if they scroll off the console.
#
append = "/var/lib/bacula/log" = all, !skipped
catalog = all
}
#
# Message delivery for daemon messages (no job).
Messages {
Name = Daemon
mailcommand = "/usr/lib/bacula/bsmtp -h localhost -f \"\(Bacula\) \<%r\>\" -s \"Bacula daemon message\" %r"
mail = root@localhost = all, !skipped
console = all, !skipped, !saved
append = "/var/lib/bacula/log" = all, !skipped
}
# Default pool definition
Pool {
Name = Default
Pool Type = Backup
Recycle = yes # Bacula can automatically recycle Volumes
AutoPrune = yes # Prune expired volumes
Volume Retention = 365 days # one year
}
# File Pool definition
Pool {
Name = File
Pool Type = Backup
Recycle = yes # Bacula can automatically recycle Volumes
AutoPrune = yes # Prune expired volumes
Volume Retention = 365 days # one year
Maximum Volume Bytes = 50G # Limit Volume size to something reasonable
Maximum Volumes = 100 # Limit number of Volumes in Pool
}
Pool {
Name = AllTapes
Pool Type = Backup
Recycle = yes
AutoPrune = yes # Prune expired volumes
Volume Retention = 31 days # one Moth
}
# Scratch pool definition
Pool {
Name = Scratch
Pool Type = Backup
}
#
# Restricted console used by tray-monitor to get the status of the director
#
Console {
Name = backuphost-1-mon
Password = "LastFMalsostorePasswordsLikeThis"
CommandACL = status, .status
}
bacula-sd.conf
#
# Default Bacula Storage Daemon Configuration file
#
Storage { # definition of myself
Name = backuphost-1-sd
SDPort = 9103 # Director's port
WorkingDirectory = "/var/lib/bacula"
Pid Directory = "/var/run/bacula"
Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 20
SDAddress = 0.0.0.0
# SDAddress = 127.0.0.1
}
#
# List Directors who are permitted to contact Storage daemon
#
Director {
Name = backuphost-1-dir
Password = "passwordslinplaintext"
}
#
# Restricted Director, used by tray-monitor to get the
# status of the storage daemon
#
Director {
Name = backuphost-1-mon
Password = "totalinsecurityabound"
Monitor = yes
}
Device {
Name = FileStorage
Media Type = File
Archive Device = /srv/bacula/archive
LabelMedia = yes; # lets Bacula label unlabeled media
Random Access = Yes;
AutomaticMount = yes; # when device opened, read it
RemovableMedia = no;
AlwaysOpen = no;
}
Autochanger {
Name = SpectraLogic
Device = Drive-1
Device = Drive-2
Changer Command = "/etc/bacula/scripts/mtx-changer %c %o %S %a %d"
Changer Device = /dev/sg4
}
Device {
Name = Drive-1
Drive Index = 0
Archive Device = /dev/nst0
Changer Device = /dev/sg4
Media Type = LTO5
AutoChanger = yes
RemovableMedia = yes;
AutomaticMount = yes;
AlwaysOpen = yes;
RandomAccess = no;
LabelMedia = yes
}
Device {
Name = Drive-2
Drive Index = 1
Archive Device = /dev/nst1
Changer Device = /dev/sg4
Media Type = LTO5
AutoChanger = yes
RemovableMedia = yes;
AutomaticMount = yes;
AlwaysOpen = yes;
RandomAccess = no;
LabelMedia = yes
}
#
# Send all messages to the Director,
# mount messages also are sent to the email address
#
Messages {
Name = Standard
director = backuphost-1-dir = all
}
bacula-fd.conf
#
# Default Bacula File Daemon Configuration file
#
#
# List Directors who are permitted to contact this File daemon
#
Director {
Name = backuphost-1-dir
Password = "hahahahahaha"
}
#
# Restricted Director, used by tray-monitor to get the
# status of the file daemon
#
Director {
Name = backuphost-1-mon
Password = "hohohohohho"
Monitor = yes
}
#
# "Global" File daemon configuration specifications
#
FileDaemon { # this is me
Name = backuphost-1-fd
FDport = 9102 # where we listen for the director
WorkingDirectory = /var/lib/bacula
Pid Directory = /var/run/bacula
Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 20
#FDAddress = 127.0.0.1
FDAddress = 0.0.0.0
}
# Send all messages except skipped files back to Director
Messages {
Name = Standard
director = backuphost-1-dir = all, !skipped, !restored
}
