This chapter will guide you through running Bacula. To do so, we assume you have installed Bacula, possibly in a single file as shown in the previous chapter, in which case, you can run Bacula as non-root for these tests. However, we assume that you have not changed the .conf files. If you have modified the .conf files, please go back and uninstall Bacula, then reinstall it, but do not make any changes. The examples in this chapter use the default configuration files, and will write the volumes to disk in your /tmp directory, in addition, the data backed up will be the source directory where you built Bacula. As a consequence, you can run all the Bacula daemons for these tests as non-root. Please note, in production, your File daemon(s) must run as root. See the Bacula Security Issues chapter for more information on this subject.
The general flow of running Bacula is:
- cd <install-directory>
- Start the Database (if using MySQL or PostgreSQL)
- Start the Daemons with ./bacula start
- Start the Console program to interact with the Director
- Run a job
- When the Volume fills, unmount the Volume, if it is a tape, label a new one, and continue running. In this chapter, we will write only to disk files so you won't need to worry about tapes for the moment.
- Test recovering some files from the Volume just written to ensure the backup is good and that you know how to recover. Better test before disaster strikes
- Add a second client.
Each of these steps is described in more detail below.
