Create Bacula cloud storage

Create Bacula cloud storage#

To write Bacula backups you need to have Bacula storage. The Bacula storage is the destination place where backups are written.

After fresh installing Bacula, in the Bacula configuration there is not any cloud storage settings ready to use. This chapter will help you to configure the cloud storage.

What is required?#

  • Bacularis version 4.3.0 or greater.

  • Cloud storage account to store backups.

  • Bacula cloud storage plugin installed in the Bacula Storage Daemon.

  • Local disk storage path where you want to store Bacula backups locally.

  • Bacula Storage Daemon installed on the host with the storage path.

  • If the Storage Daemon is in remote location for the web interface, then on that remote host the Bacularis API needs to be installed and configured.

How to do it?#

Preparation#

Before starting the Bacula cloud storage configuration in Bacularis, you need to prepare the local storage path. This directory is needed because the cloud plugin stores backup data locally before sending them to the cloud.

To prepare the local path, please check what system user and group your Bacula Storage Daemon uses to work. You can do it for example by this command executed in the console:

ps -o user,group,comm -C bacula-sd

In result you can see for example:

USER    GROUP    COMMAND
bacula  tape     bacula-sd

Once you know the user and group, you can create the destination storage directory with valid ownership. In this example we used /var/lib/bacula-storage path, but the path can be different, adapted to your needs.

mkdir -m 750 /var/lib/bacula-storage
chown bacula:tape /var/lib/bacula-storage

Now the local storage path is ready to use by the Bacula Storage Daemon.

In the Bacularis web interface please go to the Storage page available in the main menu, then click the Add cloud storage button. This action will direct you to the new cloud storage wizard.

Step 1 - General#

In the wizard please fill the new storage name (and optional description).

If you have more API hosts than one, then in the Storage Daemon API host field you need to choose the API host with the Storage Daemon installed. If you have only one API host instance, this field will not be displayed.

On the question What storage type would you like to create? you can choose:

  • Single cloud device storage - that is simple single Bacula device.

  • Multi-device cloud storage (Autochanger) - this is the full virtual autochanger with many drives. It is more flexible solution than single cloud device storage.

Step 2 - Storage#

On the next wizard step if you chose the autochanger storage option before, now you will be able to set how many backup/restore drives and how many restore reserved drives should the autochanger have.

On the question Where should storage store local backup data (local cache)? in the text field please type previously prepared path (in this example it is /var/lib/bacula-storage).

On the question What is the storage media type? please define desired media type name. It can be any string that in case cloud storage shoud be unique for every new cloud storage that uses a new local storage path.

Step 3 - Cloud#

On the next wizard step on the question What is your cloud type? in the driver field please choose your cloud provider.

On the question What are connection parameters of your cloud? please fill required fields. These parameters will enable the cloud plugin to connect to your cloud account.

On the question When would you like to send data to cloud? please choose the best option for you.

Don’t forget to review the advanced options to see if your cloud requires setting any of these options.

Step 4 - Summary#

On the last wizard step please review the wizard summary and finalize the wizard. You will be asked about allowing Bacularis to restart the Bacula Storage component.

Important notes#

If during finalizing the wizard you do not allow Bacularis to restart the Bacula Storage component, all the new Bacula cloud storage configuration will be created but it will not be ready to use until the Storage Daemon restart. It is because to apply new storage configuration the Storage Daemon needs to be restarted.

The Storage Daemon can be restarted at the end of the new cloud storage wizard or it can be done later on the storage details page. You can go to the storage details page using the following path:

[Main menu] => [Page: Storage] => [Select storage in table] => [Button: Details]

Video guide#

Here you can watch the video guide that shows installing Bacula cloud storage with the Bacularis new storage wizard.