Basic information

API capabilities

Bacularis Web works with Bacularis API hosts. One Bacularis Web can manage many Bacularis API hosts using the same one web interface. The API hosts can be installed in remote locations and they are responsible for doing the following tasks:

• configure Bacula components like: director, file daemon, storage daemon or bconsole.

• autochanger management with actions like: load, unload, label with/without barcodes, transfer tapes between slots and others.

• start, stop and restart Bacula components

• get information from the Bacula catalog database about jobs, volumes, clients, pools, filesets and others.

• run bconsole commands like estimate, prune, purge, status, run and others

• manage Bacula software install/upgrade/uninstall Bacula components like director, file daemon, storage daemon or bconsole

• run plugins for Bacula Bacularis provides plugins to work with Bacula

The listed above API functions can be enabled/disabled independently of other functions. This way there is possible to compose API hosts tailored to current needs. For example if you have a host with Bacula storage daemon and you would like to manage the storage daemon configuration then you can install Bacularis API on this host, enable the storage daemon configuration capability and connect this Bacularis API host to Bacularis Web. After that you will be able to manage the remote storage daemon configuration from the Bacularis Web interface.

Below is listed what is needed to enable each of the API capabilities:

• configure Bacula components - there is needed to have the following Bacula JSON tools:

  • For director it is program called bdirjson

  • For storage daemon it is program called bsdjson

  • For file daemon it is program called bfdjson

  • For bconsole it is program called bbconsjson

  Paths for them have to be defined in Bacularis API on the Settings page in the Config tab.

• autochanger management - you can add on the Bacularis API web panel devices, that will be managed by this API host. Also optionally you can enable access to the catalog database to get detailed information about volumes in the autochanger device view. Both the devices and the catalog access are possible to setup on the Bacularis API Settings page.

• start, stop and restart Bacula components - these capabilities are called in Bacularis API as “Actions” and to enable them you will need to define in the API panel the commands used in your system to start, stop or restart Bacula component. For example it can be systemd specific systemctl command any other, which is capable to do required action. Actions can be defined in Bacularis API on the Settings page in the Actions tab.

• get information from the Bacula catalog database - to setup the catalog access you need to define in the API panel the Bacula database connection parameters. It can be done in Bacularis API on the Settings page in the Catalog tab.

• run bconsole commands - to enable the bconsole capability in Bacularis API you need to define bconsole program and bconsole configuration file. You can define it on the Bacularis API Settings page in the Console tab.

• manage Bacula components - to be able install/upgrade/uninstall via API the Bacula director, storage daemon, file daemon or bconsole. If you deployed the API using Bacularis Web deployment function, all these fields are set automatically from the OS profile defined in the Bacularis Web.

• run plugins for Bacula - plugins needs to be configured to be able to work. Plugins don’t work without the configuration or when configuration exists but plugins are not enabled.

Host connection

Each configured Bacularis API host can be connected to the Bacularis Web interface. Host binding is realized the same way for local and remote hosts. In communication between Bacularis API and Bacularis Web there is no difference if host is local or remote because all are treated the same. Also all of them use HTTP(S) protocol to communicate.

In normal work Bacularis Web requires that first added Bacularis API instance must provide miminum the catalog and the bconsole capabilities. This instance on the Bacularis Web side is named “Main” and it is added during the Bacularis Web installation (in the installation wizard). Each next the Bacularis API instance added to Bacularis Web does not have this type restriction.

Bacula configuration

If you decide to enable in the Bacularis API the configuration capability for some of the Bacula components, then you will be able to configure these components via the Bacularis Web interface. You will see new configuration functions available on the interface like edit, create and delete Bacula component configuration.

All changes introduced in configuration by the Bacularis Web interface are at the same time applied on the host with the Bacula component for which the configuration belongs to. It means that saving all configuration changes is done in a synchronous way and they are real time changes. In moment, when Bacularis administrator clicks save button, changes are sent directly to remote host. On Bacularis Web host is not stored any Bacula component configuration.

After successful saving Bacula configuration if changes were done for director component, there is automatically reloaded the Bacula director configuration. For other components to refresh configuration there is needed to restart the component using Bacularis actions function or restart it manually in the command line.