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The Bacula Console Restore CommandGeneralBelow, we will discuss restoring files with the Console Restore command, which is the recommended way of doing it. However, there is a standalone program named bextract, which also permits restoring files. For more information on this program, please see the Bacula Utility Programs chapter of this manual. There is also a program named bscan documented in the same Bacula Utility Programs chapter that permits restoring a catalog database from tapes.In general, to restore a file or a set of files, you must run a restore job. That is a job with Type = Restore. As a consequence, you should have a predefined restore job in your bacula-dir.conf (Director's config) file. The exact parameters (Client, FileSet, ...) that you define are not important as you can either modify them manually before running the job or if you use the restore command, explained below, they will be automatically set for you. Since Bacula is a network backup program, you must be aware that when you restore files, it is up to you to ensure that you or Bacula have selected the correct Client and the correct location for restoring those files. Bacula will quite willingly backup client A, and restore it by sending the files to a different directory on client B. Normally, you will want to avoid this, but assuming the operating systems are not too different in their file structures, this should work perfectly well, if so desired. The Restore CommandThe restore command in the Console program allows you to first select one or more Jobs (JobIds) to be restored using various methods, explained below. Once the JobIds are selected, the File records for those Jobs are placed in an internal Bacula directory tree, and the restore enters a file selection mode that allows you to interactively walk up and down the file tree selecting individual files to be restored. This mode is somewhat similar to the standard Unix restore program's interactive file selection mode.Within the Console program, after entering the restore command, you are presented with the following selection prompt: First you select one or more JobIds that contain files to be restored. You will be presented several methods of specifying the JobIds. Then you will be allowed to select which files from those JobIds are to be restored. To select the JobIds, you have the following choices: 1: List last 20 Jobs run 2: List Jobs where a given File is saved 3: Enter list of JobIds to select 4: Enter SQL list command 5: Select the most recent backup for a client 6: Cancel Select item: (1-6):
As an example, suppose that we select item 5. It will then ask for the desired Client, which on my system, will print the all the Clients found in the database as follows: Defined clients: 1: Rufus 2: Matou 3: Polymatou 4: Minimatou 5: Minou 6: MatouVerify 7: PmatouVerify 8: RufusVerify 9: Watchdog Select Client (File daemon) resource (1-9):I enter Rufus, and Bacula needs to know what FileSet is to be restored, so it prompts with: The defined FileSet resources are: 1: Full Set i7/6gj+3j/QTsV+Ukx/xsB 2: Kerns Files qi@s8kuw7/SRvM@Vxm/vaN Select FileSet resource (1-2):To which, I choose item 1, which is my full backup. Note, the items that follow your FileSet names are an MD5 signature of the contents of the FileSet. In fact, the FileSet ID will change each time you edit the FileSet definition. As a consequence, it is possible to have two "Full Set" entries above, but each one will have a different MD5 signature. You are urged to change your FileSet name every time you change the contents to avoid any confusion of the name. At this point, Bacula has all the information it needs to find the most recent set of backups. It will then query the database, which may take a bit of time, and it will come up with something like the following. Note, some of the columns are truncated here for presentation: +-------+------+----------+------------------+-------------+---------+----------+------------+ | JobId | Levl | JobFiles | StartTime | VolumeName | StrtFil | VolSesId | VolSesTime | +-------+------+----------+------------------+-------------+---------+----------+------------+ | 1,792 | F | 128,374 | 2002-08-03 01:58 | DLT-19Jul02 | 67 | 18 | 1028042998 | | 1,792 | F | 128,374 | 2002-08-03 01:58 | DLT-04Aug02 | 0 | 18 | 1028042998 | | 1,797 | I | 254 | 2002-08-04 13:53 | DLT-04Aug02 | 5 | 23 | 1028042998 | | 1,798 | I | 15 | 2002-08-05 01:05 | DLT-04Aug02 | 6 | 24 | 1028042998 | +-------+------+----------+------------------+-------------+---------+----------+------------+ You have selected the following JobId: 1792,1792,1797 Building directory tree for JobId 1792 ... Building directory tree for JobId 1797 ... Building directory tree for JobId 1798 ... cwd is: / $Depending on the number of JobFiles for each JobId, the Building directory tree ..." can take a bit of time. In our example, Bacula found four Jobs that comprise the most recent backup of the specified Client and FileSet. Two of the Jobs have the same JobId because it that Job wrote on two different Volumes. The third Job was an incremental backup to the previous Full backup, and it only saved 254 Files compared to 128,374 for the Full backup. The fourth Job was also an incremental backup that saved 15 files. Next Bacula entered those Jobs into the directory tree, and as a default marks all files to be restored, tells you how many files are in the tree then tells you that the current working directory (cwd) is /. Finally, Bacula prompts with the dollar sign ($) to indicate that you may enter commands to move around the directory tree and to select files. Instead of choosing item 5 on the first menu (Select the most recent backup for a client), if we had chosen item 3 (Enter list of JobIds to select) and we had entered the JobIds 1792,1797,1798 we would have arrived at the same point. While in file selection mode, you can enter help or a question mark (?) to produce a summary of the available commands: Command Description ======= =========== mark mark file for restoration unmark unmark file for restoration cd change current directory pwd print current working directory ls list current directory dir list current directory count count marked files find find files done leave file selection mode exit exit = done help print help ? print helpAs a default Bacula has selected all the files in the directory tree. If you want to do a full restore, simply enter done, and Bacula will write the bootstrap records to a file and request your approval to start a restore job. If instead, you wish to start with an empty slate (i.e. no jobs marked for restoration), simply enter unmark *. Otherwise, you can simply start looking at the tree and unmark particular files or directories if you do not want them restored. To check what is marked or not marked, enter the count command, which displays: 128401 total files. 128401 marked for restoration.Each of the above commands will be described in more detail in the next section. We continue with the above example, having accepted to restore all files as Bacula set by default. On entering the done command, Bacula prints: Bootstrap records written to /home/kern/bacula/working/restore.bsr The restore job will require the following Volumes: DLT-19Jul02 DLT-04Aug02 128401 files selected to restore. Run Restore job JobName: kernsrestore Bootstrap: /home/kern/bacula/working/restore.bsr Where: /tmp/bacula-restores Replace: always FileSet: Kerns Files Client: Rufus Storage: SDT-10000 JobId: *None* OK to run? (yes/mod/no):The above assumes that you have defined a Restore Job resource in your Director's configuration file. Normally, you will only need one Restore Job resource definition because by its nature, restoring is a manual operation, and using the Console interface, you will be able to modify the Restore Job to do what you want. An example Restore Job resource definition is given below. Returning to the example, you should verify that the Client name is correct before running the Job. However, you may want to modify some of the parameters of the restore job. For example, in addition to checking the Client it is wise to check that the Storage device chosen by Bacula is indeed correct. Although the FileSet is shown, it will be ignored in restore. The restore will choose the files to be restored either by reading the Bootstrap file, or if not is specified, it will restore all files associated with the specified backup JobId (i.e. the JobId of the Job that originally backed up the files). Finally before running the job, please note that the default location for restoring files is not their original locations, rather the directory /tmp/bacula-restores. You can change this default by modifying your bacula-dir.conf file, or you can modify it using the mod option. If you want to restore the files to their original location, you must have Where set to nothing or to the root, i.e. /. If you now enter yes, Bacula will run the restore Job. The Storage daemon will first request Volume DLT-19Jul02 and after the appropriate files have been restored from that volume, it will request Volume DLT-04Aug02. Example Restore Job ResourceJob { Name = "RestoreFiles" Type = Restore Client = Any-client FileSet = "Any-FileSet" Storage = Any-storage Where = /tmp/bacula-restores Messages = Standard Pool = Default }If Where is not specified, the default location for restoring files will be their original locations. File Selection CommandsAfter you have selected the Jobs to be restored and Bacula has created the in-memory directory tree, you will enter file selection mode as indicated by the dollar sign ($) prompt. While in this mode, you may use the commands listed above. The basic idea is to select the files that you want restored. As a default all files are marked for restoration. If you wish to start with no files, simply enter: unmark *. Then proceed to select the files you wish to restore by marking them with the mark command. The available commands are:
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