
#include "bacula_template.inc" title="Critical Items Before Production" num=8

<h1>Critical Items to Implement Before Going Production</h1>

<h2>General</h2>
We recommend you take your time before implementing a Bacula backup
system since Bacula is a rather complex program, and if you make a
mistake, you may suddenly find that you cannot restore the your files
in case of a disaster. This is especially true if you have not previously
used a major backup product.
<p>
If you follow the instructions in this chapter, you will have covered
most of the major problems that can occur. It goes without saying that
if ever you find that we have left out an important point, please
point it out to us, so that we can document it to the benefit of everyone.


<h2>Critical Items</h2>
The following assumes that you have installed Bacula, you more or less
understand it, you have at least worked through the tutorial or have
equivalent experience, and that you have setup a basic production configuration.
If you haven't done the above, please do so then come back here. The following
is a sort of checklist that points you elsewhere in the manual with perhaps
a brief explaination of why you should do it. The order is more or less the
order you would use in setting up a production system (if you already are
in production, use the checklist anyway).
<ul>
 <li>Test your tape drive with compatibility with Bacula by using the
   test command in the <a href="progs.html#btape">btape</a> program.</li>
 <li>Better than doing the above is to walk through the nine steps in the
     <a href="tapetesting.html">Tape Testing</a> chapter of the manual. It
     may take you a bit of time, but it will eliminate surprises.</li>
 <li>Make sure that /lib/tls is disabled. Bacula does not work with this
     library. See the second point under <a href="supported.html#SupportedOSes">
     Supported Operating Systems.</a></li>
 <li>Do at least one restore of files. If you backup both Unix and Win32 systems,
     restore files from each system type. The <a href="restore.html">Restoring
     Files</a> chapter shows you how.</li>
 <li>Write a bootstrap file to a separate system for each backup job.
     The Write Bootstrap directive is described in the 
     <a href="dirdconf.html#writebootstrap">Director Configuration</a>
     chapter of the manual, and more details are available in the
     <a href="bootstrap.html">Bootstrap File</a> chapter. Also, the default
     bacula-dir.conf comes with a Write Bootstrap directive defined. This
     allows you to recover the state of your system as of the last backup.</li>
  <li>Backup your catalog. An example of this is found in the default
      bacula-dir.conf file. The backup script is installed by default and
      should handle any database, though you may want to make your own
      local modifications.</li>
  <li>Write a bootstrap file for the catalog. An example of this is found
      in the default bacula-dir.conf file. This will allow you to quickly
      restore your catalog in the event it is wiped out -- otherwise it
      is many excruciating hours of work.</li>
  <li>Make a Bacula Rescue CDROM! See the <a href="rescue.html">Disaster
      Recovery Using a Bacula Rescue CDROM</a> chapter. It is trivial to
      make such a CDROM, and it can make system recovery in the event of
      a lost hard disk infinitely easier.</li>
</ul>

      

<h2>Recommended Items</h2>
Although these items may not be critical, they are recommended and will
help you avoid problems.
<ul>
 <li>Read the <a href="quickstart.html">Quick Start Guide to Bacula</a></li>
 <li>After installing and experimenting with Bacula, read and work carefully
     through the examples in the <a href="running.html">Tutorial</a> chapter
     of this manual.</li>
 <li>Learn what each of the <a href="progs.html">Bacula Utility Programs</a>
     does.</li>
 <li>Set up reasonable retention periods so that your catalog does not
     grow to be too big. See the following three chapters:
     <a href="recycling.html">Recycling your Volumes</a>, 
     <a href="disk.html">Basic Volume Management</a>,
     <a href="pools.html">Using Pools to Manage Volumes</a>.</li>
 <li>Perform a bare metal recovery using the Bacula Rescue CDROM.
     See the <a href="rescue.html">Disaster Recovery Using a Bacula Rescue CDROM</a> chapter.
</ul>


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