[bareos-users] Always Incremental - losing full backups

[Martin Prochazka]

Hi,

i am using 16.2.4 with configured AI. Everything work as expected but one thing - moving fulls are expiring...

jobdefs/standardjob.conf
Always Incremental Job Retention = 7 days
Always Incremental Keep Number = 14
Always Incremental Max Full Age = 14 days
Incremental Backup Pool = AI-Incremental
Full Backup Pool = AI-Consolidated

jobdefs/consolidatejob.conf
Full Backup Pool = AI-Consolidated
Incremental Backup Pool = AI-Incremental

pool/incremental.conf
Volume Retention = 20 days
Next Pool = AI-Consolidated

pool/consolidate.conf
Volume Retention = 1 month
Next Pool = AI-Longterm

I need - 2 weeks of incrementals plus one full per week. Archivation works perfectly, jobs are consolidating once per week, but after 20 incrementals i lost full (=consolidated?) backup.

What parameter is calculated incorrectly?

Thank You.

[Douglas K. Rand]

Post by Martin Prochazka
Hi,

Hey

Post by Martin Prochazka
i am using 16.2.4 with configured AI. Everything work as expected but one
thing - moving fulls are expiring...
I need - 2 weeks of incrementals plus one full per week. Archivation works
perfectly, jobs are consolidating once per week, but after 20 incrementals
i lost full (=consolidated?) backup.

I think that with the always incremental scheme that you only get a single
full backup and then all of the incremental backups between the full and now().

We don't keep multiple full backups on disk, but what we do is once a week we
generate off-site tapes containing full backups (we actually turn them into
archive jobs) that roll up each client from the full and all of the
incremental backups. It lets us do an off-site backup with zero impact on the
clients, which is really nice.

Here is our job defs for those:

job defs {
name = "ai-offsite"
type = backup
level = virtual full
schedule = "offsite"
priority = 100
max run time = 6 hours
# Gotta turn "virtual full" jobs into Archive jobs so we don't try
# to use the backup for the next "virtual full" job.
run script {
console = "update jobid=%i jobtype=A"
runs when = After
runs on client = No
}
file set = "standard"
accurate = yes
messages = "standard"
write bootstrap = "/var/db/bareos/bootstrap/%n.%i.bsr"
pool = "always-incr"
full backup pool = "consolidated"
incremental backup pool = "always-incr"
catalog = "catalog"
spool attributes = yes
spool data = yes
maximum concurrent jobs = 4
next pool = "offsite"
}

This just does a virtual full backup for a client, combining the always
incremental backups along with the consolidated full backup into one single up
to date and complete full backup of the client. It reads from the pool
"always-incr" and writes to the pool "offsite".

There isn't any reason you couldn't have the virtual full backup write to a
different on-disk pool to keep multiple full backups on disk.

Although I think the better approach with always incremental would be drop the
requirements of one full backup per week. What is the difference of having
two weeks of incremental backups that are anchored with a single full backup
than having multiple full backups in that same period? All of the same files
are backed up.

[Martin Prochazka]

Post by Douglas K. Rand
Although I think the better approach with always incremental would be drop the
requirements of one full backup per week. What is the difference of having
two weeks of incremental backups that are anchored with a single full backup
than having multiple full backups in that same period? All of the same files
are backed up.

I am doing this:
(0] full backup)
1] 14 days of incrementals
2] 1x per week consolidate (saturday)
3] 1x per week virtual full archive (sunday) - from (0 +) 1] + 2]
4] 1x per month virtual full archive (the 1st day) - from 1] + 2]
5] 1x per year virtual full archive (the 1st year) - from 1] + 2]

Full backup is done on the first backup - and its limited to 20 (AI) or 30 (consolidate) days.

There is 360 days volume retention for AI and Cons in the documentation. So, where is problem, that my Full expire and isn't available? I thought its consolidate job to hold Full.