I'm currently testing Bacula on my site.  CentOS4, Bacula 1.36.3, built RPM
packages from SRPM.  The only small change to original spec file was removal of
mtx utilities.  CentOS, FC, RHEL (probably RH7.3 too) already have mtx package
with all the needed utilities.

I did several backups, and one restore.  On restore, I got a strange thing. 
Most of the directories were restored with totally insane (for directory) file
permission 0744 (drwxr--r--).  Needless to say, such system was next to
unusable.

One of the resons could be that I was doing full restore onto empty partitions
(I botted from Red Hat install CD into rescue mode, created/mounted file
systems under /mnt/sysimage, copied over bacula-fd and its config file).

Reading the docs, they say that in case of differing /etc/passwd and /etc/group
files (like restoring on different system, which is probably similar to "boot
from rescue CD into empty system"), Bacula will do "the best it can".  I kind
of expected that all file permissions will be restored to their original, and
that numeric ownerships would be assigned to the files (it was my
interpretation of "the best it can").

Than I attempted this workaround, first restoring /etc/passwd and /etc/group
files, copied them to the /etc directory of rescue CD image (not to be confused
with /mnt/sysimage/etc directory), and than did restore.  This time all files
were restored correctly (checked with "rpm -Va" after reboot).

The thing that cofueses me is that even the directories owned by user root,
group root (which were present in /etc/passwd and /etc/group files on Red Hat
rescue CD) were restored incorrectly on first attempt, and on second attempt
they were restored correctly.

This seems to put some serious limitations on Bacula's restores.  What if I had
users/groups stored in non-local databases?  Such as for example NIS, NIS+ or
LDAP?  Those are usually not available if I boot into rescue mode from
installation CD.  Would I be simply toasted in that case with no way out?

Hmmm...  Is there a way to tell Bacula to simply restore using numeric UIDs and
GIDs for files, and set permissions to their original, ignoring whatever
/etc/passwd and group files are currently on the system?

I used Red Hat rescue CD, since the CD built by Bacula (for bare metal restores)
was not usable (2.6 kernel, Bacula insisted on old (from kernel 2.4 days)
/etc/modules.conf, I have /etc/modprobe.conf), and probably failed to boot for
other stuff).  Even if that CD worked, does the problem I got means I would
need to rebuild Bacula's restore CD each and every time passwd or group file
changes?  And again, what about non-local users/accounts (NIS, NIS+, LDAP)?

One more question.  After restore, Bacula sent out *very* lenghty email listing
all files restored.  Not the best idea on full restore of the system (200,000+
files).  It was one huuuuuge email.  Is it possible to instruct it to be a bit
less verbose (like giving just a short summary)?

Sorry if some of the questions are too much "newbee type of questions".

Thanks,
Aleksandar Milivojevic

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