Marco, In this email I will reference information from the bacula 15.x manual. See link below. https://www.bacula.org/15.0.x-manuals/en/main/Automatic_Volume_Recycling.html
>From the 15.x manual, PDF section 31.2, Pruning Directives: AutoPrune = <yes∣no> If AutoPrune is set to yes (default), Bacula will automatically apply the Volume retention period when running a Job and it needs a new Volume but no appendable volumes are available. At that point, Bacula will prune all Volumes that can be pruned (i.e. AutoPrune set) in an attempt to find a usable volume. If during the autoprune, all files are pruned from the Volume, it will be marked with VolStatus Purged. The default is yes. Note, that although the File and Job records may be pruned from the catalog, a Volume will be marked Purged (and hence ready for recycling) if the Volume status is Append, Full, Used, or Error. *If the Volume has another status, such as Archive,* Read-Only, Disabled, Busy, or Cleaning, *the Volume status will not be changed to Purged.* [snip] Once a job has been pruned, you can still restore it from the backup Volume, provided that the Volume has not been recycled, but one additional step is required: scanning the volume with bscan. [snip] *I take this to mean that the volumes with status 'archive', all associated jobs and file records will still be pruned from the catalog if they are past their retention period, but the volume won't be reused. What was your experience when actually working with a volume with status 'archive'?* I think that one way to 'lock' retention for certain media is to set the volume and associated job retention (and maybe file retention) to some large value (like 1000Y). Please note that if you set volume retention to a very long period but jobs all expire, the volume will still be recycled (unless you set 'recycle = no' on the volume). I think manually setting job and file retention to a greater period than originally used for many jobs on a given volume could be complicated and difficult. *I am not sure it is possible to extend the retention of a job / file record after the job has ran.* I think there are easier ways, but not ones that preserve your catalog entries for jobs and file records past their configured retention periods. You could also set recycle = no on the volumes in question after the volume is labeled. This would not allow recycling, but I think this is almost the same as setting volume status 'archive' since a Volume must be marked as 'recycled' or 'purged' in order to be recycled. You could set 'recycle = no' on all your pools, but you would need to manually recycle expired volumes. This change would probably not apply to previously labeled volumes unless you updated the volumes in bconsole. Probably not what you want unless you're absolutely certain this is preferred for you. Please keep in mind that if you make changes to pools or jobs in the configuration, these changes will not be applied to jobs that already ran, or volumes there were already labeled / used (maybe moving a volume from one pool to another might 'refresh' the settings on the volume to apply the settings from the new pool). The manual says you can update a volume's settings from pool settings using 'update volume from pool' (I haven't tested this). Default file, job, and volume retention periods are specified in the bacula code. A file / job retention period can be specified in the client resource, and these override the defaults. File, job, and volume retention periods can be specified in the pool resource, and these override retention specified anywhere else. File records are not necessary to restore a job from a volume, but the entire job must be restored if you are missing the file records. A volume with no more jobs will be recycled even if the volume retention has not expired unless auto-prune or recycle are set to 'no'. *In short, I think volume status = archive should have kept the target volume from being recycled, but wouldn't have preserved any job or file records that passed their retention period. *If you need to restore from a volume in such a state, I recommend you add its contents to the bacula catalog using the bscan tool. You could also examine its contents using 'bls /path/to/volume' (to see all contents) or 'bls -j /path/to/volume' (to see just job listings). You should also be able to manually extract the data in the volume without bacula's assistance using bextract. Regards, Robert Gerber 402-237-8692 r...@craeon.net On Fri, May 2, 2025 at 6:11 AM Marco Gaiarin <g...@lilliput.linux.it> wrote: > > There's some way to 'lock' metadata/catalog retention for a media? > > I supposed that put a media in 'Archive' state (before catalog retention > expire) suffices, but seems not... > > > Thanks. > > -- > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Bacula-users mailing list > Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users >
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