[Plugin] Bacula File Daemon (bacula-fd)

Support thread for the Bacula File Daemon plugin

Application: Bacula 15 file daemon - https://www.bacula.org

GitHub: https://github.com/vrx-666/unraid-bacula-fd

Plugin URL: https://github.com/vrx-666/unraid-bacula-fd/releases/latest/download/bacula-fd.plg

What it is

A native Bacula file daemon (bacula-fd) for Unraid.
It lets an existing Bacula Director back up the Unraid server itself - the flash drive (/boot/config), VM definitions (/etc/libvirt), appdata, shares - and restore files to their original locations.

You need a Bacula 15 Director and Storage Daemon somewhere on your network, for example the Bacula-Server container (also in CA).

Why a plugin and not a Docker container

A file daemon has to see the files it backs up. In a container every path must be bind-mounted, and restores land inside the container's view of the filesystem.
As a plugin the daemon runs on the host: it sees the whole system without mounts, restores to the original paths, and keeps ownership, permissions, ACLs and extended attributes.

Requirements

- Unraid 7.0.0 or newer

- Bacula 15 Director + Storage Daemon

Setup

1. Install the plugin. The daemon starts and listens on port 9102.

2. Settings > Network Services > Bacula File Daemon:

   set the Director name to match your Director,
   Apply, Restart.
   A random password is generated on first install.
   The config is checked before saving - if it has errors, nothing is saved and the error is shown.

3. On the Director, add a Client resource with your server's address, port 9102 and the same password.
   To keep ACLs and extended attributes, add aclsupport = yes and xattrsupport = yes to the FileSet Options.

Good to know

• Stopping the array restarts the daemon. A daemon reading files under /mnt would keep the shares
  busy and the array would never stop, so the plugin stops it when the array starts stopping
  (a running job fails) and starts it again once the array is stopped - so the flash drive can
  still be backed up.

• A job run while the array is stopped can back up an empty directory and still report "Backup OK".
  Schedule jobs for when the array is up and check the number of files.

• Updating the plugin restarts the daemon (a running job fails).

• The config lives in /boot/config/plugins/bacula-fd/ and survives updates and removal.