Installing Bacula Client on Each Guest

Bacula Enterprise Only

This solution is only available for Bacula Enterprise. For subscription inquiries, please reach out to sales@baculasystems.com.

This strategy protects virtual machines at the file level instead of using the RHV Plugin for image-level backup. Install a Bacula Enterprise File Daemon on every guest virtual machine and manage each guest in the same way as a physical server.

Because guest virtual machines may share the same compute, storage, and network resources in the RHV environment, running all backup jobs at the same time can create a bottleneck. Use Schedules, Job Priorities, and the Maximum Concurrent Jobs directives to distribute backup activity across the available backup window.

Installing a Bacula Enterprise File Daemon on each guest provides Bacula Enterprise file-level capabilities, including:

Fast restore of individual files.
Checksums of individual files for integrity monitoring and malware-detection workflows.
Verify Jobs.
File and directory exclusions, such as swap and temporary files.
File-level compression.
Application-specific backup and restore capabilities available through Bacula plugins installed in the guest.

This approach introduces a File Daemon configuration and backup job for every protected guest, but provides granular control over the data selected for backup. It can be used independently or together with RHV image-level backups. A combined strategy can provide rapid recovery of an entire virtual machine as well as granular, application-aware protection where required.