Re: Best-practice to backup a TrueNAS server with Bacula (and maybe to use a TrueNAS as a Bacula server)

On 8/21/24 22:56, Hans-Martin Meier wrote:
> Hello everyone,

Hello.

I don't use TrueNAS, but I use FreeBSD, so I'll answer what I can, but 
take this with a grain of salt.



> I therefore installed bacula-fd on the first server in a jail via the
> BSD package sources. I had to import all my ZFS datasets individually
> into this jail

On FreeBSD I run bacula-fd on the host; if this is not possible on 
TrueNAS, I guess your approach is OK anyway.



> However, it bothers me that this way I lose all the features that the
> ZFS file system actually offers

What features are you referring to?



> me and I can't even make ZFS snapshots accessible in a jail.

On FreeBSD I just had to add "zfs.mount_snapshot=1" in the jail conf.
Not sure if this is possible on TrueNAS, however.
This is the only critical point I see in your setup.



> Would it be conceivable to switch
> from TrueNAS Core (based on BSD) to TrueNAS Scale (based on Linux) to
> get better support for Bacula?

The open source version of Bacula works very well on FreeBSD, so I'm not 
sure what improvement you could get by switching to Linux.
I don't know the two products, so I can't tell if TrueNAS Scale might 
have better features than TrueNAS Core in general.
If you want to buy the Enterprise version of Bacula, that might change a 
lot, of course.



> Currently I have
> installed the server components of Bacula in a Debian virtual machine on

I always run the "server" part of Bacula in a jail without any hassle; 
that might be more efficient than a VM.



> the TrueNAS and deployed the file storage for the bacula-sd via NFS
> export from the TrueNAS. This also works in principle, and I have also
> imported the tape drive into the virtual machine. But the whole thing is
> not very fast and it seems unnecessarily complicated to me as it is at
> the moment.

I have a setup where I use NFS too, without troubles, but I would avoid 
it if it's possilble.



> Hence the question of whether it makes sense to use a TrueNAS Core as a
> system for a Bacula server or whether it would make more sense to
> replace the TrueNAS at this point? A Debian installed directly would
> have direct access to the hardware and especially the storage. What do
> you think?

I'll avoid answering this :)
It would be a far shot without knowing TrueNAS, what other services it 
runs, your expertise with both products, etc...

HTH.

  bye
	av.