Provided by: bacula-director-mysql_5.2.6+dfsg-9.1ubuntu3_amd64 bug

NAME

        dbcheck - Bacula's Catalog Database Check/Clean program

SYNOPSIS

       dbcheck [options] working-directory bacula-database user password [dbhost] [dbport]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents briefly the dbcheck command.

       dbcheck  will  not  repair  your  database  if  it  is  broken.  Please  see your vendor's
       instructions for fixing broken database.

       dbcheck is a simple program that will search for logical  inconsistencies  in  the  Bacula
       tables  in  your database, and optionally fix them.  It is a database maintenance routine,
       in the sense that it can detect and remove unused rows, but it is not  a  database  repair
       routine.  To  repair a database, see the tools furnished by the database vendor.  Normally
       dbcheck should never need to be run, but if Bacula has  crashed  or  you  have  a  lot  of
       Clients, Pools, or Jobs that you have removed, it could be useful.

OPTIONS

       A summary of options is included below.

       -?     Show version and usage of program.

       -b     If  specified,  dbcheck  will run in batch mode, and it will proceed to examine and
              fix (if -f is set) all programmed inconsistency checks. By  default,  dbcheck  will
              enter interactive mode (see below).

       -C catalog
              catalog name in the director conf file.

       -c config
              If  the -c option is given with the Director's conf file, there is no need to enter
              any of the command line arguments, in particular the working directory  as  dbcheck
              will read them from the file.

       -B     print catalog configuration and exit.

       -d nn  set debug level to nn.

       -dt    print timestamp in debug output.

       -f     If  specified,  dbcheck will repair (fix) the inconsistencies it finds.  Otherwise,
              it will report only.

       -v     Set verbose mode.

INTERACTIVE MODE

       In interactive mode dbcheck will prompt with the following:

       Hello, this is the database check/correct program.  Please select the function you want to
       perform.
            1) Toggle modify database flag
            2) Toggle verbose flag
            3) Repair bad Filename records
            4) Repair bad Path records
            5) Eliminate duplicate Filename records
            6) Eliminate duplicate Path records
            7) Eliminate orphaned Jobmedia records
            8) Eliminate orphaned File records
            9) Eliminate orphaned Path records
           10) Eliminate orphaned Filename records
           11) Eliminate orphaned FileSet records
           12) Eliminate orphaned Client records
           13) Eliminate orphaned Job records
           14) Eliminate all Admin records
           15) Eliminate all Restore records
           16) All (3-15)
           17) Quit Select function number:

       By  entering  1  or 2, you can toggle the modify database flag (-f option) and the verbose
       flag (-v).  It can be helpful and reassuring to turn off the modify  database  flag,  then
       select one or more of the consistency checks (items 3 through 9) to see what will be done,
       then toggle the modify flag on and re-run the check.

       The inconsistencies examined are the following:

        Duplicate filename records.  This can happen if you accidentally run two
          copies of Bacula at the same time, and they are both adding filenames
          simultaneously.  It is a rare occurrence, but will create an
          inconsistent database.  If this is the case, you will receive error
          messages during Jobs warning of duplicate database records.  If you are
          not getting these error messages, there is no reason to run this check.

        Repair bad Filename records.  This checks and corrects filenames that have
          a trailing slash.  They should not.

        Repair bad Path records.  This checks and corrects path names that do not
          have a trailing slash.  They should.

        Duplicate path records.  This can happen if you accidentally run two copies
          of Bacula at the same time, and they are both adding filenames
          simultaneously.  It is a rare occurrence, but will create an
          inconsistent database.  See the item above for why this occurs and how
          you know it is happening.

        Orphaned JobMedia records.  This happens when a Job record is deleted
          (perhaps by a user issued SQL statement), but the corresponding JobMedia
          record (one for each Volume used in the Job) was not deleted.  Normally,
          this should not happen, and even if it does, these records generally do
          not take much space in your database.  However, by running this check,
          you can eliminate any such orphans.

        Orphaned File records.  This happens when a Job record is deleted (perhaps
          by a user issued SQL statement), but the corresponding File record (one
          for each Volume used in the Job) was not deleted.  Note, searching for
          these records can be very time consuming (i.e.  it may take hours) for a
          large database.  Normally this should not happen as Bacula takes care to
          prevent it.  Just the same, this check can remove any orphaned File
          records.  It is recommended that you run this once a year since orphaned
          File records can take a large amount of space in your database.  You
          might want to ensure that you have indexes on JobId, FilenameId, and
          PathId for the File table in your catalog before running this command.

        Orphaned Path records.  This condition happens any time a directory is
          deleted from your system and all associated Job records have been
          purged.  During standard purging (or pruning) of Job records, Bacula
          does not check for orphaned Path records.  As a consequence, over a
          period of time, old unused Path records will tend to accumulate and use
          space in your database.  This check will eliminate them.  It is
          recommended that you run this check at least once a year.

        Orphaned Filename records.  This condition happens any time a file is
          deleted from your system and all associated Job records have been
          purged.  This can happen quite frequently as there are quite a large
          number of files that are created and then deleted.  In addition, if you
          do a system update or delete an entire directory, there can be a very
          large number of Filename records that remain in the catalog but are no
          longer used.

          During standard purging (or pruning) of Job records, Bacula does not
          check for orphaned Filename records.  As a consequence, over a period of
          time, old unused Filename records will accumulate and use space in your
          database.  This check will eliminate them.  It is strongly recommended
          that you run this check at least once a year, and for large database
          (more than 200 Megabytes), it is probably better to run this once every
          6 months.

        Orphaned Client records.  These records can remain in the database long
          after you have removed a client.

        Orphaned Job records.  If no client is defined for a job or you do not run
          a job for a long time, you can accumulate old job records.  This option
          allow you to remove jobs that are not attached to any client (and thus
          useless).

        All Admin records. This command will remove all Admin records,
          regardless of their age.

        All Restore records. This command will remove all Restore records,
          regardless of their age.

       By the way, I personally run dbcheck only where I have messed up my database due to a  bug
       in developing Bacula code, so normally you should never need to run dbcheck inspite of the
       recommendations given above, which are given so that users don't waste their time  running
       dbcheck too often.

SEE ALSO

       bls(1), bextract(1).

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Jose Luis Tallon <jltallon@adv-solutions.net>.