Installing the Bareos Server

If you are like me, you want to get Bareos running immediately to get a feel for it, then later you want to go back and read about all the details. This chapter attempts to accomplish just that: get you going quickly without all the details.

Bareos comes prepackaged for a number of Linux distributions. So the easiest way to get to a running Bareos installation, is to use a platform where prepacked Bareos packages are available. Additional information can be found in the chapter Operating Systems.

If Bareos is available as a package, only 4 steps are required to get to a running Bareos system:

  1. Decide about the Bareos release to use

  2. Install the Bareos Software Packages

  3. Prepare Bareos database

  4. Start the daemons

This will start a very basic Bareos installation which will regularly backup a directory to disk. In order to fit it to your needs, you’ll have to adapt the configuration and might want to backup other clients.

Decide about the Bareos release to use

There are different types of Bareos repositories:

  1. Bareos Subscription repositories on https://download.bareos.com/

    • Contain the repositories for the Bareos Subscription customers.

    • The last three major releases are maintained, https://download.bareos.com/bareos/release/

    • Older versions stay available.

    • While the repository can be browsed, using them do require authentication credentials, which come with a Bareos subscription.

  2. Bareos Community repositories on https://download.bareos.org/ with

For details, see Bareos Binary Release Policy.

The public key to verify a repository is also in repository directory (Release.key for Debian based distributions, repodata/repomd.xml.key for RPM based distributions).

The following code snippets are shell scripts that can be used as orientation how to download the package repositories and install Bareos packages. The release version number for bareos and the corresponding Linux distribution have to be updated for your needs, respectively.

To simplify the installation, all Linux and FreeBSD repositories on https://download.bareos.org/ and https://download.bareos.com/ contain a script named add_bareos_repositories.sh.

Download the add_bareos_repositories.sh script matching the requested Bareos release and the distribution of the target system. Copy the script onto the target system and execute it with a shell (sh) as root (e.g. using sudo) or manually perform the steps that are documented in the script.

For example the script URL Debian 11 of the community current repository is:

For Bareos Subscription customers the URL of the bareos-22 release for Debian 11 is:

  • https://download.bareos.com/bareos/release/22/Debian_11/add_bareos_repositories.sh

  • Note

    Bareos Subscription customers have credentials to authenticate against https://download.bareos.com. Some files can be accessed without authentication, but to use the repositories, authentication is mandatory. When downloading the file add_bareos_repositories.sh, it is ready to use, because it contains your personal authentication credentials. Therefore downloading this file requires authentication. If this is inconvenient, you can alternatively download add_bareos_repository_template.sh and set BAREOS_USERNAME and BAREOS_PASSWORD manually.

Install the Bareos Software Packages

The Bareos Director requires a PostgreSQL database as its catalog. The Bareos database packages have their dependencies only to the database client packages, therefore the database itself must be installed manually.

Important

Install and start a PostgreSQL database server.

The package bareos is only a meta package which contains dependencies on the main components of Bareos, see Bareos Packages. If you want to setup a distributed environment (like one Bareos Director, separate database server, multiple Bareos Storage Daemons) you have to choose the regarding Bareos packages to install on each of the hosts instead of just installing the bareos package.

Install on RedHat based Linux Distributions

RHEL and derivatives, Fedora

Bareos Version >= 15.2.0 requires the Jansson library package. On RHEL 7 it is available through the RHEL Server Optional channel.

The RHEL_* repository is for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the EL_* repositories are for RHEL derivatives, like AlmaLinux, CentOS Stream, Oracle and Rocky Linux. These repositories are automatically tested against several of this distributions.

Download the matching add_bareos_repositories.sh script from https://download.bareos.com/bareos/release/, https://download.bareos.org/current/ or https://download.bareos.com/next/, copy it to the target system and execute it:

Shell example script for Bareos installation on Fedora, RHEL and RHEL derivatives (EL)
root@host:~# sh ./add_bareos_repositories.sh
root@host:~# yum install bareos

If authentication credentials are required (https://download.bareos.com) they are stored within the repo file /etc/yum.repos.d/bareos.repo.

Install on SUSE based Linux Distributions

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), openSUSE

Download the matching add_bareos_repositories.sh script from https://download.bareos.com/bareos/release/, https://download.bareos.org/current/ or https://download.bareos.com/next/, copy it to the target system and execute it:

Shell example script for Bareos installation on SLES / openSUSE
root@host:~# sh ./add_bareos_repositories.sh
root@host:~# zypper install bareos

If authentication credentials are required (https://download.bareos.com) they are stored in the file /etc/zypp/credentials.d/bareos.

Install on Debian based Linux Distributions

Debian / Ubuntu / Univention Corporate Server (UCS)

Download the matching add_bareos_repositories.sh script from https://download.bareos.com/bareos/release/, https://download.bareos.org/current/ or https://download.bareos.com/next/, copy it to the target system and execute it:

Shell example script for Bareos installation on Debian / Ubuntu / UCS
root@host:~# sh ./add_bareos_repositories.sh
root@host:~# apt update
root@host:~# apt install bareos

The add_bareos_repositories.sh script will:

  • Create a Bareos signature key file /etc/apt/keyrings/bareos-*.gpg.

  • Create the Bareos repository configuration file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bareos.sources

    • This file refers to the Bareos repository on the download server and to the local /etc/apt/keyrings/bareos-*.gpg file.

  • If authentication credentials are required (https://download.bareos.com) they are stored in the file /etc/apt/auth.conf.d/download_bareos_com.conf.

Univention Corporate Server

The Univention Corporate Server (UCS) is an enterprise Linux distribution based on Debian.

Earlier releases (Bareos < 21, UCS < 5.0) offered extended integration into UCS and provided its software also via the Univention App Center. With version 5.0 of the UCS App Center the method of integration changed requiring commercially not reasonable efforts for deep integration.

Bareos continues to support UCS with the same functionality as the other Linux distributions.

During the build process, Bareos Debian 10 packages are automatically tested on an UCS 5.0 system. Only packages that passes this acceptance test, will get released by the Bareos project.

Note

While Bareos offers a software repository for UCS >= 5, this repository is identical with the corresponding Debian repository. The included APT sources file will also refer to the Debian repository.

Install on FreeBSD based Distributions

Download the matching add_bareos_repositories.sh script from https://download.bareos.com/bareos/release/, https://download.bareos.org/current/ or https://download.bareos.com/next/, copy it to the target system and execute it:

Shell example script for Bareos installation on FreeBSD
root@host:~# sh ./add_bareos_repositories.sh

## install Bareos packages
root@host:~# pkg install --yes bareos.com-director bareos.com-storage bareos.com-filedaemon bareos.com-database-postgresql bareos.com-bconsole

The add_bareos_repositories.sh script will:

  • Create the Bareos repository configuration file /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/bareos.conf.

  • If authentication credentials are required (https://download.bareos.com) they are stored inside the Bareos repository configuration file.

Prepare Bareos database

We assume that you already have your PostgreSQL database server installed and basically running.

For details, see chapter Catalog Maintenance.

Debian based Linux Distributions

Since Bareos Version >= 14.2.0 the Debian (and Ubuntu) based packages support the dbconfig-common mechanism to create and update the Bareos database.

Follow the instructions during install to configure it according to your needs.

../_images/dbconfig-1-enable.png

If you decide not to use dbconfig-common (selecting <No> on the initial dialog), follow the instructions for Other Platforms.

For details see dbconfig-common (Debian).

Other Platforms

If your PostgreSQL administration user is postgres (default), use the following commands:

Setup Bareos catalog with PostgreSQL
su postgres -c /usr/lib/bareos/scripts/create_bareos_database
su postgres -c /usr/lib/bareos/scripts/make_bareos_tables
su postgres -c /usr/lib/bareos/scripts/grant_bareos_privileges

Start the daemons

Please remark, the Bareos Daemons need to have access to the TCP ports 9101-9103.

Linux

Depending on the Linux distribution, the name of the Bareos services either correspond to the package names (Debian and derivatives) or to the binary names (e.g. RPM based distributions).

To enable and start the daemon, either use

Enable and start the Bareos Daemons (Debian/Ubuntu/UCS)
root@host:~# systemctl enable --now bareos-director.service
root@host:~# systemctl enable --now bareos-storage.service
root@host:~# systemctl enable --now bareos-filedamon.service

or

Enable and start the Bareos Daemons (RPM based distributions)
root@host:~# systemctl enable --now bareos-dir.service
root@host:~# systemctl enable --now bareos-sd.service
root@host:~# systemctl enable --now bareos-fd.service

FreeBSD

Configure Bareos on FreeBSD
## enable services
root@host:~# sysrc bareosdir_enable=YES
root@host:~# sysrc bareossd_enable=YES
root@host:~# sysrc bareosfd_enable=YES

## start services
root@host:~# service bareos-dir start
root@host:~# service bareos-sd start
root@host:~# service bareos-fd start

Now you should be able to log in to the Bareos Director using the Bareos Console.

When you want to use the Bareos WebUI, please refer to the chapter Installation.