Feature Request: PostgreSQL Backup Plugin

michaeldolzani

Hello,

I’m currently using Bacularis with Bacula Community and have noticed that while there are official plugins for MariaDB and MySQL, there’s no equivalent for PostgreSQL.

Would it be possible to implement an official PostgreSQL backup plugin, similar to those available for MariaDB and MySQL?

Thank you for your attention and for the excellent work on Bacularis!

gani

Hello @michaeldolzani,

Welcome to the Bacularis user group.

Thank you for your words of appreciation. This is kind.

Thank you for this feature request. We already have plans to prepare the PostgreSQL plugin. Providing this plugin is only matter of time and resources that we will have to prepare it. Your request is helpful for us because it shows the Community demand on this plugin.

Best regards,
Marcin Haba (gani)

michaeldolzani

Hello Marcin,

Thank you very much for your kind reply — I’m glad to hear that a PostgreSQL plugin is planned!

I’d like to ask a quick follow-up question: are the current MariaDB and MySQL plugins also suitable for backing up containerized databases, or would additional steps/configuration be required in such cases?
And will the same apply to the future PostgreSQL plugin?

Thanks again for your time and support.

gani

Hello @michaeldolzani,

I don't see any problem with backing up by Bacularis plugins the containerized MariaDB and MySQL databases if there are fullfiled these requirements:

MySQL:
https://bacularis.app/doc/plugins/database/mysql-backup-plugin.html#general-requirements

MariaDB:
https://bacularis.app/doc/plugins/database/mariadb-backup-plugin.html#general-requirements

The most important is that in container with the database server has to be running the Bacula FD with Bpipe plugin and Bacularis API.

If you are intested in doing only full dump database backup, I think there can be a way to have the Bacula FD and Bacularis plugin outside containers with database server because both MySQL and MariaDB plugins provide Additional dump program option field, where can be passed for example the database server host and port parameters. I haven't tried this case, but I am pretty sure it should work for backup.

For all other MySQL and MariaDB database backup methods the Bacula FD and Bacularis API have to be installed on the host with the database server.

michaeldolzani And will the same apply to the future PostgreSQL plugin?

I don't know. It depends on many things and any work on this plugin has not been started yet. For general Bacularis approach for plugins, I am sure it will be the same - plugin interface, way of configuring on the web interface ...etc. but for the technical details I am afraid it is too early.

Best regards,
Marcin Haba (gani)

michaeldolzani

Hello Marcin,

Thank you for your reply and the detailed explanation.

I’ve tested the scenario you mentioned, using the “Additional dump program option” to specify the host and port of the MariaDB container (e.g. --host=127.0.0.1 --port=3307). In fact, the plugin command correctly includes the port in the dump command.

However, despite this, the backup still includes all databases from the MariaDB instance installed on the host, not the containerized one. It seems that, even though the correct port is passed, the dump is executed against the default MariaDB service running outside Docker on port 3306.

This suggests that the plugin is perhaps not respecting the --host=127.0.0.1 --port=3307 options as expected.

Thanks again for your help.

gani

Hello @michaeldolzani,

Thank you for your tests and feedback. I have checked this scenario on my side with MariaDB server. Below I described the details.

Multiple dump program options

To use multiple dump program options they need to be added in FileSet in the Plugin directive. I mean that to pass host and port, in the Plugin directive it needs to look like here:

--dump-option="--host=YOUR_DB_HOST" --dump-option="--port=YOUR_DB_PORT" --dump-option="--user=YOUR_DB_USER" ...etc.

By default the value from the Additional dump program option uses single --dump-option="VALUE". This is something to improve, I think.

Dump all databases in one dump

For this backup method, passing dump program options in the way as above is sufficient to do backup all dbs in one dump from remote database server. In your test it didn't work because the dump options looked like below (single dump option) or you used dump databases separately method:

--dump-option="--host=YOUR_DB_HOST --port=YOUR_DB_PORT"

Dump all database separately

For this method to backup remote database server can be used Extra file path plugin parameter.

cat /some/path/.my.cnf

[client]
host=YOUR_REMOTE_DB_SERVER_HOST
port=YOUR_REMOTE_DB_SERVER_PORT
user=YOUR_REMOTE_DB_SERVER_USER
password=YOUR_REMOTE_DB_SERVER_PWD

You can have one file per db server host and use the files in FileSets to backup the databases.

At the moment I did tests for this scenario and it works well. If you use the extra file path, the host and port in the dump program options are not needed.

Variables

If you would like to simplify all the process of creating filesets, you can use variables feature. It can work very well for this case, for example you can define the Plugin directive as below:

FileSet {
    Include {
        Plugin = "\|/usr/share/bacularis/protected/Common/Bin/plugin command/list --plugin-name="MariaDBBackup" --plugin-config="${plugin_config}" --job-id="%i" --job-name="%n" --job-level="%l" --defaults-extra-file="/some/path/${database_host}-my.cnf" --dump-method --all-databases-list --all-databases-one-dump"
    }
}

If you will create a new fileset using this config in pattern, you will be prompted to provide ${plugin_config} and ${database_host} variables, you will provide it and that is all. Your FileSetfor new database server will be ready. In this step you can also add creating Job that will use this FileSet.

All details about variables you can find here:

https://bacularis.app/doc/patterns/variables.html

Good luck!

Best regards,
Marcin Haba (gani)