[CentOS] s3 as mysql directory

[Paul Heinlein]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2012, Craig White wrote:

> On Oct 1, 2012, at 11:24 AM, Tim Dunphy wrote:
>
>> I am soliciting opinion here as opposed technical help with an idea 
>> I have. I've setup a bacula backup system on an AWS volume. Bacula 
>> stores a LOT of information in it's mysql database (in my setup, 
>> you can also use postgres or sqlite if you chose). Since I've 
>> started doing this I notice that the mysql data directory has 
>> swelled to over 700GB! That's quite a lot and its' easting up 
>> valuable disk space.
> I use Bacula and I prefer PostgreSQL over MySQL but regardless… the 
> database grows as the number of files that are backed up (without 
> purges) grows. Thus you should probably be considering some type of 
> rotation which regularly purges old backups on a regular basis.

There are two other things you can do, assuming you have time windows
between backups:

  1. Run Bacula's dbcheck utility in fix (-f) mode. My observation is
     that even with regular pruning, Bacula won't get all the kruft
     out of the MySQL tables. dbcheck is more thorough.

  2. Every one once in a while -- again, assuming you have a big
     enough time window -- it can be useful to run mysqlcheck in
     optimize (-o) mode against the Bacula database. Doing so
     cleans up the MySQL data files and can free up a lot of
     space in your filesystem.

Read the man pages before embarking on these operations and make sure
you have a known-good copy of the database in case mischief ensues
(which has never happened to me, but it's always a possibility).

-- 
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°38' N, 122°6' W