After successfully installing the Adaptec SCSI 320 card (and running out of PCI-E slots..) and connecting the ‘new’ HP LTO-3 tape drive, I have been enjoying the deja-vu feeling of using SCSI again, after many years…       I remember the pre-USB and pre-Firewire days, when CD-drives and scanners (and expensive disks) were all connected using SCSI… Printers – of course – used parallel port connections, and I actually have a very early HP digital camera that used an RS232 connection!

There seem to be only two ‘sophisticated’ apps for tape backup on Linux – Amanda and Bacula.    Unless you want to pay $$ for the commercial (Zamanda) version, Amanda is strictly command-line only, and (IMHO) byzantine…     Bacula is also byzantine, but at least has some graphical interfaces (albeit for operation, not configuration) and a module for webmin.    Yes, I know what the ‘T’ in TAR stands for, but really wanted something a bit more sophisticated!

So — I have opted to use Bacula..

After a lot of messing around with the FAQs and website config help for Bacula, I have finally got round the hieroglyphic password and connection errors, and got a (simple) config to work..    The classic catch-22 is that the graphical console (bat) won’t run until the config files are ‘correct’, so a lot of trial, error, and debug modes ensued..

After some more ‘educated guesswork’ – and establishing that not all webmin functions have taken account of systemd, yet – I now have a working configuration, and have tested a short backup onto the HP LTO-3 drive..