Configuring Bacula to backup an Apple Mac to a remote backup server

Scenario:
A set of   apple MacOS desktop machine running El Capitan need to be backed up to a remote Bacula server. This post describes the steps I have taken to get the setup working.










Environment:
Backup Server: Scientific Linux 7
Bacula director: Bacula 7.0.5  Upgraded to 7.4.3
Client Machines: MacOSX El Capitan
Bacula Client : bacula-sd 7.4.3

Step 1.
Install Homebrew package manager for Mac.

Step 2.
Install bacula-fd - Bacula's File Daemon
You only need to have bacula file daemon installed on client machines.
brew install bacula-fd

Make bacula-fd daemon start at  startup.
sudo brew services start bacula-fd

Step 3.
Upgrade Bacula on the server.
RedHat repositories only have Bacula 7.0.5 binaries at the time of this post. Since the client installed by homebrew is  version 7.4.3, I believe its a good idea to upgrade the director and the storage daemon to an equal or  higher version than the client.

a. Backup your bacula configuration files on the server /etc/bacula directory.
b. Backup bacula postgres or mysql SQL database
c. Download latest Bacula source.
d. Run ./configure -with-postgresql . Other configuration options are listed here.
e. Run make and then make install
f.  Run database update script
g Copy existing configuration conf files over new ones.
h.Run  chkconfig bacula-dir on ,  kconfig bacula-sd on and chkconfig bacula-fd on to make them start at start-up.

Step 4.
Configuring bacula-fd on clients.
Machines running bacula-dir , bacula-sd and bacula-fd must be able to resolve each other through DNS or host records.

 Log file for bacula-fd in client machines is located in:
/usr/local/var/log/bacula 
This log file not be used until you specifically include it in the conf file.

Sample config file for bacula-fd is shown below. Note the storage {} clause  included in it.

Step 5.
Configure clients,  file lists , backup jobs and schedules on bacula Director.
You can manually edit conf files or use webmin to configure this part.

Some error messages you may come across:
1. Fatal error: Unable to authenticate with File daemon at "myserver.ip.address:9102". Possible causes:   Passwords or names not the same or  Maximum Concurrent Jobs exceeded on the FD or  
FD networking messed up (restart daemon)

This means that your bacula director cannot talk to bacula file daemon. Follow these steps to resolve it.
a. Disable or add exceptions to bacula-fd port (TCP 9102) on client and server firewalls.
b. Makes sure that clients and server can resolve each other.
c. Make sure that the passwords are right.
d. Restart the client mac. Any port binding issues will get resolved from that.

2. Warning: Cannot bind port 9102: ERR=Address already in use: Retrying ...
You may see this error on the bacula-fd  client log.  Restarting client machine will resolve it.

3. Warning: bsock.c:107 Could not connect to Storage daemon on localhost:9103. ERR=Connection refused
a. You need to include the storage {} clause in your bacula-fd.conf file to redirect it to the remote storage server. Otherwise it will search for a bacula storage daemon on the local host.
b. Open up TCP port 9103 on client and server firewalls.