Bareos in pkgsrc / Web Console?

[Matthias Petermann <mp%petermann-it.de@localhost>]

Hello Frank and pkgsrc-users,

since 2020Q3 the Bareos package is included in the pkgsrc. When I saw it 
for the first time in wip I was really looking forward to it. However, I 
have only now started to test it on NetBSD 9.1. What can I say - good 
work! I am glad that Bareos is now available in NetBSD and it works just 
fine!

I noticed a few little things which probably are no hurdle for most 
experienced NetBSD users. I will write them anyway - maybe as a 
suggestion for future revisions or discussion for applicable workarounds.

1) /var/run is by default only writable for root. Bareos can therefore 
not create its PID file with the bareosdir or bareossd-user and the 
start fails. As a workaround I made /var/run writeable for the whole 
world. I don't know if this is a good idea or if there is a more elegant 
way for this? On other systems, I had previously created a subdirectory 
/var/run/bareos in such cases, then made it writable for the respective 
users and set in the configurations of the Bareos components according 
to "pid directory". In NetBSD, however, /var/run seems to be emptied by 
default on every reboot, which surely has good reasons and makes this 
approach more difficult.

2) It would be good to have a "best practice" logger configuration. 
Currently Baroes cannot create its logfile in /var/log/ due to missing 
permissions. According to [1] the messages should at least appear in the 
syslog. I will test this again. What would be useful for most users? 
Syslog + newsyslog configuration? Then this might be something for the 
install message.

Both points make it more difficult for new users to start, because the 
daemons do not start for seemingly unknown reasons if you don't know 
about these issues. But that's only a side note and in my opinion they 
are all minor problems.

What I actually wanted to ask - are you by chance already working on a 
package of the Bareos Web Console? I ask because I just installed it 
from the Bareos sources, partly using the instructions from the FreeBSD 
port Makefile. I would build a package for it and check it into wip - 
but of course only if you are not yet working on it or would like to do 
it yourself. Can you please give me a sign for this?

Thanks & best regards
Matthias


[1] 
https://docs.bareos.org/Configuration/Messages.html#config-Dir_Messages_Syslog