AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)NAMEamanda - Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver
SYNOPSIS
amdump config
amflush [ -f ] config
amcleanup config
amrecover [ config ] [ options ]
amrestore [ options ] tapedevice [ hostname [ diskname ]]
amlabel config label [ slot slot ]
amcheck [ options ] config
amadmin config command [ options ]
amtape config command [ options ]
amverify config
amrmtape [ options ] config label
amstatus config [ options ]
amoverview config [ options ]
amplot [ options ] amdump-files
amreport [ config ] [ options ]
amtoc [ options ] logfile
amcheckdb config
amgetconf [ config ] parameter
DESCRIPTION
Amanda is the "Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk
Archiver". This manual page gives an overview of the
Amanda commands and configuration files for quick refer
ence.
Here are all the Amanda commands. Each one has its own
manual page. See them for all the gory details.
amdump Take care of automatic Amanda backups. This is
normally executed by cron on a computer called the
tape server host and requests backups of file sys
tems located on backup clients. Amdump backs up
all disks in the disklist file (discussed below) to
tape or, if there is a problem, to a special hold_
ing disk. After all backups are done, amdump sends
mail reporting failures and successes.
amflush
Flush backups from the holding disk to tape.
Amflush is used after amdump has reported it could
not write backups to tape for some reason. When
this happens, backups stay in the holding disk.
Run amflush after the tape problem is corrected to
write backups from the holding disk to tape.
amcleanup
Clean up after an interrupted amdump. This command
is only needed if amdump was unable to complete for
some reason, usually because the tape server host
crashed while amdump was running.
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amrecover
Provides an interactive interface to browse the
Amanda index files (backup image catalogues) and
select which tapes to recover files from. It can
also run amrestore and a restore program (e.g. tar)
to actually recover the files.
amrestore
Read an Amanda tape, searching for requested back
ups. Amrestore is suitable for everything from
interactive restores of single files to a full
restore of all partitions on a failed disk.
amlabel
Write an Amanda format label onto a tape. All
Amanda tapes must be labeled with amlabel. Amdump
and amflush will not write to an unlabeled tape
(see TAPE MANAGEMENT below).
amcheck
Verify the correct tape is mounted and all file
systems on all backup client systems are ready to
be backed up. Often run by cron before amdump to
generate a mail warning that backups might fail
unless corrective action is taken.
amadmin
Take care of administrative tasks like finding out
which tapes are needed to restore a filesystem,
forcing hosts to do full backups of selected disks
and looking at schedule balance information.
amtape Take care of tape changer control operations like
loading particular tapes, ejecting tapes and scan
ning the tape storage slots.
amverify
Check Amanda backup tapes for errors.
amrmtape
Delete a tape from the Amanda databases.
amstatus
Report the status of a running or completed amdump.
amoverview
Display a chart of hosts and file systems backed up
every run.
amplot Generate utilization plots of Amanda runs for per
formance tuning.
amreport
Generate an Amanda summary E-mail report.
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amtoc Generate table of content files for Amanda tapes.
amcheckdb
Verify every tape Amanda knows about is consistent
in the database.
amgetconf
Look up parameters in the Amanda configuration
file.
CONFIGURATION
There are three user-editable files that control the
behavior of Amanda. The first is amanda.conf, the main
configuration file. It contains parameters to customize
Amanda for the site. Second is the disklist file, which
lists hosts and disk partitions to back up. Third is the
tapelist file, which lists tapes that are currently
active. These files are described in more detail in the
following sections.
All files are stored in individual configuration directo
ries under /usr/freeware/etc/amanda. A site will often
have more than one configuration. For example, it might
have a normal configuration for everyday backups and an
archive configuration for infrequent full archival back
ups. The configuration files would be stored under direc
tories /usr/freeware/etc/amanda/normal/ and /usr/free
ware/etc/amanda/archive/, respectively. Part of the job
of an Amanda administrator is to create, populate and
maintain these directories.
All log and database files generated by Amanda go in cor
responding directories somewhere. The exact location is
controlled by entries in amanda.conf. A typical location
would be under /var/adm/amanda. For the above example,
the files might go in /var/adm/amanda/normal/ and
/var/adm/amanda/archive/.
As log files are no longer needed (no longer contain rele
vant information), Amanda cycles them out in various ways,
depending on the type of file.
Detailed information about amdump runs are stored in files
named amdump.NN where NN is a sequence number, with 1
being the most recent file. Amdump rotates these files
each run, keeping roughly the last tapecycle (see below)
worth of them.
The file used by amreport to generate the mail summary is
named log.YYYYMMDD.NN where YYYYMMDD is the datestamp of
the start of the amdump run and NN is a sequence number
started at 0. At the end of each amdump run, log files
for runs whose tapes have been reused are renamed into a
subdirectory of the main log directory (see the logdir
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
parameter below) named oldlog. It is up to the Amanda
administrator to remove them from this directory when
desired.
Index (backup image catalogue) files older than the full
dump matching the oldest backup image for a given client
and disk are removed by amdump at the end of each run.
CONFIG FILE PARAMETERS
There are a number of configuration parameters that con
trol the behavior of the Amanda programs. All have
default values, so you need not specify the parameter in
amanda.conf if the default is suitable.
Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines.
Keywords are case insensitive, i.e. mailto and MailTo are
treated the same.
Integer arguments may have one of the following (case
insensitive) suffixes, some of which have a multiplier
effect:
b byte bytes
Some number of bytes.
bps Some number of bytes per second.
k kb kbyte kbytes kilobyte kilobytes
Some number of kilobytes (bytes*1024).
kps kbps
Some number of kilobytes per second
(bytes*1024).
m mb meg mbyte mbytes megabyte megabytes
Some number of megabytes (bytes*1024*1024).
mps mbps
Some number of megabytes per second
(bytes*1024*1024).
g gb gbyte gbytes gigabyte gigabytes
Some number of gigabytes
(bytes*1024*1024*1024).
tape tapes
Some number of tapes.
day days
Some number of days.
week weeks
Some number of weeks (days*7).
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
The value inf may be used in most places where an integer
is expected to mean an infinite amount.
Boolean arguments may have any of the values y, yes, t,
true or on to indicate a true state, or n, no, f, false or
off to indicate a false state. If no argument is given,
true is assumed.
org "string"
Default: DailySet1. A descriptive name for the
configuration. This string appears in the Subject
line of mail reports. Each Amanda configuration
should have a different string to keep mail reports
distinct.
mailto "string"
Default: operators. A space separated list of
recipients for mail reports.
dumpcycle int
Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup
cycle. Each disk will get a full backup at least
this often. Setting this to zero tries to do a
full backup each run.
Note that this parameter may also be set in a spe
cific dumptype (see below). This value sets the
default for all dumptypes so must appear in
amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined.
runspercycle int
Default: same as dumpcycle. The number of amdump
runs in dumpcycle days. A value of 0 means the
same value as dumpcycle. A value of -1 means guess
the number of runs from the tapelist file, which is
the number of tapes used in the last dumpcycle days
/ runtapes.
tapecycle int
Default: 15 tapes. The number of tapes in the
active tape cycle. This must be at least one
larger than the number of Amanda runs done during a
dump cycle (see the dumpcycle parameter) times the
number of tapes used per run (see the runtapes
parameter).
For instance, if dumpcycle is set to 14 days, one
Amanda run is done every day (Sunday through Satur
day), and runtapes is set to one, then tapecycle
must be at least 15 (14 days * one run/day * one
tape/run + one tape).
In practice, there should be several extra tapes to
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
allow for schedule adjustments or disaster recov
ery.
dumpuser "string"
Default: root. The login name Amanda uses to run
the backups. The backup client hosts must allow
access from the tape server host as this user via
.rhosts or .amandahosts, depending on how the
Amanda software was built.
printer "string"
Printer to use when doing tape labels. See the
lbl-templ tapetype option.
tapedev "string"
Default: /dev/null. The path name of the tape
device. If a tape changer is configured (see the
tpchanger option), this option may not be used and
should be commented out of the configuration file.
If tapedev is set to /dev/null, amdump will run
normally but all images will be thrown away. This
should only be used for debugging, and probably
only with the record option set to no.
rawtapedev "string"
Default: /dev/null. The path name of the raw tape
device. This is only used if Amanda is compiled
for Linux machines with floppy tapes and is needed
for QIC volume table operations.
tpchanger "string"
Default: none. The name of the tape changer. If a
tape changer is not configured, this option is not
used and should be commented out of the configura
tion file.
If a tape changer is configured, choose one of the
changer scripts (e.g. chg-scsi) and enter that
here.
changerdev "string"
Default: /dev/null. A tape changer configuration
parameter. Usage depends on the particular changer
defined with the tpchanger option.
changerfile "string"
Default: /usr/adm/amanda/log/changer-status. A
tape changer configuration parameter. Usage
depends on the particular changer defined with the
tpchanger option.
runtapes int
Default: 1. The maximum number of tapes used in a
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
single run. If a tape changer is not configured,
this option is not used and should be commented out
of the configuration file.
If a tape changer is configured, this may be set
larger than one to let Amanda write to more than
one tape.
Note that this is an upper bound on the number of
tapes, and Amanda may use less.
Also note that as of this release, Amanda does not
support true tape overflow. When it reaches the
end of one tape, the backup image Amanda was pro
cessing starts over again on the next tape.
labelstr "string"
Default: .*. The tape label constraint regular
expression. All tape labels generated (see amla
bel(8)) and used by this configuration must match
the regular expression. If multiple configurations
are run from the same tape server host, it is help
ful to set their labels to different strings (for
example, "DAILY[0-9][0-9]*" vs.
"ARCHIVE[0-9][0-9]*") to avoid overwriting each
other's tapes.
tapetype "string"
Default: EXABYTE. The type of tape drive associ
ated with tapedev or tpchanger. This refers to one
of the defined tapetypes in the config file (see
below), which specify various tape parameters, like
the length, filemark size, and speed of the tape
media and device.
ctimeout int
Default: 30 seconds. Maximum amount of time that
amcheck will wait for each client host.
dtimeout int
Default: 1800 seconds. Amount of idle time per
disk on a given client that a dumper running from
within amdump will wait before it fails with a data
timeout error.
etimeout int
Default: 300 seconds. Amount of time per disk on a
given client that the planner step of amdump will
wait to get the dump size estimates. For instance,
with the default of 300 seconds and four disks on
client A, planner will wait up to 20 minutes for
that machine. A negative value will be interpreted
as a total amount of time, instead of a per-disk
value.
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netusage int
Default: 300 Kbps. The maximum network bandwidth
allocated to Amanda, in Kbytes per second. See
also the interface section.
inparallel int
Default: 10. The maximum number of backups that
Amanda will attempt to run in parallel. Amanda
will stay within the constraints of network band
width and holding disk space available, so it
doesn't hurt to set this number a bit high. Some
contention can occur with larger numbers of back
ups, but this effect is relatively small on most
systems.
maxdumps int
Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a
single host that Amanda will attempt to run in par
allel. See also the inparallel option.
Note that this parameter may also be set in a spe
cific dumptype (see below). This value sets the
default for all dumptypes so must appear in
amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined.
bumpsize int
Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required
to trigger an automatic bump from one incremental
level to the next. If Amanda determines that the
next higher backup level will be this much smaller
than the current level, it will do the next level.
See also the bumpmult option.
bumpmult float
Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda
multiplies bumpsize by this factor for each level.
This prevents active filesystems from bumping too
much by making it harder to bump to the next level.
For example, with the default bumpsize and bumpmult
set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be 10 Mbytes
for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes
for level three, and so on.
bumpdays int
Default: 2. To insure redundancy in the dumps,
Amanda keeps filesystems at the same incremental
level for at least bumpdays days, even if the other
bump threshold criteria are met.
diskfile "string"
Default: disklist. The file name for the disklist
file holding client hosts, disks and other client
dumping information.
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infofile "string"
Default: /usr/adm/amanda/curinfo. The file or
directory name for the historical information
database. If Amanda was configured to use DBM
databases, this is the base file name for them. If
it was configured to use text formated databases
(the default), this is the base directory and
within here will be a directory per client, then a
directory per disk, then a text file of data.
logdir "string"
Default: /usr/adm/amanda. The directory for the
amdump and log files.
indexdir "string"
Default /usr/adm/amanda/index. The directory where
index files (backup image catalogues) are stored.
Index files are only generated for filesystems
whose dumptype has the index option enabled.
tapelist "string"
Default: tapelist. The file name for the active
tapelist file. Amanda maintains this file with
information about the active set of tapes.
tapebufs "int"
Default: 20. The number of buffers used by the
taper process run by amdump and amflush to hold
data as it is read from the network or disk before
it is written to tape. Each buffer is a little
larger than 32 KBytes and is held in a shared mem
ory region.
reserve number
Default: 100(percent). The amount of holding-disk
space that should not be used for full backups if
no tape is available. By default, when there is no
tape to write to, degraded mode (incremental) back
ups will be performed to the holding disk. If full
backups should also be allowed in this case, the
amount of holding disk space reserved for incremen
tals should be lowered.
columnspec "string"
Defines the width of columns amreport should use.
String is a comma (',') separated list of triples.
Each triple consists of three parts which are sepa
rated by a equal sign ('=') and a colon (':') (see
the example). These three parts specify:
+ the name of the column, which may be:
Compress (compression ratio)
Disk (client disk name)
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DumpRate (dump rate in KBytes/sec)
DumpTime (total dump time in hours:minutes)
HostName (client host name)
Level (dump level)
OrigKB (original image size in KBytes)
OutKB (output image size in KBytes)
TapeRate (tape writing rate in KBytes/sec)
TapeTime (total tape time in hours:minutes)
+ the amount of space to display before the column
(used to get whitespace between columns).
+ the width of the column itself. If set to a neg
ative value, the width will be calculated on
demand to fit the largest entry in this column.
Here is an example:
columnspec "Disk=1:18,HostName=0:10,OutKB=1:7"
The above will display the disk information in 18
characters and put one space before it. The host
name column will be 10 characters wide with no
space to the left. The output KBytes column is
seven characters wide with one space before it.
HOLDINGDISK SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks
used as buffers to hold backup images before they are
written to tape. The syntax is:
holdingdisk name {
holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
...
}
Name is a logical name for this holding disk.
The options and values are:
comment "string"
Default: none. A comment string describing this
holding disk.
directory "disk"
Default: /dumps/amanda. The path to this holding
area.
use int
Default: 0 Gb. Amount of space that can be used in
this holding disk area. If the value is zero, all
available space on the file system is used. If the
value is negative, Amanda will use all available
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
space minus that value.
chunksize int
Default: 1 Gb. Holding disk chunk size. Dumps
larger than the specified size will be stored in
multiple holding disk files. The size of each
chunk will not exceed the specified value. How
ever, even though dump images are split in the
holding disk, they are concatenated as they are
written to tape, so each dump image still corre
sponds to a single continuous tape section.
If 0 is specified, Amanda will create holding disk
chunks as large as ((INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes.
Each holding disk chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header,
so the minimum chunk size is 64 Kbytes (but that
would be really silly).
Operating systems that are limited to a maximum
file size of 2 Gbytes actually cannot handle files
that large. They must be at least one byte less
than 2 Gbytes. Since Amanda works with 32 Kbyte
blocks, and to handle the final read at the end of
the chunk, the chunk size should be at least 64
Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes) smaller than the maximum
file size, e.g. 2047 Mbytes.
DUMPTYPE SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define multiple sets of backup
options and refer to them by name from the disklist file.
For instance, one set of options might be defined for file
systems that can benefit from high compression, another
set that does not compress well, another set for file sys
tems that should always get a full backup and so on.
A set of backup options are entered in a dumptype section,
which looks like this:
define dumptype name {
dumptype-option dumptype-value
...
}
Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is
referenced from the disklist file.
Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as
those in the main part of amanda.conf. The main option
value is used to set the default for all dumptype sec
tions. For instance, setting dumpcycle to 50 in the main
part of the config file causes all following dumptype sec
tions to start with that value, but the value may be
changed on a section by section basis. Changes to
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variables in the main part of the config file must be done
before (earlier in the file) any dumptypes are defined.
The dumptype options and values are:
auth "string"
Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform
between tape server and backup client hosts. May
be krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.
comment "string"
Default: none. A comment string describing this
set of backup options.
comprate float [, float ]
Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incre
mental compression factor for dumps. It is only
used if Amanda does not have any history informa
tion on compression rates for a filesystem, so
should not usually need to be set. However, it may
be useful for the first time a very large filesys
tem that compresses very little is backed up.
compress [client|server] "string"
Default: client fast. If Amanda does compression
of the backup images, it can do so either on the
backup client host before it crosses the network or
on the tape server host as it goes from the network
into the holding disk or to tape. Which place to
do compression (if at all) depends on how well the
dump image usually compresses, the speed and load
on the client or server, network capacity, holding
disk capacity, availability of tape hardware com
pression, etc.
For either type of compression, Amanda also allows
the selection of two styles of compression. Best
is the best compression available, often at the
expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often not as good
a compression as best, but usually less CPU over
head.
So the compress options line may be one of:
compress none
compress [client] fast
compress [client] best
compress server fast
compress server best
Note that some tape devices do compression and this
option has nothing to do with whether that is used.
If hardware compression is used (usually via a
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
particular tape device name or mt option), Amanda
(software) compression should be disabled.
dumpcycle int
Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup
cycle. Each disk using this set of options will
get a full backup at least this often. Setting
this to zero tries to do a full backup each run.
exclude [list] "string"
Default: none. The string is passed as a file name
value to the GNU tar --exclude or --exclude-from
option. In the case of exclude list, the file must
be available on the backup client host.
If the file name is relative, the disk name being
backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:
exclude list ".amanda.excludes"
the actual file passed to GNU tar would be
/var/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /var,
/usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of
/usr/local, and so on.
holdingdisk "boolean"
Default: yes. Whether a holding disk should be
used for these backups or whether they should go
directly to tape. If the holding disk is a portion
of another file system that Amanda is backing up,
that file system should refer to a dumptype with
holdingdisk set to no to avoid backing up the hold
ing disk into itself.
ignore "boolean"
Default: no. Whether disks associated with this
backup type should be backed up or not. This
option is useful when the disklist file is shared
among several configurations, some of which should
not back up all the listed file systems.
index "boolean"
Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the
backup should be generated and saved in indexdir.
These catalogues are used by the amrecover utility.
kencrypt "boolean"
Default: no. Whether the backup image should be
encrypted by Kerberos as it is sent across the net
work from the backup client host to the tape server
host.
maxdumps "int"
Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
single host that Amanda will attempt to run in par
allel. See also the main section inparallel
option.
priority "string"
Default: medium. When there is no tape to write
to, Amanda will do incremental backups in priority
order to the holding disk. The priority may be
high(2), medium(1), low(0) or a number of your
choice.
program "string"
Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform.
Valid values are DUMP for the native operating sys
tem backup program, and GNUTAR to use GNU tar or to
do Samba PC backups.
record "boolean"
Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to
update its database (e.g. /etc/dumpdates) of time
stamps. This is normally enabled for daily backups
and turned off for periodic archival runs.
skip-full "boolean"
Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a
full backup, these disks will be skipped, and full
backups should be run off-line on these days. It
was reported that Amanda only schedules level 1
incrementals in this configuration; this is proba
bly a bug.
skip-incr "boolean"
Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an
incremental backup, these disks will be skipped.
starttime "int"
Default: none. Backups will not start until after
this time of day. The value should be hh*100+mm,
e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be entered as 1830.
strategy "string"
Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning
what level of backup to run next. Values are:
standard
The standard Amanda schedule.
nofull Never do full backups, only level 1 incre
mentals.
noinc Never do incremental backups, only full
dumps.
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
skip Never do backups (useful when sharing the
disklist file).
incronly
Only do incremental dumps. `amadmin force'
should be used to tell Amanda that a full
dump has been performed off-line, so that it
resets to level 1. It is similar to skip-
full, but with incronly full dumps may be
scheduled manually. Unfortunately, it
appears that Amanda will perform full back
ups with this configuration, which is proba
bly a bug.
The following dumptype entries are predefined by Amanda:
define dumptype no-compress {
compress none
}
define dumptype compress-fast {
compress client fast
}
define dumptype compress-best {
compress client best
}
define dumptype srvcompress {
compress server fast
}
define dumptype bsd-auth {
auth bsd
}
define dumptype krb4-auth {
auth krb4
}
define dumptype no-record {
record no
}
define dumptype no-hold {
holdingdisk no
}
define dumptype no-full {
skip-full yes
}
In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more
other dumptype names may be entered, which make this dump
type inherit options from other previously defined dump
types. For instance, two sections might be the same
except for the record option:
define dumptype normal {
comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
no-compress
index yes
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
maxdumps 2
}
define dumptype testing {
comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
normal
record no
}
Amanda provides a dumptype named global in the sample
amanda.conf file that all dumptypes should reference.
This provides an easy place to make changes that will
affect every dumptype.
TAPETYPE SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape
media and devices. The information is entered in a
tapetype section, which looks like this in the config
file:
define tapetype name {
tapetype-option tapetype-value
...
}
Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It
is referenced from the tapetype option in the main part of
the config file.
The tapetype options and values are:
comment "string"
Default: none. A comment string describing this
set of tape information.
filemark "int"
Default: 1000 bytes. How large a file mark (tape
mark) is, measured in bytes. If the size is only
known in some linear measurement (e.g. inches),
convert it to bytes using the device density.
length "int"
Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a
tape.
Note that this value is only used by Amanda to
schedule which backups will be run. Once the back
ups start, Amanda will continue to write to a tape
until it gets an error, regardless of what value is
entered for length.
speed "int"
Default: 200. How fast the drive will accept data,
in bytes per second. This parameter is not cur
rently used by Amanda.
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lbl-templ "string"
A PostScript template file used by amreport to gen
erate labels. Several sample files are provided
with the Amanda sources in the example directory.
See the amreport(8) man page for more information.
In addition to options, another tapetype name may be
entered, which makes this tapetype inherit options from
another tapetype. For instance, the only difference
between a DLT4000 tape drive using Compact-III tapes and
one using Compact-IV tapes is the length of the tape. So
they could be entered as:
define tapetype DLT4000-III {
comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
filemark 2000 kbytes
speed 1536 kps
}
define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
DLT4000-III
length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
}
INTERFACE SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network
interfaces. The information is entered in an interface
section, which looks like this:
define interface name {
interface-option interface-value
...
}
Name is the name of this type of network interface. It is
referenced from the disklist file.
Note that these sections define network interface charac
teristics, not the actual interface that will be used.
Nor do they impose limits on the bandwidth that will actu
ally be taken up by Amanda. Amanda computes the estimated
bandwidth each file system backup will take based on the
estimated size and time, then compares that plus any other
running backups with the limit as another of the criteria
when deciding whether to start the backup. Once a backup
starts, Amanda will use as much of the network as it can
leaving throttling up to the operating system and network
hardware.
The interface options and values are:
comment "string"
Default: none. A comment string describing this
17
AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
set of network information.
use "int"
Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in
Kbytes per second.
In addition to options, another interface name may be
entered, which makes this interface inherit options from
another interface. At the moment, this is of little use.
DISKLIST FILE
The disklist file determines which disks will be backed up
by Amanda. The file usually contains one line per disk:
hostname diskdevice dumptype [ spindle [ interface
] ]
Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines.
The fields have the following meanings:
hostname
The name of the host to be backed up. If diskde
vice refers to a PC share, this is the host Amanda
will run the Samba smbclient program on to back up
the share.
diskdevice
The name of the disk device to be backed up. It
may be a full device name, a device name without
the /dev/ prefix, e.g. sd0a, or a mount point such
as /usr.
It may also refer to a PC share by starting the
name with two (forward) slashes, e.g. //some-
pc/home. In this case, the program option in the
associated dumptype must be entered as GNUTAR. It
is the combination of the double slash disk name
and program GNUTAR in the dumptype that triggers
the use of Samba.
dumptype
Refers to a dumptype defined in the amanda.conf
file. Dumptypes specify backup related parameters,
such as whether to compress the backups, whether to
record backup results in /etc/dumpdates, the disk's
relative priority, etc.
spindle
Default: -1. A number used to balance backup load
on a host. Amanda will not run multiple backups at
the same time on the same spindle, unless the spin
dle number is -1, which means there is no spindle
restriction.
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AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
interface
Default: local. The name of a network interface
definition in the amanda.conf file, used to balance
network load.
Instead of naming a dumptype, it is possible to define one
in-line, enclosing dumptype options within curly braces,
one per line, just like a dumptype definition in
amanda.conf. Since pre-existing dumptypes are valid
option names, this syntax may be used to customize dump
types for particular disks.
A line break must follow the left curly bracket.
For instance, if a dumptype named normal is used for most
disks, but use of the holding disk needs to be disabled
for the file system that holds it, this would work instead
of defining a new dumptype:
hostname diskdevice {
normal
holdingdisk no
} [ spindle [ interface ] ]
TAPE MANAGEMENT
The tapelist file contains the list of tapes in active
use. This file is maintained entirely by Amanda and
should not be created or edited during normal operation.
It contains lines of the form:
YYYYMMDD label flags
Where YYYYMMDD is the date the tape was written, label is
a label for the tape as written by amlabel and flags tell
Amanda whether the tape may be reused, etc (see the reuse
options of amadmin).
Amdump and amflush will refuse to write to an unlabeled
tape, or to a labeled tape that is considered active.
There must be more tapes in active rotation (see the
tapecycle option) than there are runs in the backup cycle
(see the dumpcycle option) to prevent overwriting a backup
image that would be needed to do a full recovery.
AUTHORIZATION
Amanda processes on the tape server host run as the dum
puser user listed in amanda.conf. When they connect to a
backup client, they do so with an Amanda-specific proto
col. They do not, for instance, use rsh or ssh directly.
On the client side, the amandad daemon validates the con
nection using one of several methods, depending on how it
was compiled and on options it is passed:
19
AMANDA(8)AMANDA(8)
.rhosts
Even though Amanda does not use rsh, it can use
.rhosts-style authentication and a .rhostsfile.
.amandahosts
This is essentially the same as .rhosts authentica
tion except a different file, with the same format,
is used. The is the default mechanism built into
Amanda.
Kerberos
Amanda may use the Kerberos authentication system.
Further information is in the docs/KERBEROS file
that comes with an Amanda distribution.
For Samba access, Amanda needs a file on the Samba server
(which may or may not also be the tape server) named
/etc/amandapass with share names, (clear text) passwords
and (optional) domain names, in that order, one per line,
whitespace separated. By default, the user used to con
nect to the PC is the same for all PC's and is compiled
into Amanda. It may be changed on a host by host basis by
listing it first in the password field followed by a per
cent sign and then the password. For instance:
//some-pc/home normalpw
//another-pc/disk otheruser%otherpw
With clear text passwords, this file should obviously be
tightly protected. It only needs to be readable by the
Amanda user on the Samba server.
Further information is in the docs/SAMBA file that comes
with an Amanda distribution.
AUTHOR
James da Silva <jds@cs.umd.edu>
University of Maryland, College Park
SEE ALSOamadmin(8), amcheck(8), amcheckdb(8), amcleanup(8),
amdump(8), amflush(8), amgetconf(8), amlabel(8),
amoverview(8), amplot(8), amrecover(8), amreport(8), amre
store(8), amrmtape(8), amstatus(8), amtape(8), amtoc(8),
amverify(8)
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