amanda for DEBIAN
-----------------
-To configure your server, as root do:
+Since every Amanda installation is different, there is some work you need to
+do to configure your server. For a simple setup, as root you need to:
-1. for a simple setup edit the files (see explanations there)
- /etc/amanda/DailySet1/amanda.conf
- /etc/amanda/DailySet1/disklist
- /etc/amanda/crontab
+1. Create a directory under /etc/amanda for your backup config, we'll assume
+ a name 'DailySet1' as our example.
+
+ mkdir /etc/amanda/DailySet1
+
+ Make sure that /etc/amanda and all the files under it are owner and group
+ backup with directory permissions of 770 and file permissions of 660.
+
+2. populate this directory with config files. At a minimum, you need
+ amanda.conf and disklist.
+
+ cp /usr/share/doc/amanda-server/examples/amanda.conf \
+ /etc/amanda/DailySet1/amanda.conf*
+ cp /usr/share/doc/amanda-server/examples/disklist \
+ /etc/amanda/DailySet1/disklist
+
+ Edit these files as needed, following the instructions in each file.
+
+3. Make sure that /etc/amanda and all the files under it are owner and group
+ backup with directory permissions of 770 and file permissions of 660.
+
+ chown -R backup:backup /etc/amanda
+
+3. Prepare the "holding disk" if you plan to use one (highly recommended!) by
+ ensuring user backup can access it. See the note below indicating that it
+ may be better to use a subdirectory and not a mount point to avoid having
+ system artifacts like the lost+found directory confuse things.
-2. prepare the holding disk if you use one by
chown -R backup:backup <holding disk location>
-3. do
- crontab -u backup /etc/amanda/crontab.amanda
+4. Install a suitable crontab for user backup. If you used DailySet1 as your
+ configuration name, you can just install the provided example. If you
+ picked some other name, you will obviously need to edit a copy of the
+ example before installing it.
+ crontab -u backup /usr/share/doc/amanda-server/examples/crontab.amanda
-To use all of Amanda's features, you may find it necessary to put each client
+To use all of Amanda's features, you probably also want to put each client
machine's root user in the .rhosts or .amandahosts for ~backup on the server
machine. On Debian systems, this is usually linked to /etc/amandahosts, but
if you have clients running other operating systems you'll have to find the
example files in /usr/share/doc/amanda-common, or look at www.amanda.org on
the web.
-Another Note: if you use floppy tapes you have to use the sftape
-interface for use with ftape(>=3.03).
+Another Note: if you use floppy tapes you have to use the sftape interface
+for use with ftape(>=3.03).
Jean Pierre LeJacq <jplejacq@mail.quoininc.com> reports the following about
his experience using ftape:
118616 in the Debian bug tracking system for more information.
If you choose to use the SSH authentication method and associated transport,
-please be aware that there may be problems if /usr/libamanda/dumper is suid.
+please be aware that there may be problems if /usr/lib/amanda/dumper is suid.
You can fix this on your server with chmod u-s /usr/lib/amanda/dumper, or
investigate dpkg-statoverride.
Concerns have been expressed about the reliability of 'dump' as a backup tool
on live Linux systems. Nothing can guarantee a consistent and meaningful
-backup of a live filesystem under all circumstances. The tar utility is
-'essential' in Debian and so will always be around, is not tied to any specific
-filesystem type, and there are entries in the default amanda.conf file
-defining dump types using tar.
+backup of a live filesystem under all circumstances, and the maintainer of
+these packages uses dump with good results.
+
+The tar utility is 'essential' in Debian and so will always be around, is not
+tied to any specific filesystem type, and there are entries in the default
+amanda.conf file defining dump types using tar. This may therefore be a good
+option to consider.
Note that if you are using tar with amanda, and getting errors about missing
exclude files (particularly on upgrades from older versions), then you may
projects / debian / amanda / blobdiff