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9 amanda.conf
\14 Main configuration file for Amanda, the Advanced Maryland
10 Automatic Network Disk Archiver
14 amanda.conf is the main configuration file for Amanda. This manpage lists the
15 relevant sections and parameters of this file for quick reference.
16 The file <CONFIG_DIR>/<config>/amanda.conf is loaded.
20 There are a number of configuration parameters that control the behavior of the
21 Amanda programs. All have default values, so you need not specify the parameter
22 in amanda.conf if the default is suitable.
23 Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines. Comments may be placed
24 on a line with a directive by starting the comment with a #. The remainder of
26 Keywords are case insensitive, i.e. mailto and MailTo are treated the same.
27 Integer arguments may have one of the following (case insensitive) suffixes,
28 some of which have a multiplier effect:
38 Some number of bytes per second.
40 k kb kbyte kbytes kilobyte kilobytes
41 Some number of kilobytes (bytes*1024).
44 Some number of kilobytes per second (bytes*1024).
46 m mb meg mbyte mbytes megabyte megabytes
47 Some number of megabytes (bytes*1024*1024).
50 Some number of megabytes per second (bytes*1024*1024).
52 g gb gbyte gbytes gigabyte gigabytes
53 Some number of gigabytes (bytes*1024*1024*1024).
62 Some number of weeks (days*7).
66 The value inf may be used in most places where an integer is expected to
67 mean an infinite amount.
68 Boolean arguments may have any of the values y, yes, t, true or on to
69 indicate a true state, or n, no, f, false or off to indicate a false
70 state. If no argument is given, true is assumed.
78 Default: daily. A descriptive name for the configuration. This string
79 appears in the Subject line of mail reports. Each Amanda configuration
80 should have a different string to keep mail reports distinct.
83 Default: operators. A space separated list of recipients for mail
87 Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk will
88 get a full backup at least this often. Setting this to zero tries to do a
93 This parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype (see below). This
94 value sets the default for all dumptypes so must appear in amanda.conf
95 before any dumptypes are defined.
98 Default: same as dumpcycle. The number of amdump runs in dumpcycle days.
99 A value of 0 means the same value as dumpcycle. A value of -1 means guess
100 the number of runs from the tapelist file, which is the number of tapes
101 used in the last dumpcycle days / runtapes.
104 Default: 15 tapes. Typically tapes are used by Amanda in an ordered
105 rotation. The tapecycle parameter defines the size of that rotation. The
106 number of tapes in rotation must be larger than the number of tapes
107 required for a complete dump cycle (see the dumpcycle parameter).
108 This is calculated by multiplying the number of amdump runs per dump
109 cycle (runspercycle parameter) times the number of tapes used per run
110 (runtapes parameter). Typically two to four times this calculated number
111 of tapes are in rotation. While Amanda is always willing to use a new
112 tape in its rotation, it refuses to reuse a tape until at least
113 'tapecycle -1' number of other tapes have been used.
114 It is considered good administrative practice to set the tapecycle
115 parameter slightly lower than the actual number of tapes in rotation.
116 This allows the administrator to more easily cope with damaged or
117 misplaced tapes or schedule adjustments that call for slight adjustments
118 in the rotation order.
121 Default: No. By default, Amanda can only track at most one run per
122 calendar day. When this option is enabled, however, Amanda can track as
123 many runs as you care to make.
124 WARNING: This option is not backward-compatible. Do not enable it if you
125 intend to downgrade your server installation to Amanda community edition
128 label_new_tapes string
129 Default: not set. When set, this directive will cause Amanda to
130 automatically write an Amanda tape label to any blank tape she
131 encounters. This option is DANGEROUS because when set, Amanda will ERASE
132 any non-Amanda tapes you may have, and may also ERASE any near-failing
133 tapes. Use with caution.
134 When using this directive, specify the template for new tape labels. The
135 template should contain some number of contiguous '%' characters, which
136 will be replaced with a generated number. Be sure to specify enough '%'
137 characters that you do not run out of tape labels. Example:
138 label_new_tapes "DailySet1-%%%"
141 Default: amanda. The login name Amanda uses to run the backups. The
142 backup client hosts must allow access from the tape server host as this
143 user via .rhosts or .amandahosts, depending on how the Amanda software
147 Printer to use when doing tape labels. See the lbl-templ tapetype option.
150 Default: null:. The path name of the non-rewinding tape device. Non-
151 rewinding tape device names often have an 'n' in the name, e.g. /dev/rmt/
152 0mn, however this is operating system specific and you should consult
153 that documentation for detailed naming information.
154 If a tape changer is configured (see the tpchanger option), this option
156 If the null output driver is selected (see the section OUTPUT DRIVERS in
157 the amanda(8) manpage for more information), programs such as amdump will
158 run normally but all images will be thrown away. This should only be used
159 for debugging and testing, and probably only with the record option set
163 Default: null:. The path name of the raw tape device. This is only used
164 if Amanda is compiled for Linux machines with floppy tapes and is needed
165 for QIC volume table operations.
168 Default: none. The name of the tape changer. If a tape changer is not
169 configured, this option is not used and should be commented out of the
171 If a tape changer is configured, choose one of the changer scripts (e.g.
172 chg-scsi) and enter that here.
175 Default: /dev/null. A tape changer configuration parameter. Usage depends
176 on the particular changer defined with the tpchanger option.
179 Default: /usr/adm/amanda/log/changer-status. A tape changer configuration
180 parameter. Usage depends on the particular changer defined with the
184 Default: 1. The maximum number of tapes used in a single run. If a tape
185 changer is not configured, this option is not used and should be
186 commented out of the configuration file.
187 If a tape changer is configured, this may be set larger than one to let
188 Amanda write to more than one tape.
189 Note that this is an upper bound on the number of tapes, and Amanda may
191 Also note that as of this release, Amanda does not support true tape
192 overflow. When it reaches the end of one tape, the backup image Amanda
193 was processing starts over again on the next tape.
196 Default: runtapes*tape_length. Maximum number of bytes the planner will
199 taperalgo [first|firstfit|largest|largestfit|smallest|last]
200 Default: first. The algorithm used to choose which dump image to send to
208 The first dump image that will fit on the current tape.
211 The largest dump image.
214 The largest dump image that will fit on the current tape.
217 The smallest dump image.
224 Default: .*. The tape label constraint regular expression. All tape
225 labels generated (see amlabel(8)) and used by this configuration must
226 match the regular expression. If multiple configurations are run from the
227 same tape server host, it is helpful to set their labels to different
228 strings (for example, "DAILY[0-9][0-9]*" vs. "ARCHIVE[0-9][0-9]*") to
229 avoid overwriting each other's tapes.
232 Default: EXABYTE. The type of tape drive associated with tapedev or
233 tpchanger. This refers to one of the defined tapetypes in the config file
234 (see below), which specify various tape parameters, like the length,
235 filemark size, and speed of the tape media and device.
236 First character of a tapetype string must be an alphabetic character
239 Default: 30 seconds. Maximum amount of time that amcheck will wait for
243 Default: 1800 seconds. Amount of idle time per disk on a given client
244 that a dumper running from within amdump will wait before it fails with a
248 Default: 300 seconds. Amount of time per disk on a given client that the
249 planner step of amdump will wait to get the dump size estimates. For
250 instance, with the default of 300 seconds and four disks on client A,
251 planner will wait up to 20 minutes for that machine. A negative value
252 will be interpreted as a total amount of time to wait per client instead
256 Default: 300 Kbps. The maximum network bandwidth allocated to Amanda, in
257 Kbytes per second. See also the interface section.
260 Default: 10. The maximum number of backups that Amanda will attempt to
261 run in parallel. Amanda will stay within the constraints of network
262 bandwidth and holding disk space available, so it doesn't hurt to set
263 this number a bit high. Some contention can occur with larger numbers of
264 backups, but this effect is relatively small on most systems.
266 displayunit "k|m|g|t"
267 Default: "k". The unit used to print many numbers, k=kilo, m=mega,
271 Default: tttTTTTTTT. The priority order of each dumper:
277 b: smallest bandwidth
282 Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that Amanda
283 will attempt to run in parallel. See also the inparallel option.
284 Note that this parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype (see
285 below). This value sets the default for all dumptypes so must appear in
286 amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined.
289 Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
290 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as size. If Amanda
291 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
292 than the current level, it will do the next level. The value of this
293 parameter is used only if the parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
294 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
296 See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
299 Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
300 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as percentage of
301 the current size of the DLE (size of current level 0). If Amanda
302 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
303 than the current level, it will do the next level.
304 If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bumpsize is
305 used to trigger bumping.
306 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
308 See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
311 Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bumpsize by
312 this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
313 too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
314 the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
315 10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
317 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
321 Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
322 filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
323 even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
324 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
328 Default: disklist. The file name for the disklist file holding client
329 hosts, disks and other client dumping information.
332 Default: /usr/adm/amanda/curinfo. The file or directory name for the
333 historical information database. If Amanda was configured to use DBM
334 databases, this is the base file name for them. If it was configured to
335 use text formated databases (the default), this is the base directory and
336 within here will be a directory per client, then a directory per disk,
337 then a text file of data.
340 Default: /usr/adm/amanda. The directory for the amdump and log files.
343 Default /usr/adm/amanda/index. The directory where index files (backup
344 image catalogues) are stored. Index files are only generated for
345 filesystems whose dumptype has the index option enabled.
348 Default: tapelist. The file name for the active tapelist file. Amanda
349 maintains this file with information about the active set of tapes.
352 Default: 20. The number of buffers used by the taper process run by
353 amdump and amflush to hold data as it is read from the network or disk
354 before it is written to tape. Each buffer is a little larger than 32
355 KBytes and is held in a shared memory region.
358 Default: 100. The part of holding-disk space that should be reserved for
359 incremental backups if no tape is available, expressed as a percentage of
360 the available holding-disk space (0-100). By default, when there is no
361 tape to write to, degraded mode (incremental) backups will be performed
362 to the holding disk. If full backups should also be allowed in this case,
363 the amount of holding disk space reserved for incrementals should be
367 Default: off. Whether an amdump run will flush the dumps from holding
370 amrecover_do_fsf bool
371 Default: on. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -f flag for faster
372 positioning of the tape.
374 amrecover_check_label bool
375 Default: on. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -l flag to check the
378 amrecover_changer string
379 Default: ''. Amrecover will use the changer if you use 'settape <string>'
380 and that string is the same as the amrecover_changer setting.
383 Defines the width of columns amreport should use. String is a comma (',')
384 separated list of triples. Each triple consists of three parts which are
385 separated by a equal sign ('=') and a colon (':') (see the example).
386 These three parts specify:
388 1. the name of the column, which may be:
390 Compress (compression ratio)
391 Disk (client disk name)
392 DumpRate (dump rate in KBytes/sec)
393 DumpTime (total dump time in hours:minutes)
394 HostName (client host name)
396 OrigKB (original image size in KBytes)
397 OutKB (output image size in KBytes)
398 TapeRate (tape writing rate in KBytes/sec)
399 TapeTime (total tape time in hours:minutes)
402 2. the amount of space to display before the column (used to get
403 whitespace between columns).
404 3. the width of the column itself. If set to a negative value, the
405 width will be calculated on demand to fit the largest entry in this
410 columnspec "Disk=1:18,HostName=0:10,OutKB=1:7"
412 The above will display the disk information in 18 characters and put one
413 space before it. The hostname column will be 10 characters wide with no
414 space to the left. The output KBytes column is seven characters wide with
418 Default: none. The name of an Amanda configuration file to include within
419 the current file. Useful for sharing dumptypes, tapetypes and interface
420 definitions among several configurations.
425 The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks used as buffers to
426 hold backup images before they are written to tape. The syntax is:
429 holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
433 Name is a logical name for this holding disk.
434 The options and values are:
438 Default: none. A comment string describing this holding disk.
441 Default: /dumps/amanda. The path to this holding area.
444 Default: 0 Gb. Amount of space that can be used in this holding disk
445 area. If the value is zero, all available space on the file system is
446 used. If the value is negative, Amanda will use all available space minus
450 Default: 1 Gb. Holding disk chunk size. Dumps larger than the specified
451 size will be stored in multiple holding disk files. The size of each
452 chunk will not exceed the specified value. However, even though dump
453 images are split in the holding disk, they are concatenated as they are
454 written to tape, so each dump image still corresponds to a single
455 continuous tape section.
456 If 0 is specified, Amanda will create holding disk chunks as large as (
457 (INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes.
458 Each holding disk chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header, so the minimum chunk
459 size is 64 Kbytes (but that would be really silly).
460 Operating systems that are limited to a maximum file size of 2 Gbytes
461 actually cannot handle files that large. They must be at least one byte
462 less than 2 Gbytes. Since Amanda works with 32 Kbyte blocks, and to
463 handle the final read at the end of the chunk, the chunk size should be
464 at least 64 Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes) smaller than the maximum file size,
470 The amanda.conf file may define multiple sets of backup options and refer to
471 them by name from the disklist file. For instance, one set of options might be
472 defined for file systems that can benefit from high compression, another set
473 that does not compress well, another set for file systems that should always
474 get a full backup and so on.
475 A set of backup options are entered in a dumptype section, which looks like
478 define dumptype name {
479 dumptype-option dumptype-value
483 Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is referenced from the
485 Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as those in the main
486 part of amanda.conf. The main option value is used to set the default for all
487 dumptype sections. For instance, setting dumpcycle to 50 in the main part of
488 the config file causes all following dumptype sections to start with that
489 value, but the value may be changed on a section by section basis. Changes to
490 variables in the main part of the config file must be done before (earlier in
491 the file) any dumptypes are defined.
492 The dumptype options and values are:
496 Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform between tape server and
498 bsd, bsd authorization with udp initial connection and one tcp connection
500 bsdtcp, bsd authorization but use only one tcp connection.
501 bsdudp, like bsd, but will use only one tcp connection for all data
503 krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.
504 krb5 to use Kerberos-V authorization.
505 rsh to use rsh authorization.
506 ssh to use OpenSSH authorization.
509 Default: $libexec/amandad. Specify the amandad path of the client, only
510 use with rsh/ssh authentification.
512 client_username string
513 Default: CLIENT_LOGIN. Specify the username to connect on the client,
514 only use with rsh/ssh authentification.
517 Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
518 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as size. If Amanda
519 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
520 than the current level, it will do the next level. The value of this
521 parameter is used only if the parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
522 See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
525 Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
526 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as percentage of
527 the current size of the DLE (size of current level 0). If Amanda
528 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
529 than the current level, it will do the next level.
530 If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bumpsize is
531 used to trigger bumping.
532 See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
535 Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bumpsize by
536 this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
537 too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
538 the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
539 10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
543 Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
544 filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
545 even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
548 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of backup options.
550 comprate float [, float ]
551 Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incremental compression factor
552 for dumps. It is only used if Amanda does not have any history
553 information on compression rates for a filesystem, so should not usually
554 need to be set. However, it may be useful for the first time a very large
555 filesystem that compresses very little is backed up.
557 compress [client|server] string
558 Default: client fast. If Amanda does compression of the backup images, it
559 can do so either on the backup client host before it crosses the network
560 or on the tape server host as it goes from the network into the holding
561 disk or to tape. Which place to do compression (if at all) depends on how
562 well the dump image usually compresses, the speed and load on the client
563 or server, network capacity, holding disk capacity, availability of tape
564 hardware compression, etc.
565 For either type of compression, Amanda also allows the selection of three
566 styles of compression. Best is the best compression available, often at
567 the expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often not as good a compression as
568 best, but usually less CPU overhead. Or to specify Custom to use your own
569 compression method. (See dumptype custom-compress in example/amanda.conf
571 So the compress options line may be one of:
580 compress client custom
581 Specify client_custom_compress "PROG"
582 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for
589 compress server custom
590 Specify server_custom_compress "PROG"
591 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for
594 Note that some tape devices do compression and this option has nothing to
595 do with whether that is used. If hardware compression is used (usually
596 via a particular tape device name or mt option), Amanda (software)
597 compression should be disabled.
600 Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk using
601 this set of options will get a full backup at least this of ten. Setting
602 this to zero tries to do a full backup each run.
604 encrypt [none|client|server]
605 Default: none. To encrypt backup images, it can do so either on the
606 backup client host before it crosses the network or on the tape server
607 host as it goes from the network into the holding disk or to tape.
608 So the encrypt options line may be one of:
614 Specify client_encrypt "PROG"
615 PROG must not contain white space.
616 Specify client_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
617 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
618 (See dumptype server-encrypt-fast in example/amanda.conf for
622 Specify server_encrypt "PROG"
623 PROG must not contain white space.
624 Specify server_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
625 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
626 (See dumptype client-encrypt-nocomp in example/amanda.conf for
629 Note that current logic assumes compression then encryption during backup
630 (thus decrypt then uncompress during restore). So specifying client-
631 encryption AND server-compression is not supported. amcrypt which is a
632 wrapper of aespipe is provided as a reference symmetric encryption
635 estimate client|calcsize|server
636 Default: client. Determine the way Amanda does it's estimate.
640 Use the same program as the dumping program, this is the most
641 accurate way to do estimates, but it can take a long time.
644 Use a faster program to do estimates, but the result is less
648 Use only statistics from the previous run to give an estimate, it
649 takes only a few seconds but the result is not accurate if your
650 disk usage changes from day to day.
653 exclude [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
654 Default: file. There are two exclude lists, exclude file and exclude
655 list. With exclude file , the string is a GNU-tar exclude expression.
656 With exclude list , the string is a file name on the client containing
657 GNU-tar exclude expressions. The path to the specified exclude list file,
658 if present (see description of 'optional' below), must be readable by the
660 All exclude expressions are concatenated in one file and passed to GNU-
661 tar as an --exclude-from argument.
662 Exclude expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
663 directory of the DLE.
664 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
665 without it, the string overwrites the list.
666 If optional is specified for exclude list, then amcheck will not complain
667 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
668 For exclude list, if the file name is relative, the disk name being
669 backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:
671 exclude list ".amanda.excludes"
673 the actual file used would be /var/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /var,
674 /usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /usr/local, and so on.
676 holdingdisk [ never|auto|required ]
677 Default: auto. Whether a holding disk should be used for these backups or
678 whether they should go directly to tape. If the holding disk is a portion
679 of another file system that Amanda is backing up, that file system should
680 refer to a dumptype with holdingdisk set to never to avoid backing up the
681 holding disk into itself.
685 Never use a holdingdisk, the dump will always go directly to tape.
686 There will be no dump if you have a tape error.
689 Use the holding disk, unless there is a problem with the holding
690 disk, the dump won't fit there or the medium doesn't require
691 spooling (e.g., VFS device)
694 Always dump to holdingdisk, never directly to tape. There will be
695 no dump if it doesn't fit on holdingdisk
699 Default: no. Whether disks associated with this backup type should be
700 backed up or not. This option is useful when the disklist file is shared
701 among several configurations, some of which should not back up all the
704 include [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
705 Default: file ".". There are two include lists, include file and include
706 list. With include file , the string is a glob expression. With include
707 list , the string is a file name on the client containing glob
709 All include expressions are expanded by Amanda, concatenated in one file
710 and passed to GNU-tar as a --files-from argument. They must start with
711 "./" and contain no other "/".
712 Include expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
713 directory of the DLE.
717 For globbing to work at all, even the limited single level, the top level
718 directory of the DLE must be readable by the Amanda user.
719 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
720 without it, the string overwrites the list.
721 If optional is specified for include list, then amcheck will not complain
722 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
723 For include list, If the file name is relative, the disk name being
724 backed up is prepended.
727 Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the backup should be
728 generated and saved in indexdir. These catalogues are used by the
732 Default: no. Whether the backup image should be encrypted by Kerberos as
733 it is sent across the network from the backup client host to the tape
737 Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that Amanda
738 will attempt to run in parallel. See also the main section parameter
742 Default: 10000. The maximum number of day for a promotion, set it 0 if
743 you don't want promotion, set it to 1 or 2 if your disks get
747 Default: medium. When there is no tape to write to, Amanda will do
748 incremental backups in priority order to the holding disk. The priority
749 may be high (2), medium (1), low (0) or a number of your choice.
752 Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform. Valid values are DUMP for
753 the native operating system backup program, and GNUTAR to use GNU-tar or
754 to do PC backups using Samba.
757 Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to update its database
758 (e.g. /etc/dumpdates for DUMP or /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists for
759 GNUTAR) of time stamps. This is normally enabled for daily backups and
760 turned off for periodic archival runs.
763 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a full backup, these disks
764 will be skipped, and full backups should be run off-line on these days.
765 It was reported that Amanda only schedules level 1 incrementals in this
766 configuration; this is probably a bug.
769 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an incremental backup,
770 these disks will be skipped.
773 Default: none. Backups will not start until after this time of day. The
774 value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be entered as 1830.
777 Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning what level of backup to
778 run next. Values are:
782 The standard Amanda schedule.
785 Never do full backups, only level 1 incrementals.
788 Never do incremental backups, only full dumps.
791 Never do backups (useful when sharing the disklist file).
794 Only do incremental dumps. amadmin force should be used to tell
795 Amanda that a full dump has been performed off-line, so that it
796 resets to level 1. It is similar to skip-full, but with incronly
797 full dumps may be scheduled manually. Unfortunately, it appears
798 that Amanda will perform full backups with this configuration,
799 which is probably a bug.
803 Default: none. Split dump file on tape into pieces of a specified size.
804 This allows dumps to be spread across multiple tapes, and can potentially
805 make more efficient use of tape space. Note that if this value is too
806 large (more than half the size of the average dump being split),
807 substantial tape space can be wasted. If too small, large dumps will be
808 split into innumerable tiny dumpfiles, adding to restoration complexity.
809 A good rule of thumb, usually, is 1/10 of the size of your tape.
811 split_diskbuffer string
812 Default: none. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode (usually
813 meaning "no holding disk"), buffer the split chunks to a file in the
814 directory specified by this option.
816 fallback_splitsize int
817 Default: 10M. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode, if no
818 split_diskbuffer is specified (or if we somehow fail to use our
819 split_diskbuffer), we must buffer split chunks in memory. This specifies
820 the maximum size split chunks can be in this scenario, and thus the
821 maximum amount of memory consumed for in-memory splitting. The size of
822 this buffer can be changed from its (very conservative) default to a
823 value reflecting the amount of memory that each taper process on the dump
824 server may reasonably consume.
826 The following dumptype entries are predefined by Amanda:
828 define dumptype no-compress {
831 define dumptype compress-fast {
834 define dumptype compress-best {
837 define dumptype srvcompress {
840 define dumptype bsd-auth {
843 define dumptype krb4-auth {
846 define dumptype no-record {
849 define dumptype no-hold {
852 define dumptype no-full {
856 In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more other dumptype names
857 may be entered, which make this dumptype inherit options from other previously
858 defined dumptypes. For instance, two sections might be the same except for the
861 define dumptype normal {
862 comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
867 define dumptype testing {
868 comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
873 Amanda provides a dumptype named global in the sample amanda.conf file that all
874 dumptypes should reference. This provides an easy place to make changes that
875 will affect every dumptype.
879 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape media and devices. The
880 information is entered in a tapetype section, which looks like this in the
883 define tapetype name {
884 tapetype-option tapetype-value
888 Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It is referenced from the
889 tapetype option in the main part of the config file.
890 The tapetype options and values are:
894 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of tape information.
897 Default: 1 kbytes. How large a file mark (tape mark) is, measured in
898 kbytes. If the size is only known in some linear measurement (e.g.
899 inches), convert it to kbytes using the device density.
902 Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a tape.
903 Note that this value is only used by Amanda to schedule which backups
904 will be run. Once the backups start, Amanda will continue to write to a
905 tape until it gets an error, regardless of what value is entered for
906 length (but see the section OUTPUT DRIVERS in the amanda(8) manpage for
910 Default: 32 kbytes. How much data will be written in each tape record
911 expressed in KiloBytes. The tape record size (= blocksize) can not be
912 reduced below the default 32 KBytes. The parameter blocksize can only be
913 raised if Amanda was compiled with the configure option --with-
914 maxtapeblocksize=N set with "N" greater than 32 during configure.
917 Default: true. If true, every record, including the last one in the file,
918 will have the same length. This matches the way Amanda wrote tapes prior
919 to the availability of this parameter. It may also be useful on devices
920 that only support a fixed blocksize.
921 Note that the last record on the tape probably includes trailing null
922 byte padding, which will be passed back to gzip, compress or the restore
923 program. Most programs just ignore this (although possibly with a
925 If this parameter is false, the last record in a file may be shorter than
926 the block size. The file will contain the same amount of data the dump
927 program generated, without trailing null byte padding. When read, the
928 same amount of data that was written will be returned.
931 Default: 200 bps. How fast the drive will accept data, in bytes per
932 second. This parameter is NOT currently used by Amanda.
935 A PostScript template file used by amreport to generate labels. Several
936 sample files are provided with the Amanda sources in the example
937 directory. See the amreport(8) man page for more information.
939 In addition to options, another tapetype name may be entered, which makes this
940 tapetype inherit options from another tapetype. For instance, the only
941 difference between a DLT4000 tape drive using Compact-III tapes and one using
942 Compact-IV tapes is the length of the tape. So they could be entered as:
944 define tapetype DLT4000-III {
945 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
946 length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
950 define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
952 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
953 length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
959 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network interfaces. The
960 information is entered in an interface section, which looks like this:
962 define interface name {
963 interface-option interface-value
967 name is the name of this type of network interface. It is referenced from the
969 Note that these sections define network interface characteristics, not the
970 actual interface that will be used. Nor do they impose limits on the bandwidth
971 that will actually be taken up by Amanda. Amanda computes the estimated
972 bandwidth each file system backup will take based on the estimated size and
973 time, then compares that plus any other running backups with the limit as
974 another of the criteria when deciding whether to start the backup. Once a
975 backup starts, Amanda will use as much of the network as it can leaving
976 throttling up to the operating system and network hardware.
977 The interface options and values are:
981 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of network
985 Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in Kbytes per second.
987 In addition to options, another interface name may be entered, which makes this
988 interface inherit options from another interface. At the moment, this is of
993 James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org>: Original text
994 Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the Amanda-documentation:
995 XML-conversion, major update, splitting
999 amanda(8), amanda-client.conf(5), amcrypt(8), aespipe(1),
1000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1003 amanda Home amanda-client.conf