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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.
19 There are a number of configuration parameters that control the behavior of the
20 Amanda programs. All have default values, so you need not specify the parameter
21 in amanda.conf if the default is suitable.
22 Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines. Comments may be placed
23 on a line with a directive by starting the comment with a #. The remainder of
25 Keywords are case insensitive, i.e. mailto and MailTo are treated the same.
26 Integer arguments may have one of the following (case insensitive) suffixes,
27 some of which have a multiplier effect:
37 Some number of bytes per second.
39 k kb kbyte kbytes kilobyte kilobytes
40 Some number of kilobytes (bytes*1024).
43 Some number of kilobytes per second (bytes*1024).
45 m mb meg mbyte mbytes megabyte megabytes
46 Some number of megabytes (bytes*1024*1024).
49 Some number of megabytes per second (bytes*1024*1024).
51 g gb gbyte gbytes gigabyte gigabytes
52 Some number of gigabytes (bytes*1024*1024*1024).
61 Some number of weeks (days*7).
65 The value inf may be used in most places where an integer is expected to
66 mean an infinite amount.
67 Boolean arguments may have any of the values y, yes, t, true or on to
68 indicate a true state, or n, no, f, false or off to indicate a false
69 state. If no argument is given, true is assumed.
77 Default: none. The name of an Amanda configuration file to include within
78 the current file. Useful for sharing dumptypes, tapetypes and interface
79 definitions among several configurations.
84 The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks used as buffers to
85 hold backup images before they are written to tape. The syntax is:
88 holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
92 Name is a logical name for this holding disk.
93 The options and values are:
97 Default: none. A comment string describing this holding disk.
100 Default: /dumps/amanda. The path to this holding area.
103 Default: 0 Gb. Amount of space that can be used in this holding disk
104 area. If the value is zero, all available space on the file system is
105 used. If the value is negative, Amanda will use all available space minus
109 Default: 1 Gb. Holding disk chunk size. Dumps larger than the specified
110 size will be stored in multiple holding disk files. The size of each
111 chunk will not exceed the specified value. However, even though dump
112 images are split in the holding disk, they are concatenated as they are
113 written to tape, so each dump image still corresponds to a single
114 continuous tape section. If 0 is specified, Amanda will create holding
115 disk chunks as large as ((INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes. Each holding disk
116 chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header, so the minimum chunk size is 64 Kbytes
117 (but that would be really silly). Operating systems that are limited to a
118 maximum file size of 2 Gbytes actually cannot handle files that large.
119 They must be at least one byte less than 2 Gbytes. Since Amanda works
120 with 32 Kbyte blocks, and to handle the final read at the end of the
121 chunk, the chunk size should be at least 64 Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes)
122 smaller than the maximum file size, e.g. 2047 Mbytes.
127 The amanda.conf file may define multiple sets of backup options and refer to
128 them by name from the disklist file. For instance, one set of options might be
129 defined for file systems that can benefit from high compression, another set
130 that does not compress well, another set for file systems that should always
131 get a full backup and so on.
132 A set of backup options are entered in a dumptype section, which looks like
135 define dumptype name {
136 dumptype-option dumptype-value
140 Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is referenced from the
142 Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as those in the main
143 part of amanda.conf. The main option value is used to set the default for all
144 dumptype sections. For instance, setting dumpcycle to 50 in the main part of
145 the config file causes all following dumptype sections to start with that
146 value, but the value may be changed on a section by section basis. Changes to
147 variables in the main part of the config file must be done before (earlier in
148 the file) any dumptypes are defined.
149 The dumptype options and values are:
153 Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform between tape server and
155 bsd, bsd authorization with udp initial connection and one tcp connection
157 bsdtcp, bsd authorization but use only one tcp connection.
158 bsdudp, like bsd, but will use only one tcp connection for all data
160 krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.
161 krb5 to use Kerberos-V authorization.
162 rsh to use rsh authorization.
163 ssh to use OpenSSH authorization.
166 Default: $libexec/amandad. Specify the amandad path of the client, only
167 use with rsh/ssh authentification.
169 client_username string
170 Default: CLIENT_LOGIN. Specify the username to connect on the client,
171 only use with rsh/ssh authentification.
174 Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
175 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as size. If Amanda
176 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
177 than the current level, it will do the next level. The value of this
178 parameter is used only if the parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
179 See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
182 Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
183 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as percentage of
184 the current size of the DLE (size of current level 0). If Amanda
185 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
186 than the current level, it will do the next level.
187 If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bumpsize is
188 used to trigger bumping.
189 See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
192 Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bumpsize by
193 this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
194 too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
195 the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
196 10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
200 Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
201 filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
202 even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
205 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of backup options.
207 comprate float [, float ]
208 Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incremental compression factor
209 for dumps. It is only used if Amanda does not have any history
210 information on compression rates for a filesystem, so should not usually
211 need to be set. However, it may be useful for the first time a very large
212 filesystem that compresses very little is backed up.
214 compress [client|server] string
215 Default: client fast. If Amanda does compression of the backup images, it
216 can do so either on the backup client host before it crosses the network
217 or on the tape server host as it goes from the network into the holding
218 disk or to tape. Which place to do compression (if at all) depends on how
219 well the dump image usually compresses, the speed and load on the client
220 or server, network capacity, holding disk capacity, availability of tape
221 hardware compression, etc.
222 For either type of compression, Amanda also allows the selection of three
223 styles of compression. Best is the best compression available, often at
224 the expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often not as good a compression as
225 best, but usually less CPU overhead. Or to specify Custom to use your own
226 compression method. (See dumptype custom-compress in example/amanda.conf
228 So the compress options line may be one of:
231 * compress [client] fast
232 * compress [client] best
233 * compress client custom
234 Specify client_custom_compress "PROG"
235 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for uncompress.
236 * compress server fast
237 * compress server best
238 * compress server custom
239 Specify server_custom_compress "PROG"
240 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for uncompress.
242 Note that some tape devices do compression and this option has nothing to
243 do with whether that is used. If hardware compression is used (usually
244 via a particular tape device name or mt option), Amanda (software)
245 compression should be disabled.
248 Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk using
249 this set of options will get a full backup at least this of ten. Setting
250 this to zero tries to do a full backup each run.
252 encrypt [none|client|server]
253 Default: none. To encrypt backup images, it can do so either on the
254 backup client host before it crosses the network or on the tape server
255 host as it goes from the network into the holding disk or to tape.
256 So the encrypt options line may be one of:
260 Specify client_encrypt "PROG"
261 PROG must not contain white space.
262 Specify client_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
263 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
264 (See dumptype server-encrypt-fast in example/amanda.conf for reference)
266 Specify server_encrypt "PROG"
267 PROG must not contain white space.
268 Specify server_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
269 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
270 (See dumptype client-encrypt-nocomp in example/amanda.conf for
274 estimate client|calcsize|server
275 Default: client. Determine the way Amanda does it's estimate.
278 Use the same program as the dumping program, this is the most accurate
279 way to do estimates, but it can take a long time.
281 Use a faster program to do estimates, but the result is less accurate.
283 Use only statistics from the previous run to give an estimate, it takes
284 only a few seconds but the result is not accurate if your disk usage
285 changes from day to day.
288 exclude [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
289 Default: file. There are two exclude lists, exclude file and exclude
290 list. With exclude file , the string is a GNU-tar exclude expression.
291 With exclude list , the string is a file name on the client containing
292 GNU-tar exclude expressions. The path to the specified exclude list file,
293 if present (see description of 'optional' below), must be readable by the
295 All exclude expressions are concatenated in one file and passed to GNU-
296 tar as an --exclude-from argument.
297 Exclude expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
298 directory of the DLE.
299 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
300 without it, the string overwrites the list.
301 If optional is specified for exclude list, then amcheck will not complain
302 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
303 For exclude list, if the file name is relative, the disk name being
304 backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:
306 exclude list ".amanda.excludes"
308 the actual file used would be /var/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /var,
309 /usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /usr/local, and so on.
312 Default: yes. Whether a holding disk should be used for these backups or
313 whether they should go directly to tape. If the holding disk is a portion
314 of another file system that Amanda is backing up, that file system should
315 refer to a dumptype with holdingdisk set to no to avoid backing up the
316 holding disk into itself.
319 Default: no. Whether disks associated with this backup type should be
320 backed up or not. This option is useful when the disklist file is shared
321 among several configurations, some of which should not back up all the
324 include [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
325 Default: file ".". There are two include lists, include file and include
326 list. With include file , the string is a glob expression. With include
327 list , the string is a file name on the client containing glob
329 All include expressions are expanded by Amanda, concatenated in one file
330 and passed to GNU-tar as a --files-from argument. They must start with
331 "./" and contain no other "/".
332 Include expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
333 directory of the DLE.
337 For globbing to work at all, even the limited single level, the top level
338 directory of the DLE must be readable by the Amanda user.
339 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
340 without it, the string overwrites the list.
341 If optional is specified for include list, then amcheck will not complain
342 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
343 For include list, If the file name is relative, the disk name being
344 backed up is prepended.
347 Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the backup should be
348 generated and saved in indexdir. These catalogues are used by the
352 Default: no. Whether the backup image should be encrypted by Kerberos as
353 it is sent across the network from the backup client host to the tape
357 Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that Amanda
358 will attempt to run in parallel. See also the main section parameter
362 Default: 10000. The maximum number of day for a promotion, set it 0 if
363 you don't want promotion, set it to 1 or 2 if your disks get
367 Default: medium. When there is no tape to write to, Amanda will do
368 incremental backups in priority order to the holding disk. The priority
369 may be high (2), medium (1), low (0) or a number of your choice.
372 Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform. Valid values are DUMP for
373 the native operating system backup program, and GNUTAR to use GNU-tar or
374 to do PC backups using Samba.
377 Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to update its database
378 (e.g. /etc/dumpdates for DUMP or /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists for
379 GNUTAR) of time stamps. This is normally enabled for daily backups and
380 turned off for periodic archival runs.
383 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a full backup, these disks
384 will be skipped, and full backups should be run off-line on these days.
385 It was reported that Amanda only schedules level 1 incrementals in this
386 configuration; this is probably a bug.
389 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an incremental backup,
390 these disks will be skipped.
393 Default: none. Backups will not start until after this time of day. The
394 value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be entered as 1830.
397 Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning what level of backup to
398 run next. Values are:
402 The standard Amanda schedule.
405 Never do full backups, only level 1 incrementals.
408 Never do incremental backups, only full dumps.
411 Never do backups (useful when sharing the disklist file).
414 Only do incremental dumps. amadmin force should be used to tell
415 Amanda that a full dump has been performed off-line, so that it
416 resets to level 1. It is similar to skip-full, but with incronly
417 full dumps may be scheduled manually. Unfortunately, it appears
418 that Amanda will perform full backups with this configuration,
419 which is probably a bug.
423 Default: none. Split dump file on tape into pieces of a specified size.
424 This allows dumps to be spread across multiple tapes, and can potentially
425 make more efficient use of tape space. Note that if this value is too
426 large (more than half the size of the average dump being split),
427 substantial tape space can be wasted. If too small, large dumps will be
428 split into innumerable tiny dumpfiles, adding to restoration complexity.
429 A good rule of thumb, usually, is 1/10 of the size of your tape.
431 split_diskbuffer string
432 Default: none. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode (usually
433 meaning "no holding disk"), buffer the split chunks to a file in the
434 directory specified by this option.
436 fallback_splitsize int
437 Default: 10M. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode, if no
438 split_diskbuffer is specified (or if we somehow fail to use our
439 split_diskbuffer), we must buffer split chunks in memory. This specifies
440 the maximum size split chunks can be in this scenario, and thus the
441 maximum amount of memory consumed for in-memory splitting. The size of
442 this buffer can be changed from its (very conservative) default to a
443 value reflecting the amount of memory that each taper process on the dump
444 server may reasonably consume.
446 The following dumptype entries are predefined by Amanda:
448 define dumptype no-compress {
451 define dumptype compress-fast {
454 define dumptype compress-best {
457 define dumptype srvcompress {
460 define dumptype bsd-auth {
463 define dumptype krb4-auth {
466 define dumptype no-record {
469 define dumptype no-hold {
472 define dumptype no-full {
476 In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more other dumptype names
477 may be entered, which make this dumptype inherit options from other previously
478 defined dumptypes. For instance, two sections might be the same except for the
481 define dumptype normal {
482 comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
487 define dumptype testing {
488 comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
493 Amanda provides a dumptype named global in the sample amanda.conf file that all
494 dumptypes should reference. This provides an easy place to make changes that
495 will affect every dumptype.
499 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape media and devices. The
500 information is entered in a tapetype section, which looks like this in the
503 define tapetype name {
504 tapetype-option tapetype-value
508 Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It is referenced from the
509 tapetype option in the main part of the config file.
510 The tapetype options and values are:
514 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of tape information.
517 Default: 1000 bytes. How large a file mark (tape mark) is, measured in
518 bytes. If the size is only known in some linear measurement (e.g.
519 inches), convert it to bytes using the device density.
522 Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a tape.
523 Note that this value is only used by Amanda to schedule which backups
524 will be run. Once the backups start, Amanda will continue to write to a
525 tape until it gets an error, regardless of what value is entered for
526 length (but see the section OUTPUT DRIVERS in the amanda(8) manpage for
530 Default: 32. How much data will be written in each tape record expressed
531 in KiloBytes. The tape record size (= blocksize) can not be reduced below
532 the default 32 KBytes. The parameter blocksize can only be raised if
533 Amanda was compiled with the configure option --with-maxtapeblocksize=N
534 set with "N" greater than 32 during configure.
537 Default: true. If true, every record, including the last one in the file,
538 will have the same length. This matches the way Amanda wrote tapes prior
539 to the availability of this parameter. It may also be useful on devices
540 that only support a fixed blocksize.
541 Note that the last record on the tape probably includes trailing null
542 byte padding, which will be passed back to gzip, compress or the restore
543 program. Most programs just ignore this (although possibly with a
545 If this parameter is false, the last record in a file may be shorter than
546 the block size. The file will contain the same amount of data the dump
547 program generated, without trailing null byte padding. When read, the
548 same amount of data that was written will be returned.
551 Default: 200 bps. How fast the drive will accept data, in bytes per
552 second. This parameter is NOT currently used by Amanda.
555 A PostScript template file used by amreport to generate labels. Several
556 sample files are provided with the Amanda sources in the example
557 directory. See the amreport(8) man page for more information.
559 In addition to options, another tapetype name may be entered, which makes this
560 tapetype inherit options from another tapetype. For instance, the only
561 difference between a DLT4000 tape drive using Compact-III tapes and one using
562 Compact-IV tapes is the length of the tape. So they could be entered as:
564 define tapetype DLT4000-III {
565 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
566 length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
570 define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
572 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
573 length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
579 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network interfaces. The
580 information is entered in an interface section, which looks like this:
582 define interface name {
583 interface-option interface-value
587 name is the name of this type of network interface. It is referenced from the
589 Note that these sections define network interface characteristics, not the
590 actual interface that will be used. Nor do they impose limits on the bandwidth
591 that will actually be taken up by Amanda. Amanda computes the estimated
592 bandwidth each file system backup will take based on the estimated size and
593 time, then compares that plus any other running backups with the limit as
594 another of the criteria when deciding whether to start the backup. Once a
595 backup starts, Amanda will use as much of the network as it can leaving
596 throttling up to the operating system and network hardware.
597 The interface options and values are:
601 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of network
605 Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in Kbytes per second.
607 In addition to options, another interface name may be entered, which makes this
608 interface inherit options from another interface. At the moment, this is of
613 James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org>: Original text
614 Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the Amanda-documentation:
615 XML-conversion, major update, splitting
619 amanda(8), amanda-client.conf(5), amcrypt(8), aespipe(1),
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623 amanda Home amanda-client.conf