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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: 3. How many times the server will try a connection.
259 Default: 3. How many times the server will resend a REQ packet if it
260 doesn't get the ACK packet.
263 Default: 300 Kbps. The maximum network bandwidth allocated to Amanda, in
264 Kbytes per second. See also the interface section.
267 Default: 10. The maximum number of backups that Amanda will attempt to
268 run in parallel. Amanda will stay within the constraints of network
269 bandwidth and holding disk space available, so it doesn't hurt to set
270 this number a bit high. Some contention can occur with larger numbers of
271 backups, but this effect is relatively small on most systems.
273 displayunit "k|m|g|t"
274 Default: "k". The unit used to print many numbers, k=kilo, m=mega,
278 Default: tttTTTTTTT. The priority order of each dumper:
284 b: smallest bandwidth
289 Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that Amanda
290 will attempt to run in parallel. See also the inparallel option.
291 Note that this parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype (see
292 below). This value sets the default for all dumptypes so must appear in
293 amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined.
296 Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
297 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as size. If Amanda
298 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
299 than the current level, it will do the next level. The value of this
300 parameter is used only if the parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
301 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
303 See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
306 Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
307 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as percentage of
308 the current size of the DLE (size of current level 0). If Amanda
309 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
310 than the current level, it will do the next level.
311 If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bumpsize is
312 used to trigger bumping.
313 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
315 See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
318 Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bumpsize by
319 this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
320 too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
321 the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
322 10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
324 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
328 Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
329 filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
330 even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
331 The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside of a
335 Default: disklist. The file name for the disklist file holding client
336 hosts, disks and other client dumping information.
339 Default: /usr/adm/amanda/curinfo. The file or directory name for the
340 historical information database. If Amanda was configured to use DBM
341 databases, this is the base file name for them. If it was configured to
342 use text formated databases (the default), this is the base directory and
343 within here will be a directory per client, then a directory per disk,
344 then a text file of data.
347 Default: /usr/adm/amanda. The directory for the amdump and log files.
350 Default /usr/adm/amanda/index. The directory where index files (backup
351 image catalogues) are stored. Index files are only generated for
352 filesystems whose dumptype has the index option enabled.
355 Default: tapelist. The file name for the active tapelist file. Amanda
356 maintains this file with information about the active set of tapes.
359 Default: 20. The number of buffers used by the taper process run by
360 amdump and amflush to hold data as it is read from the network or disk
361 before it is written to tape. Each buffer is a little larger than 32
362 KBytes and is held in a shared memory region.
365 Default: 100. The part of holding-disk space that should be reserved for
366 incremental backups if no tape is available, expressed as a percentage of
367 the available holding-disk space (0-100). By default, when there is no
368 tape to write to, degraded mode (incremental) backups will be performed
369 to the holding disk. If full backups should also be allowed in this case,
370 the amount of holding disk space reserved for incrementals should be
374 Default: off. Whether an amdump run will flush the dumps from holding
377 amrecover_do_fsf bool
378 Default: on. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -f flag for faster
379 positioning of the tape.
381 amrecover_check_label bool
382 Default: on. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -l flag to check the
385 amrecover_changer string
386 Default: ''. Amrecover will use the changer if you use 'settape <string>'
387 and that string is the same as the amrecover_changer setting.
390 Defines the width of columns amreport should use. String is a comma (',')
391 separated list of triples. Each triple consists of three parts which are
392 separated by a equal sign ('=') and a colon (':') (see the example).
393 These three parts specify:
395 1. the name of the column, which may be:
397 Compress (compression ratio)
398 Disk (client disk name)
399 DumpRate (dump rate in KBytes/sec)
400 DumpTime (total dump time in hours:minutes)
401 HostName (client host name)
403 OrigKB (original image size in KBytes)
404 OutKB (output image size in KBytes)
405 TapeRate (tape writing rate in KBytes/sec)
406 TapeTime (total tape time in hours:minutes)
409 2. the amount of space to display before the column (used to get
410 whitespace between columns).
411 3. the width of the column itself. If set to a negative value, the
412 width will be calculated on demand to fit the largest entry in this
417 columnspec "Disk=1:18,HostName=0:10,OutKB=1:7"
419 The above will display the disk information in 18 characters and put one
420 space before it. The hostname column will be 10 characters wide with no
421 space to the left. The output KBytes column is seven characters wide with
425 Default: none. The name of an Amanda configuration file to include within
426 the current file. Useful for sharing dumptypes, tapetypes and interface
427 definitions among several configurations.
430 Default: 0. Debug level of the auth module
433 Default: 0. Debug level of the event module
436 Default: 0. Debug level of the holdingdisk module
439 Default: 0. Debug level of the protocol module
442 Default: 0. Debug level of the planner process
445 Default: 0. Debug level of the driver process
448 Default: 0. Debug level of the dumper process
451 Default: 0. Debug level of the chunker process
454 Default: 0. Debug level of the taper process
456 reserved-udp-port int,int
457 Default: --with-udpportrange or 512,1023. Reserved udp port that will be
460 reserved-tcp-port int,int
461 Default: --with-low-tcpportrange or 512,1023. Reserved tcp port that will
464 unreserved-tcp-port int,int
465 Default: --with-tcpportrange or 1025,65536. Unreserved tcp port that will
466 be used (bsd, bsdudp)
471 The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks used as buffers to
472 hold backup images before they are written to tape. The syntax is:
475 holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
479 Name is a logical name for this holding disk.
480 The options and values are:
484 Default: none. A comment string describing this holding disk.
487 Default: /dumps/amanda. The path to this holding area.
490 Default: 0 Gb. Amount of space that can be used in this holding disk
491 area. If the value is zero, all available space on the file system is
492 used. If the value is negative, Amanda will use all available space minus
496 Default: 1 Gb. Holding disk chunk size. Dumps larger than the specified
497 size will be stored in multiple holding disk files. The size of each
498 chunk will not exceed the specified value. However, even though dump
499 images are split in the holding disk, they are concatenated as they are
500 written to tape, so each dump image still corresponds to a single
501 continuous tape section.
502 If 0 is specified, Amanda will create holding disk chunks as large as (
503 (INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes.
504 Each holding disk chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header, so the minimum chunk
505 size is 64 Kbytes (but that would be really silly).
506 Operating systems that are limited to a maximum file size of 2 Gbytes
507 actually cannot handle files that large. They must be at least one byte
508 less than 2 Gbytes. Since Amanda works with 32 Kbyte blocks, and to
509 handle the final read at the end of the chunk, the chunk size should be
510 at least 64 Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes) smaller than the maximum file size,
516 The amanda.conf file may define multiple sets of backup options and refer to
517 them by name from the disklist file. For instance, one set of options might be
518 defined for file systems that can benefit from high compression, another set
519 that does not compress well, another set for file systems that should always
520 get a full backup and so on.
521 A set of backup options are entered in a dumptype section, which looks like
524 define dumptype name {
525 dumptype-option dumptype-value
529 Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is referenced from the
531 Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as those in the main
532 part of amanda.conf. The main option value is used to set the default for all
533 dumptype sections. For instance, setting dumpcycle to 50 in the main part of
534 the config file causes all following dumptype sections to start with that
535 value, but the value may be changed on a section by section basis. Changes to
536 variables in the main part of the config file must be done before (earlier in
537 the file) any dumptypes are defined.
538 The dumptype options and values are:
542 Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform between tape server and
544 bsd, bsd authorization with udp initial connection and one tcp connection
546 bsdtcp, bsd authorization but use only one tcp connection.
547 bsdudp, like bsd, but will use only one tcp connection for all data
549 krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.
550 krb5 to use Kerberos-V authorization.
551 rsh to use rsh authorization.
552 ssh to use OpenSSH authorization.
555 Default: $libexec/amandad. Specify the amandad path of the client, only
556 use with rsh/ssh authentification.
558 client_username string
559 Default: CLIENT_LOGIN. Specify the username to connect on the client,
560 only use with rsh/ssh authentification.
563 Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
564 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as size. If Amanda
565 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
566 than the current level, it will do the next level. The value of this
567 parameter is used only if the parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
568 See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
571 Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
572 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as percentage of
573 the current size of the DLE (size of current level 0). If Amanda
574 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
575 than the current level, it will do the next level.
576 If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bumpsize is
577 used to trigger bumping.
578 See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
581 Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bumpsize by
582 this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
583 too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
584 the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
585 10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
589 Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
590 filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
591 even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
594 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of backup options.
596 comprate float [, float ]
597 Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incremental compression factor
598 for dumps. It is only used if Amanda does not have any history
599 information on compression rates for a filesystem, so should not usually
600 need to be set. However, it may be useful for the first time a very large
601 filesystem that compresses very little is backed up.
603 compress [client|server] string
604 Default: client fast. If Amanda does compression of the backup images, it
605 can do so either on the backup client host before it crosses the network
606 or on the tape server host as it goes from the network into the holding
607 disk or to tape. Which place to do compression (if at all) depends on how
608 well the dump image usually compresses, the speed and load on the client
609 or server, network capacity, holding disk capacity, availability of tape
610 hardware compression, etc.
611 For either type of compression, Amanda also allows the selection of three
612 styles of compression. Best is the best compression available, often at
613 the expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often not as good a compression as
614 best, but usually less CPU overhead. Or to specify Custom to use your own
615 compression method. (See dumptype custom-compress in example/amanda.conf
617 So the compress options line may be one of:
626 compress client custom
627 Specify client_custom_compress "PROG"
628 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for
635 compress server custom
636 Specify server_custom_compress "PROG"
637 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for
640 Note that some tape devices do compression and this option has nothing to
641 do with whether that is used. If hardware compression is used (usually
642 via a particular tape device name or mt option), Amanda (software)
643 compression should be disabled.
646 Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk using
647 this set of options will get a full backup at least this of ten. Setting
648 this to zero tries to do a full backup each run.
650 encrypt [none|client|server]
651 Default: none. To encrypt backup images, it can do so either on the
652 backup client host before it crosses the network or on the tape server
653 host as it goes from the network into the holding disk or to tape.
654 So the encrypt options line may be one of:
660 Specify client_encrypt "PROG"
661 PROG must not contain white space.
662 Specify client_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
663 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
664 (See dumptype server-encrypt-fast in example/amanda.conf for
668 Specify server_encrypt "PROG"
669 PROG must not contain white space.
670 Specify server_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
671 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
672 (See dumptype client-encrypt-nocomp in example/amanda.conf for
675 Note that current logic assumes compression then encryption during backup
676 (thus decrypt then uncompress during restore). So specifying client-
677 encryption AND server-compression is not supported. amcrypt which is a
678 wrapper of aespipe is provided as a reference symmetric encryption
681 estimate client|calcsize|server
682 Default: client. Determine the way Amanda does it's estimate.
686 Use the same program as the dumping program, this is the most
687 accurate way to do estimates, but it can take a long time.
690 Use a faster program to do estimates, but the result is less
694 Use only statistics from the previous run to give an estimate, it
695 takes only a few seconds but the result is not accurate if your
696 disk usage changes from day to day.
699 exclude [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
700 Default: file. There are two exclude lists, exclude file and exclude
701 list. With exclude file , the string is a GNU-tar exclude expression.
702 With exclude list , the string is a file name on the client containing
703 GNU-tar exclude expressions. The path to the specified exclude list file,
704 if present (see description of 'optional' below), must be readable by the
706 All exclude expressions are concatenated in one file and passed to GNU-
707 tar as an --exclude-from argument.
708 Exclude expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
709 directory of the DLE.
710 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
711 without it, the string overwrites the list.
712 If optional is specified for exclude list, then amcheck will not complain
713 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
714 For exclude list, if the file name is relative, the disk name being
715 backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:
717 exclude list ".amanda.excludes"
719 the actual file used would be /var/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /var,
720 /usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /usr/local, and so on.
722 holdingdisk [ never|auto|required ]
723 Default: auto. Whether a holding disk should be used for these backups or
724 whether they should go directly to tape. If the holding disk is a portion
725 of another file system that Amanda is backing up, that file system should
726 refer to a dumptype with holdingdisk set to never to avoid backing up the
727 holding disk into itself.
731 Never use a holdingdisk, the dump will always go directly to tape.
732 There will be no dump if you have a tape error.
735 Use the holding disk, unless there is a problem with the holding
736 disk, the dump won't fit there or the medium doesn't require
737 spooling (e.g., VFS device)
740 Always dump to holdingdisk, never directly to tape. There will be
741 no dump if it doesn't fit on holdingdisk
745 Default: no. Whether disks associated with this backup type should be
746 backed up or not. This option is useful when the disklist file is shared
747 among several configurations, some of which should not back up all the
750 include [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
751 Default: file ".". There are two include lists, include file and include
752 list. With include file , the string is a glob expression. With include
753 list , the string is a file name on the client containing glob
755 All include expressions are expanded by Amanda, concatenated in one file
756 and passed to GNU-tar as a --files-from argument. They must start with
757 "./" and contain no other "/".
758 Include expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
759 directory of the DLE.
763 For globbing to work at all, even the limited single level, the top level
764 directory of the DLE must be readable by the Amanda user.
765 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
766 without it, the string overwrites the list.
767 If optional is specified for include list, then amcheck will not complain
768 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
769 For include list, If the file name is relative, the disk name being
770 backed up is prepended.
773 Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the backup should be
774 generated and saved in indexdir. These catalogues are used by the
778 Default: no. Whether the backup image should be encrypted by Kerberos as
779 it is sent across the network from the backup client host to the tape
783 Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that Amanda
784 will attempt to run in parallel. See also the main section parameter
788 Default: 10000. The maximum number of day for a promotion, set it 0 if
789 you don't want promotion, set it to 1 or 2 if your disks get
793 Default: medium. When there is no tape to write to, Amanda will do
794 incremental backups in priority order to the holding disk. The priority
795 may be high (2), medium (1), low (0) or a number of your choice.
798 Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform. Valid values are DUMP for
799 the native operating system backup program, and GNUTAR to use GNU-tar or
800 to do PC backups using Samba.
803 Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to update its database
804 (e.g. /etc/dumpdates for DUMP or /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists for
805 GNUTAR) of time stamps. This is normally enabled for daily backups and
806 turned off for periodic archival runs.
809 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a full backup, these disks
810 will be skipped, and full backups should be run off-line on these days.
811 It was reported that Amanda only schedules level 1 incrementals in this
812 configuration; this is probably a bug.
815 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an incremental backup,
816 these disks will be skipped.
819 Default: none. Backups will not start until after this time of day. The
820 value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be entered as 1830.
823 Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning what level of backup to
824 run next. Values are:
828 The standard Amanda schedule.
831 Never do full backups, only level 1 incrementals.
834 Never do incremental backups, only full dumps.
837 Never do backups (useful when sharing the disklist file).
840 Only do incremental dumps. amadmin force should be used to tell
841 Amanda that a full dump has been performed off-line, so that it
842 resets to level 1. It is similar to skip-full, but with incronly
843 full dumps may be scheduled manually. Unfortunately, it appears
844 that Amanda will perform full backups with this configuration,
845 which is probably a bug.
849 Default: none. Split dump file on tape into pieces of a specified size.
850 This allows dumps to be spread across multiple tapes, and can potentially
851 make more efficient use of tape space. Note that if this value is too
852 large (more than half the size of the average dump being split),
853 substantial tape space can be wasted. If too small, large dumps will be
854 split into innumerable tiny dumpfiles, adding to restoration complexity.
855 A good rule of thumb, usually, is 1/10 of the size of your tape.
857 split_diskbuffer string
858 Default: none. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode (usually
859 meaning "no holding disk"), buffer the split chunks to a file in the
860 directory specified by this option.
862 fallback_splitsize int
863 Default: 10M. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode, if no
864 split_diskbuffer is specified (or if we somehow fail to use our
865 split_diskbuffer), we must buffer split chunks in memory. This specifies
866 the maximum size split chunks can be in this scenario, and thus the
867 maximum amount of memory consumed for in-memory splitting. The size of
868 this buffer can be changed from its (very conservative) default to a
869 value reflecting the amount of memory that each taper process on the dump
870 server may reasonably consume.
872 The following dumptype entries are predefined by Amanda:
874 define dumptype no-compress {
877 define dumptype compress-fast {
880 define dumptype compress-best {
883 define dumptype srvcompress {
886 define dumptype bsd-auth {
889 define dumptype krb4-auth {
892 define dumptype no-record {
895 define dumptype no-hold {
898 define dumptype no-full {
902 In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more other dumptype names
903 may be entered, which make this dumptype inherit options from other previously
904 defined dumptypes. For instance, two sections might be the same except for the
907 define dumptype normal {
908 comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
913 define dumptype testing {
914 comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
919 Amanda provides a dumptype named global in the sample amanda.conf file that all
920 dumptypes should reference. This provides an easy place to make changes that
921 will affect every dumptype.
925 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape media and devices. The
926 information is entered in a tapetype section, which looks like this in the
929 define tapetype name {
930 tapetype-option tapetype-value
934 Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It is referenced from the
935 tapetype option in the main part of the config file.
936 The tapetype options and values are:
940 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of tape information.
943 Default: 1 kbytes. How large a file mark (tape mark) is, measured in
944 kbytes. If the size is only known in some linear measurement (e.g.
945 inches), convert it to kbytes using the device density.
948 Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a tape.
949 Note that this value is only used by Amanda to schedule which backups
950 will be run. Once the backups start, Amanda will continue to write to a
951 tape until it gets an error, regardless of what value is entered for
952 length (but see the section OUTPUT DRIVERS in the amanda(8) manpage for
956 Default: 32 kbytes. How much data will be written in each tape record
957 expressed in KiloBytes. The tape record size (= blocksize) can not be
958 reduced below the default 32 KBytes. The parameter blocksize can only be
959 raised if Amanda was compiled with the configure option --with-
960 maxtapeblocksize=N set with "N" greater than 32 during configure.
963 Default: (from configure --with-maxtapeblocksize). How much data will be
964 read in each tape record expressed in KiloBytes. Some hardware require a
965 value not too large, and some require it to be equal to the blocksize. It
966 is useful if you configured amanda with a big --with-maxtapeblocksize and
967 your hardware don't work with a value that big.
970 Default: true. If true, every record, including the last one in the file,
971 will have the same length. This matches the way Amanda wrote tapes prior
972 to the availability of this parameter. It may also be useful on devices
973 that only support a fixed blocksize.
974 Note that the last record on the tape probably includes trailing null
975 byte padding, which will be passed back to gzip, compress or the restore
976 program. Most programs just ignore this (although possibly with a
978 If this parameter is false, the last record in a file may be shorter than
979 the block size. The file will contain the same amount of data the dump
980 program generated, without trailing null byte padding. When read, the
981 same amount of data that was written will be returned.
984 Default: 200 bps. How fast the drive will accept data, in bytes per
985 second. This parameter is NOT currently used by Amanda.
988 A PostScript template file used by amreport to generate labels. Several
989 sample files are provided with the Amanda sources in the example
990 directory. See the amreport(8) man page for more information.
992 In addition to options, another tapetype name may be entered, which makes this
993 tapetype inherit options from another tapetype. For instance, the only
994 difference between a DLT4000 tape drive using Compact-III tapes and one using
995 Compact-IV tapes is the length of the tape. So they could be entered as:
997 define tapetype DLT4000-III {
998 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
999 length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
1000 filemark 2000 kbytes
1003 define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
1005 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
1006 length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
1012 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network interfaces. The
1013 information is entered in an interface section, which looks like this:
1015 define interface name {
1016 interface-option interface-value
1020 name is the name of this type of network interface. It is referenced from the
1022 Note that these sections define network interface characteristics, not the
1023 actual interface that will be used. Nor do they impose limits on the bandwidth
1024 that will actually be taken up by Amanda. Amanda computes the estimated
1025 bandwidth each file system backup will take based on the estimated size and
1026 time, then compares that plus any other running backups with the limit as
1027 another of the criteria when deciding whether to start the backup. Once a
1028 backup starts, Amanda will use as much of the network as it can leaving
1029 throttling up to the operating system and network hardware.
1030 The interface options and values are:
1034 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of network
1038 Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in Kbytes per second.
1040 In addition to options, another interface name may be entered, which makes this
1041 interface inherit options from another interface. At the moment, this is of
1046 James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org>: Original text
1047 Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the Amanda-documentation:
1048 XML-conversion, major update, splitting
1052 amanda(8), amanda-client.conf(5), amcrypt(8), aespipe(1),
1053 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1056 amanda Home amanda-client.conf