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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: none. The name of an Amanda configuration file to include within
79 the current file. Useful for sharing dumptypes, tapetypes and interface
80 definitions among several configurations.
85 The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks used as buffers to
86 hold backup images before they are written to tape. The syntax is:
89 holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
93 Name is a logical name for this holding disk.
94 The options and values are:
98 Default: none. A comment string describing this holding disk.
101 Default: /dumps/amanda. The path to this holding area.
104 Default: 0 Gb. Amount of space that can be used in this holding disk
105 area. If the value is zero, all available space on the file system is
106 used. If the value is negative, Amanda will use all available space minus
110 Default: 1 Gb. Holding disk chunk size. Dumps larger than the specified
111 size will be stored in multiple holding disk files. The size of each
112 chunk will not exceed the specified value. However, even though dump
113 images are split in the holding disk, they are concatenated as they are
114 written to tape, so each dump image still corresponds to a single
115 continuous tape section. If 0 is specified, Amanda will create holding
116 disk chunks as large as ((INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes. Each holding disk
117 chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header, so the minimum chunk size is 64 Kbytes
118 (but that would be really silly). Operating systems that are limited to a
119 maximum file size of 2 Gbytes actually cannot handle files that large.
120 They must be at least one byte less than 2 Gbytes. Since Amanda works
121 with 32 Kbyte blocks, and to handle the final read at the end of the
122 chunk, the chunk size should be at least 64 Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes)
123 smaller than the maximum file size, e.g. 2047 Mbytes.
128 The amanda.conf file may define multiple sets of backup options and refer to
129 them by name from the disklist file. For instance, one set of options might be
130 defined for file systems that can benefit from high compression, another set
131 that does not compress well, another set for file systems that should always
132 get a full backup and so on.
133 A set of backup options are entered in a dumptype section, which looks like
136 define dumptype name {
137 dumptype-option dumptype-value
141 Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is referenced from the
143 Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as those in the main
144 part of amanda.conf. The main option value is used to set the default for all
145 dumptype sections. For instance, setting dumpcycle to 50 in the main part of
146 the config file causes all following dumptype sections to start with that
147 value, but the value may be changed on a section by section basis. Changes to
148 variables in the main part of the config file must be done before (earlier in
149 the file) any dumptypes are defined.
150 The dumptype options and values are:
154 Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform between tape server and
156 bsd, bsd authorization with udp initial connection and one tcp connection
158 bsdtcp, bsd authorization but use only one tcp connection.
159 bsdudp, like bsd, but will use only one tcp connection for all data
161 krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.
162 krb5 to use Kerberos-V authorization.
163 rsh to use rsh authorization.
164 ssh to use OpenSSH authorization.
167 Default: $libexec/amandad. Specify the amandad path of the client, only
168 use with rsh/ssh authentification.
170 client_username string
171 Default: CLIENT_LOGIN. Specify the username to connect on the client,
172 only use with rsh/ssh authentification.
175 Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
176 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as size. If Amanda
177 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
178 than the current level, it will do the next level. The value of this
179 parameter is used only if the parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
180 See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
183 Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
184 bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed as percentage of
185 the current size of the DLE (size of current level 0). If Amanda
186 determines that the next higher backup level will be this much smaller
187 than the current level, it will do the next level.
188 If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bumpsize is
189 used to trigger bumping.
190 See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
193 Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bumpsize by
194 this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
195 too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
196 the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
197 10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
201 Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
202 filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
203 even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
206 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of backup options.
208 comprate float [, float ]
209 Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incremental compression factor
210 for dumps. It is only used if Amanda does not have any history
211 information on compression rates for a filesystem, so should not usually
212 need to be set. However, it may be useful for the first time a very large
213 filesystem that compresses very little is backed up.
215 compress [client|server] string
216 Default: client fast. If Amanda does compression of the backup images, it
217 can do so either on the backup client host before it crosses the network
218 or on the tape server host as it goes from the network into the holding
219 disk or to tape. Which place to do compression (if at all) depends on how
220 well the dump image usually compresses, the speed and load on the client
221 or server, network capacity, holding disk capacity, availability of tape
222 hardware compression, etc.
223 For either type of compression, Amanda also allows the selection of three
224 styles of compression. Best is the best compression available, often at
225 the expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often not as good a compression as
226 best, but usually less CPU overhead. Or to specify Custom to use your own
227 compression method. (See dumptype custom-compress in example/amanda.conf
229 So the compress options line may be one of:
232 * compress [client] fast
233 * compress [client] best
234 * compress client custom
235 Specify client_custom_compress "PROG"
236 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for uncompress.
237 * compress server fast
238 * compress server best
239 * compress server custom
240 Specify server_custom_compress "PROG"
241 PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for uncompress.
243 Note that some tape devices do compression and this option has nothing to
244 do with whether that is used. If hardware compression is used (usually
245 via a particular tape device name or mt option), Amanda (software)
246 compression should be disabled.
249 Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk using
250 this set of options will get a full backup at least this of ten. Setting
251 this to zero tries to do a full backup each run.
253 encrypt [none|client|server]
254 Default: none. To encrypt backup images, it can do so either on the
255 backup client host before it crosses the network or on the tape server
256 host as it goes from the network into the holding disk or to tape.
257 So the encrypt options line may be one of:
261 Specify client_encrypt "PROG"
262 PROG must not contain white space.
263 Specify client_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
264 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
265 (See dumptype server-encrypt-fast in example/amanda.conf for reference)
267 Specify server_encrypt "PROG"
268 PROG must not contain white space.
269 Specify server_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default: "-d"
270 decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
271 (See dumptype client-encrypt-nocomp in example/amanda.conf for
275 estimate client|calcsize|server
276 Default: client. Determine the way Amanda does it's estimate.
279 Use the same program as the dumping program, this is the most accurate
280 way to do estimates, but it can take a long time.
282 Use a faster program to do estimates, but the result is less accurate.
284 Use only statistics from the previous run to give an estimate, it takes
285 only a few seconds but the result is not accurate if your disk usage
286 changes from day to day.
289 exclude [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
290 Default: file. There are two exclude lists, exclude file and exclude
291 list. With exclude file , the string is a GNU-tar exclude expression.
292 With exclude list , the string is a file name on the client containing
293 GNU-tar exclude expressions. The path to the specified exclude list file,
294 if present (see description of 'optional' below), must be readable by the
296 All exclude expressions are concatenated in one file and passed to GNU-
297 tar as an --exclude-from argument.
298 Exclude expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
299 directory of the DLE.
300 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
301 without it, the string overwrites the list.
302 If optional is specified for exclude list, then amcheck will not complain
303 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
304 For exclude list, if the file name is relative, the disk name being
305 backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:
307 exclude list ".amanda.excludes"
309 the actual file used would be /var/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /var,
310 /usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /usr/local, and so on.
312 holdingdisk [ never|auto|required] ]
313 Default: auto. Whether a holding disk should be used for these backups or
314 whether they should go directly to tape. If the holding disk is a portion
315 of another file system that Amanda is backing up, that file system should
316 refer to a dumptype with holdingdisk set to never to avoid backing up the
317 holding disk into itself.
321 Never use a holdingdisk, the dump will always go directly to tape.
322 There will be no dump if you have a tape error.
325 Use the holding disk, unless there is a problem with the holding
326 disk, the dump won't fit there or the medium doesn't require
327 spooling (e.g., VFS device)
330 Always dump to holdingdisk, never directly to tape. There will be
331 no dump if it doesn't fit on holdingdisk
335 Default: no. Whether disks associated with this backup type should be
336 backed up or not. This option is useful when the disklist file is shared
337 among several configurations, some of which should not back up all the
340 include [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
341 Default: file ".". There are two include lists, include file and include
342 list. With include file , the string is a glob expression. With include
343 list , the string is a file name on the client containing glob
345 All include expressions are expanded by Amanda, concatenated in one file
346 and passed to GNU-tar as a --files-from argument. They must start with
347 "./" and contain no other "/".
348 Include expressions must always be specified as relative to the head
349 directory of the DLE.
353 For globbing to work at all, even the limited single level, the top level
354 directory of the DLE must be readable by the Amanda user.
355 With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
356 without it, the string overwrites the list.
357 If optional is specified for include list, then amcheck will not complain
358 if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
359 For include list, If the file name is relative, the disk name being
360 backed up is prepended.
363 Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the backup should be
364 generated and saved in indexdir. These catalogues are used by the
368 Default: no. Whether the backup image should be encrypted by Kerberos as
369 it is sent across the network from the backup client host to the tape
373 Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that Amanda
374 will attempt to run in parallel. See also the main section parameter
378 Default: 10000. The maximum number of day for a promotion, set it 0 if
379 you don't want promotion, set it to 1 or 2 if your disks get
383 Default: medium. When there is no tape to write to, Amanda will do
384 incremental backups in priority order to the holding disk. The priority
385 may be high (2), medium (1), low (0) or a number of your choice.
388 Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform. Valid values are DUMP for
389 the native operating system backup program, and GNUTAR to use GNU-tar or
390 to do PC backups using Samba.
393 Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to update its database
394 (e.g. /etc/dumpdates for DUMP or /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists for
395 GNUTAR) of time stamps. This is normally enabled for daily backups and
396 turned off for periodic archival runs.
399 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a full backup, these disks
400 will be skipped, and full backups should be run off-line on these days.
401 It was reported that Amanda only schedules level 1 incrementals in this
402 configuration; this is probably a bug.
405 Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an incremental backup,
406 these disks will be skipped.
409 Default: none. Backups will not start until after this time of day. The
410 value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be entered as 1830.
413 Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning what level of backup to
414 run next. Values are:
418 The standard Amanda schedule.
421 Never do full backups, only level 1 incrementals.
424 Never do incremental backups, only full dumps.
427 Never do backups (useful when sharing the disklist file).
430 Only do incremental dumps. amadmin force should be used to tell
431 Amanda that a full dump has been performed off-line, so that it
432 resets to level 1. It is similar to skip-full, but with incronly
433 full dumps may be scheduled manually. Unfortunately, it appears
434 that Amanda will perform full backups with this configuration,
435 which is probably a bug.
439 Default: none. Split dump file on tape into pieces of a specified size.
440 This allows dumps to be spread across multiple tapes, and can potentially
441 make more efficient use of tape space. Note that if this value is too
442 large (more than half the size of the average dump being split),
443 substantial tape space can be wasted. If too small, large dumps will be
444 split into innumerable tiny dumpfiles, adding to restoration complexity.
445 A good rule of thumb, usually, is 1/10 of the size of your tape.
447 split_diskbuffer string
448 Default: none. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode (usually
449 meaning "no holding disk"), buffer the split chunks to a file in the
450 directory specified by this option.
452 fallback_splitsize int
453 Default: 10M. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode, if no
454 split_diskbuffer is specified (or if we somehow fail to use our
455 split_diskbuffer), we must buffer split chunks in memory. This specifies
456 the maximum size split chunks can be in this scenario, and thus the
457 maximum amount of memory consumed for in-memory splitting. The size of
458 this buffer can be changed from its (very conservative) default to a
459 value reflecting the amount of memory that each taper process on the dump
460 server may reasonably consume.
462 The following dumptype entries are predefined by Amanda:
464 define dumptype no-compress {
467 define dumptype compress-fast {
470 define dumptype compress-best {
473 define dumptype srvcompress {
476 define dumptype bsd-auth {
479 define dumptype krb4-auth {
482 define dumptype no-record {
485 define dumptype no-hold {
488 define dumptype no-full {
492 In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more other dumptype names
493 may be entered, which make this dumptype inherit options from other previously
494 defined dumptypes. For instance, two sections might be the same except for the
497 define dumptype normal {
498 comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
503 define dumptype testing {
504 comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
509 Amanda provides a dumptype named global in the sample amanda.conf file that all
510 dumptypes should reference. This provides an easy place to make changes that
511 will affect every dumptype.
515 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape media and devices. The
516 information is entered in a tapetype section, which looks like this in the
519 define tapetype name {
520 tapetype-option tapetype-value
524 Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It is referenced from the
525 tapetype option in the main part of the config file.
526 The tapetype options and values are:
530 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of tape information.
533 Default: 1000 bytes. How large a file mark (tape mark) is, measured in
534 bytes. If the size is only known in some linear measurement (e.g.
535 inches), convert it to bytes using the device density.
538 Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a tape.
539 Note that this value is only used by Amanda to schedule which backups
540 will be run. Once the backups start, Amanda will continue to write to a
541 tape until it gets an error, regardless of what value is entered for
542 length (but see the section OUTPUT DRIVERS in the amanda(8) manpage for
546 Default: 32. How much data will be written in each tape record expressed
547 in KiloBytes. The tape record size (= blocksize) can not be reduced below
548 the default 32 KBytes. The parameter blocksize can only be raised if
549 Amanda was compiled with the configure option --with-maxtapeblocksize=N
550 set with "N" greater than 32 during configure.
553 Default: true. If true, every record, including the last one in the file,
554 will have the same length. This matches the way Amanda wrote tapes prior
555 to the availability of this parameter. It may also be useful on devices
556 that only support a fixed blocksize.
557 Note that the last record on the tape probably includes trailing null
558 byte padding, which will be passed back to gzip, compress or the restore
559 program. Most programs just ignore this (although possibly with a
561 If this parameter is false, the last record in a file may be shorter than
562 the block size. The file will contain the same amount of data the dump
563 program generated, without trailing null byte padding. When read, the
564 same amount of data that was written will be returned.
567 Default: 200 bps. How fast the drive will accept data, in bytes per
568 second. This parameter is NOT currently used by Amanda.
571 A PostScript template file used by amreport to generate labels. Several
572 sample files are provided with the Amanda sources in the example
573 directory. See the amreport(8) man page for more information.
575 In addition to options, another tapetype name may be entered, which makes this
576 tapetype inherit options from another tapetype. For instance, the only
577 difference between a DLT4000 tape drive using Compact-III tapes and one using
578 Compact-IV tapes is the length of the tape. So they could be entered as:
580 define tapetype DLT4000-III {
581 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
582 length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
586 define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
588 comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
589 length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
595 The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network interfaces. The
596 information is entered in an interface section, which looks like this:
598 define interface name {
599 interface-option interface-value
603 name is the name of this type of network interface. It is referenced from the
605 Note that these sections define network interface characteristics, not the
606 actual interface that will be used. Nor do they impose limits on the bandwidth
607 that will actually be taken up by Amanda. Amanda computes the estimated
608 bandwidth each file system backup will take based on the estimated size and
609 time, then compares that plus any other running backups with the limit as
610 another of the criteria when deciding whether to start the backup. Once a
611 backup starts, Amanda will use as much of the network as it can leaving
612 throttling up to the operating system and network hardware.
613 The interface options and values are:
617 Default: none. A comment string describing this set of network
621 Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in Kbytes per second.
623 In addition to options, another interface name may be entered, which makes this
624 interface inherit options from another interface. At the moment, this is of
629 James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org>: Original text
630 Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the Amanda-documentation:
631 XML-conversion, major update, splitting
635 amanda(8), amanda-client.conf(5), amcrypt(8), aespipe(1),
636 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
639 amanda Home amanda-client.conf