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[debian/amanda] / debian / amanda-server.README.Debian

amanda for DEBIAN
-----------------

Since every Amanda installation is different, there is some work you need to
do to configure your server.  For a simple setup, as root you need to:

1. Create a directory under /etc/amanda for your backup config, we'll assume
   a name 'DailySet1' as our example.

        mkdir /etc/amanda/DailySet1

   Make sure that /etc/amanda and all the files under it are owner and group
   backup with directory permissions of 770 and file permissions of 660.

2. populate this directory with config files.  At a minimum, you need 
   amanda.conf and disklist.

        cp /usr/share/doc/amanda-server/examples/amanda.conf \
                /etc/amanda/DailySet1/amanda.conf*
        cp /usr/share/doc/amanda-server/examples/disklist \
                /etc/amanda/DailySet1/disklist

   Edit these files as needed, following the instructions in each file.

3. Make sure that /etc/amanda and all the files under it are owner and group
   backup with directory permissions of 770 and file permissions of 660.

        chown -R backup:backup /etc/amanda

3. Prepare the "holding disk" if you plan to use one (highly recommended!) by 
   ensuring user backup can access it.  See the note below indicating that it
   may be better to use a subdirectory and not a mount point to avoid having 
   system artifacts like the lost+found directory confuse things.

        chown -R backup:backup <holding disk location>

4. Install a suitable crontab for user backup.  If you used DailySet1 as your
   configuration name, you can just install the provided example.  If you
   picked some other name, you will obviously need to edit a copy of the
   example before installing it.

        crontab -u backup /usr/share/doc/amanda-server/examples/crontab.amanda

To use all of Amanda's features, you probably also want to put each client
machine's root user in the .rhosts or .amandahosts for ~backup on the server 
machine.  On Debian systems, this is usually linked to /etc/amandahosts, but
if you have clients running other operating systems you'll have to find the
right place yourself.

NOTE:  If you want to backup your server too, you need to treat it as both a
client *and* a server, see /usr/share/doc/amanda-client/README.Debian for 
more information.

For more complex setups, consult the manpages and the extra documents and
example files in /usr/share/doc/amanda-common, or look at www.amanda.org on
the web.

Another Note: if you use floppy tapes you have to use the sftape interface 
for use with ftape(>=3.03).

Jean Pierre LeJacq <jplejacq@mail.quoininc.com> reports the following about
his experience using ftape:

  I'm using ftape successfully with amanda but only after
  struggling.  The crucial trick was to set the block size with with ftmt to 
  be the same as used by amanda.  I've implemented this with this entry in
  /etc/modules.conf:
  
    alias char-major-27 zftape
    pre-install zftape /sbin/swapout 5
    post-install zftape /bin/ftmt -f /dev/nzqft0 setblk 32768

To ease use with firewalls, Amanda has been built with options restricting the
use of TCP to the port range 50000-50100,  and UDP to the port range 840-860.

Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net> reported problems with an Amanda server on which
bastille was used with the "restrict system resources" option.  See bug
118616 in the Debian bug tracking system for more information.

If you choose to use the SSH authentication method and associated transport,
please be aware that there may be problems if /usr/lib/amanda/dumper is suid.
You can fix this on your server with chmod u-s /usr/lib/amanda/dumper, or
investigate dpkg-statoverride.

Concerns have been expressed about the reliability of 'dump' as a backup tool
on live Linux systems.  Nothing can guarantee a consistent and meaningful 
backup of a live filesystem under all circumstances, and the maintainer of
these packages uses dump with good results.  

The tar utility is 'essential' in Debian and so will always be around, is not 
tied to any specific filesystem type, and there are entries in the default 
amanda.conf file defining dump types using tar.  This may therefore be a good
option to consider.

Note that if you are using tar with amanda, and getting errors about missing
exclude files (particularly on upgrades from older versions), then you may
need to update your dumptypes definition to explicitly indicate that the 
exclude file is optional, as shown in this example:

        define dumptype userdata-lowvalue {
           program "GNUTAR"
           comment "Low value user data dumped with tar"
           options compress-fast, index
           exclude list optional ".amandaexclude"
           priority low
        }

- - - - -

If you see backups failing with an error like:

        driver: FATAL flush line 1: syntax error (skipping != FLUSH)

The problem may be that some versions of Amanda around 2.5.2 are not 
happy if there are unexpected contents in the holdingdisk you have
defined on the server.  This can occur, for example, if you are using
the mount point of a separate filesystem that contains a lost+found
directory.  The quick fix is to create a subdirectory in that partition
for Amanda to use that will have no such unexpected contents.  For more 
info on this issue see:

        http://forums.zmanda.com/archive/index.php/t-591.html

- - - - -

If you see things like this in dmesg:

    INFO: task ammt:9839 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
    "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.

This information from Marc Schaefer may relevant:

> AFAIK it's because mtio operations are done in D state (uninterruptible
> sleep).
> 
> And except for mtio operations which may last more than two minutes,
> nothing in the usual kernel operation will last that long.
> 
> Solutions:
>       - either fix mtio to be interruptible (which may well cause problems
>         because e.g. SCSI reselection might happen later)
>       - use the proposed work-around
>       - ignore those messages in your logcheck.