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Name

amanda \14 Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver

Synopsis

amdump config
amflush [-f ] config
amcleanup config
amrecover [config] [options]
amrestore [options] tapedevice [ hostname [diskname]]
amlabel config label [ slot slot ]
amcheck [options] config
amadmin config command [options]
amtape config command [options]
amverify config
amrmtape [options] config label
amstatus config [options]
amoverview config [options]
amplot [options] amdump-files
amreport [config] [options]
amtoc [options] logfile
amcheckdb config
amgetconf [config] parameter

DESCRIPTION

AMANDA is the "Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver". This manual
page gives an overview of the AMANDA commands and configuration files for quick
reference.
Here are all the AMANDA commands. Each one has its own manual page. See them
for all the gory details.


  amdump
      Take care of automatic AMANDA backups. This is normally executed by cron
      on a computer called the tape server host and requests backups of file
      systems located on backup clients. Amdump backs up all disks in the
      disklist file (discussed below) to tape or, if there is a problem, to a
      special holding disk. After all backups are done, amdump sends mail
      reporting failures and successes.

  amflush
      Flush backups from the holding disk to tape. Amflush is used after amdump
      has reported it could not write backups to tape for some reason. When
      this happens, backups stay in the holding disk. Run amflush after the
      tape problem is corrected to write backups from the holding disk to tape.

  amcleanup
      Clean up after an interrupted amdump. This command is only needed if
      amdump was unable to complete for some reason, usually because the tape
      server host crashed while amdump was running.

  amrecover
      Provides an interactive interface to browse the AMANDA index files
      (backup image catalogues) and select which tapes to recover files from.
      It can also run amrestore and a restore program (e.g. tar) to actually
      recover the files.

  amrestore
      Read an AMANDA tape, searching for requested backups. Amrestore is
      suitable for everything from interactive restores of single files to a
      full restore of all partitions on a failed disk.

  amlabel
      Write an AMANDA format label onto a tape. All AMANDA tapes must be
      labeled with amlabel. Amdump and amflush will not write to an unlabeled
      tape (see TAPE MANAGEMENT below).

  amcheck
      Verify the correct tape is mounted and all file systems on all backup
      client systems are ready to be backed up. Often run by cron before amdump
      to generate a mail warning that backups might fail unless corrective
      action is taken.

  amadmin
      Take care of administrative tasks like finding out which tapes are needed
      to restore a filesystem, forcing hosts to do full backups of selected
      disks and looking at schedule balance information.

  amtape
      Take care of tape changer control operations like loading particular
      tapes, ejecting tapes and scanning the tape storage slots.

  amverify
      Check AMANDA backup tapes for errors.

  amrmtape
      Delete a tape from the AMANDA databases.

  amstatus
      Report the status of a running or completed amdump.

  amoverview
      Display a chart of hosts and file systems backed up every run.

  amplot
      Generate utilization plots of AMANDA runs for performance tuning.

  amreport
      Generate an AMANDA summary E-mail report.

  amtoc
      Generate table of content files for AMANDA tapes.

  amcheckdb
      Verify every tape AMANDA knows about is consistent in the database.

  amgetconf
      Look up parameters in the AMANDA configuration file.


CONFIGURATION

There are three user-editable files that control the behavior of AMANDA. The
first is amanda.conf, the main configuration file. It contains parameters to
customize AMANDA for the site. Second is the disklist file, which lists hosts
and disk partitions to back up. Third is the tapelist file, which lists tapes
that are currently active. These files are described in more detail in the
following sections.
All files are stored in individual configuration directories under /usr/local/
etc/amanda/. A site will often have more than one configuration. For example,
it might have a normal configuration for everyday backups and an archive
configuration for infrequent full archival backups. The configuration files
would be stored under directories /usr/local/etc/amanda/normal/ and /usr/local/
etc/amanda/archive/, respectively. Part of the job of an AMANDA administrator
is to create, populate and maintain these directories.
All log and database files generated by AMANDA go in corresponding directories
somewhere. The exact location is controlled by entries in amanda.conf. A
typical location would be under /var/adm/amanda. For the above example, the
files might go in /var/adm/amanda/normal/ and /var/adm/amanda/archive/.
As log files are no longer needed (no longer contain relevant information),
AMANDA cycles them out in various ways, depending on the type of file.
Detailed information about amdump runs are stored in files named amdump.NN
where NN is a sequence number, with 1 being the most recent file. Amdump
rotates these files each run, keeping roughly the last tapecycle (see below)
worth of them.
The file used by amreport to generate the mail summary is named log.YYYYMMDD.NN
where YYYYMMDD is the datestamp of the start of the amdump run and NN is a
sequence number started at 0. At the end of each amdump run, log files for runs
whose tapes have been reused are renamed into a subdirectory of the main log
directory (see the logdir parameter below) named oldlog. It is up to the AMANDA
administrator to remove them from this directory when desired.
Index (backup image catalogue) files older than the full dump matching the
oldest backup image for a given client and disk are removed by amdump at the
end of each run.

CONFIG FILE PARAMETERS

There are a number of configuration parameters that control the behavior of the
AMANDA programs. All have default values, so you need not specify the parameter
in amanda.conf if the default is suitable.
Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines. Comments may be placed
on a line with a directive by starting the comment with a #. The remainder of
the line is ignored.
Keywords are case insensitive, i.e. mailto and MailTo are treated the same.
Integer arguments may have one of the following (case insensitive) suffixes,
some of which have a multiplier effect:


  b byte bytes
      Some number of bytes.

  bps
      Some number of bytes per second.

  k kb kbyte kbytes kilobyte kilobytes
      Some number of kilobytes (bytes*1024).

  kps kbps
      Some number of kilobytes per second (bytes*1024).

  m mb meg mbyte mbytes megabyte megabytes
      Some number of megabytes (bytes*1024*1024).

  mps mbps
      Some number of megabytes per second (bytes*1024*1024).

  g gb gbyte gbytes gigabyte gigabytes
      Some number of gigabytes (bytes*1024*1024*1024).

  tape tapes
      Some number of tapes.

  day days
      Some number of days.

  week weeks
      Some number of weeks (days*7).

      Note

      The value inf may be used in most places where an integer is expected to
      mean an infinite amount.
      Boolean arguments may have any of the values y, yes, t, true or on to
      indicate a true state, or n, no, f, false or off to indicate a false
      state. If no argument is given, true is assumed.



  org string
      Default: daily. A descriptive name for the configuration. This string
      appears in the Subject line of mail reports. Each AMANDA configuration
      should have a different string to keep mail reports distinct.

  mailto string
      Default: operators. A space separated list of recipients for mail
      reports.

  dumpcycle int
      Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk will
      get a full backup at least this often. Setting this to zero tries to do a
      full backup each run.

      Note

      This parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype (see below). This
      value sets the default for all dumptypes so must appear in amanda.conf
      before any dumptypes are defined.

  runspercycle int
      Default: same as dumpcycle. The number of amdump runs in dumpcycle days.
      A value of 0 means the same value as dumpcycle. A value of -1 means guess
      the number of runs from the tapelist file, which is the number of tapes
      used in the last dumpcycle days / runtapes.

  tapecycle int
      Default: 15 tapes. Typically tapes are used by AMANDA in an ordered
      rotation. The tapecycle parameter defines the size of that rotation. The
      number of tapes in rotation must be larger than the number of tapes
      required for a complete dump cycle (see the dumpcycle parameter).
      This is calculated by multiplying the number of amdump runs per dump
      cycle (runspercycle parameter) times the number of tapes used per run
      (runtapes parameter). Typically two to four times this calculated number
      of tapes are in rotation. While AMANDA is always willing to use a new
      tape in its rotation, it refuses to reuse a tape until at least
      'tapecycle -1' number of other tapes have been used.
      It is considered good administrative practice to set the tapecycle
      parameter slightly lower than the actual number of tapes in rotation.
      This allows the administrator to more easily cope with damaged or
      misplaced tapes or schedule adjustments that call for slight adjustments
      in the rotation order.



  dumpuser string
      Default: amanda. The login name AMANDA uses to run the backups. The
      backup client hosts must allow access from the tape server host as this
      user via .rhosts or .amandahosts, depending on how the AMANDA software
      was built.

  printer string
      Printer to use when doing tape labels. See the lbl-templ tapetype option.

  tapedev string
      Default: /dev/nst0. The path name of the non-rewinding tape device. Non-
      rewinding tape device names often have an 'n' in the name, e.g. /dev/rmt/
      0mn, however this is operating system specific and you should consult
      that documentation for detailed naming information.
      If a tape changer is configured (see the tpchanger option), this option
      might not be used.
      If the null output driver is selected (see the OUTPUT_DRIVERS section
      later for more information), programs such as amdump will run normally
      but all images will be thrown away. This should only be used for
      debugging and testing, and probably only with the record option set to
      no.

  rawtapedev string
      Default: /dev/null. The path name of the raw tape device. This is only
      used if AMANDA is compiled for Linux machines with floppy tapes and is
      needed for QIC volume table operations.

  tpchanger string
      Default: none. The name of the tape changer. If a tape changer is not
      configured, this option is not used and should be commented out of the
      configuration file.
      If a tape changer is configured, choose one of the changer scripts (e.g.
      chg-scsi) and enter that here.



  changerdev string
      Default: /dev/null. A tape changer configuration parameter. Usage depends
      on the particular changer defined with the tpchanger option.

  changerfile string
      Default: /usr/adm/amanda/log/changer-status. A tape changer configuration
      parameter. Usage depends on the particular changer defined with the
      tpchanger option.

  runtapes int
      Default: 1. The maximum number of tapes used in a single run. If a tape
      changer is not configured, this option is not used and should be
      commented out of the configuration file.
      If a tape changer is configured, this may be set larger than one to let
      AMANDA write to more than one tape.
      Note that this is an upper bound on the number of tapes, and AMANDA may
      use less.
      Also note that as of this release, AMANDA does not support true tape
      overflow. When it reaches the end of one tape, the backup image AMANDA
      was processing starts over again on the next tape.



  maxdumpsize int
      Default: runtapes*tape_length. Maximum number of bytes the planner will
      schedule for a run.

  taperalgo [first|firstfit|largest|largestfit|smallest|last]
      Default: first. The algorithm used to choose which dump image to send to
      the taper.


        first
            First in, first out.

        firstfit
            The first dump image that will fit on the current tape.

        largest
            The largest dump image.

        largestfit
            The largest dump image that will fit on the current tape.

        smallest
            The smallest dump image.

        last
            Last in, first out.


  labelstr string
      Default: .*. The tape label constraint regular expression. All tape
      labels generated (see amlabel(8)) and used by this configuration must
      match the regular expression. If multiple configurations are run from the
      same tape server host, it is helpful to set their labels to different
      strings (for example, "DAILY[0-9][0-9]*" vs. "ARCHIVE[0-9][0-9]*") to
      avoid overwriting each other's tapes.

  tapetype string
      Default: EXABYTE. The type of tape drive associated with tapedev or
      tpchanger. This refers to one of the defined tapetypes in the config file
      (see below), which specify various tape parameters, like the length,
      filemark size, and speed of the tape media and device.

  ctimeout int
      Default: 30 seconds. Maximum amount of time that amcheck will wait for
      each client host.

  dtimeout int
      Default: 1800 seconds. Amount of idle time per disk on a given client
      that a dumper running from within amdump will wait before it fails with a
      data timeout error.

  etimeout int
      Default: 300 seconds. Amount of time per disk on a given client that the
      planner step of amdump will wait to get the dump size estimates. For
      instance, with the default of 300 seconds and four disks on client A,
      planner will wait up to 20 minutes for that machine. A negative value
      will be interpreted as a total amount of time to wait per client instead
      of per disk.

  netusage int
      Default: 300 Kbps. The maximum network bandwidth allocated to AMANDA, in
      Kbytes per second. See also the interface section.

  inparallel int
      Default: 10. The maximum number of backups that AMANDA will attempt to
      run in parallel. AMANDA will stay within the constraints of network
      bandwidth and holding disk space available, so it doesn't hurt to set
      this number a bit high. Some contention can occur with larger numbers of
      backups, but this effect is relatively small on most systems.

  displayunit "k|m|g|t"
      Default: "k". The unit used to print many numbers, k=kilo, m=mega,
      g=giga, t=tera.

  dumporder string
      Default: tttTTTTTTT. The priority order of each dumper:

      * s: smallest size
      * S: largest size
      * t: smallest time
      * T: largest time
      * b: smallest bandwidth
      * B: largest bandwidth




  maxdumps int
      Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that AMANDA
      will attempt to run in parallel. See also the inparallel option.
      Note that this parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype (see
      below). This value sets the default for all dumptypes so must appear in
      amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined.



  bumpsize int
      Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an automatic
      bump from one incremental level to the next. If AMANDA determines that
      the next higher backup level will be this much smaller than the current
      level, it will do the next level. See also the bumpmult option.

  bumpmult float
      Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. AMANDA multiplies bumpsize by
      this factor for each level. This prevents active filesystems from bumping
      too much by making it harder to bump to the next level. For example, with
      the default bumpsize and bumpmult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be
      10 Mbytes for level one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level
      three, and so on.

  bumpdays int
      Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, AMANDA keeps
      filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays days,
      even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.

  diskfile string
      Default: disklist. The file name for the disklist file holding client
      hosts, disks and other client dumping information.

  infofile string
      Default: /usr/adm/amanda/curinfo. The file or directory name for the
      historical information database. If AMANDA was configured to use DBM
      databases, this is the base file name for them. If it was configured to
      use text formated databases (the default), this is the base directory and
      within here will be a directory per client, then a directory per disk,
      then a text file of data.

  logdir string
      Default: /usr/adm/amanda. The directory for the amdump and log files.

  indexdir string
      Default /usr/adm/amanda/index. The directory where index files (backup
      image catalogues) are stored. Index files are only generated for
      filesystems whose dumptype has the index option enabled.

  tapelist string
      Default: tapelist. The file name for the active tapelist file. AMANDA
      maintains this file with information about the active set of tapes.

  tapebufs int
      Default: 20. The number of buffers used by the taper process run by
      amdump and amflush to hold data as it is read from the network or disk
      before it is written to tape. Each buffer is a little larger than 32
      KBytes and is held in a shared memory region.

  reserve number
      Default: 100. The part of holding-disk space that should be reserved for
      incremental backups if no tape is available, expressed as a percentage of
      the available holding-disk space (0-100). By default, when there is no
      tape to write to, degraded mode (incremental) backups will be performed
      to the holding disk. If full backups should also be allowed in this case,
      the amount of holding disk space reserved for incrementals should be
      lowered.

  autoflush bool
      Default: off. Whether an amdump run will flush the dump already on
      holding disk to tape.

  amrecover_do_fsf bool
      Default: off. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -f flag for faster
      positioning of the tape.

  amrecover_check_label bool
      Default: off. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -l flag to check the
      label.

  amrecover_changer string
      Default: ''. Amrecover will use the changer if you use 'settape <string>'
      and that string is the same as the amrecover_changer setting.

  columnspec string
      Defines the width of columns amreport should use. String is a comma (',')
      separated list of triples. Each triple consists of three parts which are
      separated by a equal sign ('=') and a colon (':') (see the example).
      These three parts specify:

      * the name of the column, which may be:

        o Compress (compression ratio)
        o Disk (client disk name)
        o DumpRate (dump rate in KBytes/sec)
        o DumpTime (total dump time in hours:minutes)
        o HostName (client host name)
        o Level (dump level)
        o OrigKB (original image size in KBytes)
        o OutKB (output image size in KBytes)
        o TapeRate (tape writing rate in KBytes/sec)
        o TapeTime (total tape time in hours:minutes)

      * the amount of space to display before the column (used to get
        whitespace between columns).
      * the width of the column itself. If set to a negative value, the width
        will be calculated on demand to fit the largest entry in this column.

      Here is an example:

        columnspec "Disk=1:18,HostName=0:10,OutKB=1:7"

      The above will display the disk information in 18 characters and put one
      space before it. The hostname column will be 10 characters wide with no
      space to the left. The output KBytes column is seven characters wide with
      one space before it.



  includefile string
      Default: none. The name of an AMANDA configuration file to include within
      the current file. Useful for sharing dumptypes, tapetypes and interface
      definitions among several configurations.


HOLDINGDISK SECTION

The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks used as buffers to
hold backup images before they are written to tape. The syntax is:

  holdingdisk name {
      holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
      ...
  }

Name is a logical name for this holding disk.
The options and values are:


  comment string
      Default: none. A comment string describing this holding disk.

  directory disk
      Default: /dumps/amanda. The path to this holding area.

  use int
      Default: 0 Gb. Amount of space that can be used in this holding disk
      area. If the value is zero, all available space on the file system is
      used. If the value is negative, AMANDA will use all available space minus
      that value.

  chunksize int
      Default: 1 Gb. Holding disk chunk size. Dumps larger than the specified
      size will be stored in multiple holding disk files. The size of each
      chunk will not exceed the specified value. However, even though dump
      images are split in the holding disk, they are concatenated as they are
      written to tape, so each dump image still corresponds to a single
      continuous tape section.
      If 0 is specified, AMANDA will create holding disk chunks as large as (
      (INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes.
      Each holding disk chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header, so the minimum chunk
      size is 64 Kbytes (but that would be really silly).
      Operating systems that are limited to a maximum file size of 2 Gbytes
      actually cannot handle files that large. They must be at least one byte
      less than 2 Gbytes. Since AMANDA works with 32 Kbyte blocks, and to
      handle the final read at the end of the chunk, the chunk size should be
      at least 64 Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes) smaller than the maximum file size,
      e.g. 2047 Mbytes.


DUMPTYPE SECTION

The amanda.conf file may define multiple sets of backup options and refer to
them by name from the disklist file. For instance, one set of options might be
defined for file systems that can benefit from high compression, another set
that does not compress well, another set for file systems that should always
get a full backup and so on.
A set of backup options are entered in a dumptype section, which looks like
this:

  define dumptype name {
      dumptype-option dumptype-value
      ...
  }

Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is referenced from the
disklist file.
Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as those in the main
part of amanda.conf. The main option value is used to set the default for all
dumptype sections. For instance, setting dumpcycle to 50 in the main part of
the config file causes all following dumptype sections to start with that
value, but the value may be changed on a section by section basis. Changes to
variables in the main part of the config file must be done before (earlier in
the file) any dumptypes are defined.
The dumptype options and values are:


  auth string
      Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform between tape server and
      backup client hosts. May be krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.

  comment string
      Default: none. A comment string describing this set of backup options.

  comprate float [, float ]
      Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incremental compression factor
      for dumps. It is only used if AMANDA does not have any history
      information on compression rates for a filesystem, so should not usually
      need to be set. However, it may be useful for the first time a very large
      filesystem that compresses very little is backed up.

  compress [client|server] string
      Default: client fast. If AMANDA does compression of the backup images, it
      can do so either on the backup client host before it crosses the network
      or on the tape server host as it goes from the network into the holding
      disk or to tape. Which place to do compression (if at all) depends on how
      well the dump image usually compresses, the speed and load on the client
      or server, network capacity, holding disk capacity, availability of tape
      hardware compression, etc.
      For either type of compression, AMANDA also allows the selection of two
      styles of compression. Best is the best compression available, often at
      the expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often not as good a compression as
      best, but usually less CPU overhead.
      So the compress options line may be one of:

      * compress none
      * compress [client] fast
      * compress [client] best
      * compress server fast
      * compress server best

      Note that some tape devices do compression and this option has nothing to
      do with whether that is used. If hardware compression is used (usually
      via a particular tape device name or mt option), AMANDA (software)
      compression should be disabled.

  dumpcycle int
      Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each disk using
      this set of options will get a full backup at least this often. Setting
      this to zero tries to do a full backup each run.

  exclude [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
      Default: file. There are two exclude lists, exclude file and exclude
      list. With exclude file , the string is a GNU-tar exclude expression.
      With exclude list , the string is a file name on the client containing
      GNU-tar exclude expressions.
      All exclude expressions are concatenated in one file and passed to GNU-
      tar as an --exclude-from argument.
      With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
      without it, the string overwrites the list.
      If optional is specified for exclude list, then amcheck will not complain
      if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
      For exclude list, if the file name is relative, the disk name being
      backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:

            exclude list ".amanda.excludes"

      the actual file used would be /var/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /var,
      /usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /usr/local, and so on.

  holdingdisk boolean
      Default: yes. Whether a holding disk should be used for these backups or
      whether they should go directly to tape. If the holding disk is a portion
      of another file system that AMANDA is backing up, that file system should
      refer to a dumptype with holdingdisk set to no to avoid backing up the
      holding disk into itself.

  ignore boolean
      Default: no. Whether disks associated with this backup type should be
      backed up or not. This option is useful when the disklist file is shared
      among several configurations, some of which should not back up all the
      listed file systems.

  include [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
      Default: file ".". There are two include lists, include file and include
      list. With include file , the string is a glob expression. With include
      list , the string is a file name on the client containing glob
      expressions.
      All include expressions are expanded by AMANDA, concatenated in one file
      and passed to GNU-tar as a --files-from argument. They must start with
      "./" and contain no other "/".
      With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current list,
      without it, the string overwrites the list.
      If optional is specified for include list, then amcheck will not complain
      if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
      For include list, If the file name is relative, the disk name being
      backed up is prepended.

  index boolean
      Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the backup should be
      generated and saved in indexdir. These catalogues are used by the
      amrecover utility.

  kencrypt boolean
      Default: no. Whether the backup image should be encrypted by Kerberos as
      it is sent across the network from the backup client host to the tape
      server host.

  maxdumps int
      Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host that AMANDA
      will attempt to run in parallel. See also the main section parameter
      inparallel.

  maxpromoteday int
      Default: 10000. The maximum number of day for a promotion, set it 0 if
      you don't want promotion, set it to 1 or 2 if your disks get
      overpromoted.

  priority string
      Default: medium. When there is no tape to write to, AMANDA will do
      incremental backups in priority order to the holding disk. The priority
      may be high (2). medium (1), low (0) or a number of your choice.

  program string
      Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform. Valid values are DUMP for
      the native operating system backup program, and GNUTAR to use GNU-tar or
      to do PC backups using Samba.

  record boolean
      Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to update its database
      (e.g. /etc/dumpdates for DUMP or /usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists for
      GNUTAR) of time stamps. This is normally enabled for daily backups and
      turned off for periodic archival runs.

  skip-full boolean
      Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a full backup, these disks
      will be skipped, and full backups should be run off-line on these days.
      It was reported that AMANDA only schedules level 1 incrementals in this
      configuration; this is probably a bug.

  skip-incr boolean
      Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an incremental backup,
      these disks will be skipped.

  starttime int
      Default: none. Backups will not start until after this time of day. The
      value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be entered as 1830.

  strategy string
      Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning what level of backup to
      run next. Values are:

The following dumptype entries are predefined by AMANDA:

  define dumptype no-compress {
      compress none
  }
  define dumptype compress-fast {
      compress client fast
  }
  define dumptype compress-best {
      compress client best
  }
  define dumptype srvcompress {
      compress server fast
  }
  define dumptype bsd-auth {
      auth bsd
  }
  define dumptype krb4-auth {
      auth krb4
  }
  define dumptype no-record {
      record no
  }
  define dumptype no-hold {
      holdingdisk no
  }
  define dumptype no-full {
      skip-full yes
  }

In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more other dumptype names
may be entered, which make this dumptype inherit options from other previously
defined dumptypes. For instance, two sections might be the same except for the
record option:

  define dumptype normal {
      comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
      no-compress
      index yes
      maxdumps 2
  }
  define dumptype testing {
      comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
      normal
      record no
  }

AMANDA provides a dumptype named global in the sample amanda.conf file that all
dumptypes should reference. This provides an easy place to make changes that
will affect every dumptype.

TAPETYPE SECTION

The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape media and devices. The
information is entered in a tapetype section, which looks like this in the
config file:

  define tapetype name {
      tapetype-option tapetype-value
      ...
  }

Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It is referenced from the
tapetype option in the main part of the config file.
The tapetype options and values are:


  comment string
      Default: none. A comment string describing this set of tape information.

  filemark int
      Default: 1000 bytes. How large a file mark (tape mark) is, measured in
      bytes. If the size is only known in some linear measurement (e.g.
      inches), convert it to bytes using the device density.

  length int
      Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a tape.
      Note that this value is only used by AMANDA to schedule which backups
      will be run. Once the backups start, AMANDA will continue to write to a
      tape until it gets an error, regardless of what value is entered for
      length (but see the OUTPUT_DRIVERS section later for exceptions).

  blocksize int
      Default: 32. How much data will be written in each tape record expressed
      in KiloBytes. The tape record size (= blocksize) can not be reduced below
      the default 32 KBytes. The parameter blocksize can only be raised if
      AMANDA was compiled with the configure option --with-maxtapeblocksize=N
      set with "N" greater than 32 during configure.

  file-pad boolean
      Default: true. If true, every record, including the last one in the file,
      will have the same length. This matches the way AMANDA wrote tapes prior
      to the availability of this parameter. It may also be useful on devices
      that only support a fixed blocksize.
      Note that the last record on the tape probably includes trailing null
      byte padding, which will be passed back to gzip, compress or the restore
      program. Most programs just ignore this (although possibly with a
      warning).
      If this parameter is false, the last record in a file may be shorter than
      the block size. The file will contain the same amount of data the dump
      program generated, without trailing null byte padding. When read, the
      same amount of data that was written will be returned.

  speed int
      Default: 200 bps. How fast the drive will accept data, in bytes per
      second. This parameter is NOT currently used by AMANDA.

  lbl-templ string
      A PostScript template file used by amreport to generate labels. Several
      sample files are provided with the AMANDA sources in the example
      directory. See the amreport(8) man page for more information.

In addition to options, another tapetype name may be entered, which makes this
tapetype inherit options from another tapetype. For instance, the only
difference between a DLT4000 tape drive using Compact-III tapes and one using
Compact-IV tapes is the length of the tape. So they could be entered as:

  define tapetype DLT4000-III {
      comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
      length 12500 mbytes         # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
      filemark 2000 kbytes
      speed 1536 kps
  }
  define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
      DLT4000-III
      comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
      length 25000 mbytes         # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
  }


INTERFACE SECTION

The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network interfaces. The
information is entered in an interface section, which looks like this:

  define interface name {
      interface-option interface-value
      ...
  }

name is the name of this type of network interface. It is referenced from the
disklist file.
Note that these sections define network interface characteristics, not the
actual interface that will be used. Nor do they impose limits on the bandwidth
that will actually be taken up by AMANDA. AMANDA computes the estimated
bandwidth each file system backup will take based on the estimated size and
time, then compares that plus any other running backups with the limit as
another of the criteria when deciding whether to start the backup. Once a
backup starts, AMANDA will use as much of the network as it can leaving
throttling up to the operating system and network hardware.
The interface options and values are:


  comment string
      Default: none. A comment string describing this set of network
      information.

  use int
      Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in Kbytes per second.

In addition to options, another interface name may be entered, which makes this
interface inherit options from another interface. At the moment, this is of
little use.

DISKLIST FILE

The disklist file determines which disks will be backed up by AMANDA. The file
usually contains one line per disk:

  hostname diskname [diskdevice] dumptype [spindle [interface] ]

All pairs [ hostname diskname ] must be unique.
Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines. The fields have the
following meanings:


  hostname
      The name of the host to be backed up. If diskdevice refers to a PC share,
      this is the host AMANDA will run the Samba smbclient program on to back
      up the share.

  diskname
      The name of the disk (a label). In most case, you set your diskname to
      the diskdevice and you don't set the diskdevice. If you want multiple
      entries with the same diskdevice, you must set a different diskname for
      each entry. It's the diskname that you use on the commandline for any
      AMANDA command. Look at the example/disklist file for example.

  diskdevice
      Default: same as diskname. The name of the disk device to be backed up.
      It may be a full device name, a device name without the /dev/ prefix,
      e.g. sd0a, or a mount point such as /usr.
      It may also refer to a PC share by starting the name with two (forward)
      slashes, e.g. //some-pc/home. In this case, the program option in the
      associated dumptype must be entered as GNUTAR. It is the combination of
      the double slash disk name and program GNUTAR in the dumptype that
      triggers the use of Samba.

  dumptype
      Refers to a dumptype defined in the amanda.conf file. Dumptypes specify
      backup related parameters, such as whether to compress the backups,
      whether to record backup results in /etc/dumpdates, the disk's relative
      priority, etc.

  spindle
      Default: -1. A number used to balance backup load on a host. AMANDA will
      not run multiple backups at the same time on the same spindle, unless the
      spindle number is -1, which means there is no spindle restriction.

  interface
      Default: local. The name of a network interface definition in the
      amanda.conf file, used to balance network load.

Instead of naming a dumptype, it is possible to define one in-line, enclosing
dumptype options within curly braces, one per line, just like a dumptype
definition in amanda.conf. Since pre-existing dumptypes are valid option names,
this syntax may be used to customize dumptypes for particular disks.
A line break must follow the left curly bracket.
For instance, if a dumptype named normal is used for most disks, but use of the
holding disk needs to be disabled for the file system that holds it, this would
work instead of defining a new dumptype:

  hostname diskname [ diskdevice ] {
    normal
    holdingdisk no
  } [ spindle [ interface ] ]


TAPE MANAGEMENT

The tapelist file contains the list of tapes in active use. This file is
maintained entirely by AMANDA and should not be created or edited during normal
operation. It contains lines of the form:

  YYYYMMDD label flags

Where YYYYMMDD is the date the tape was written, label is a label for the tape
as written by amlabel and flags tell AMANDA whether the tape may be reused, etc
(see the reuse options of amadmin).
Amdump and amflush will refuse to write to an unlabeled tape, or to a labeled
tape that is considered active. There must be more tapes in active rotation
(see the tapecycle option) than there are runs in the backup cycle (see the
dumpcycle option) to prevent overwriting a backup image that would be needed to
do a full recovery.

OUTPUT DRIVERS

The normal value for the tapedev parameter, or for what a tape changer returns,
is a full path name to a non-rewinding tape device, such as /dev/nst0 or /dev/
rmt/0mn or /dev/nst0.1 or whatever conventions the operating system uses.
AMANDA provides additional application level drivers that support non-
traditional tape-simulations or features. To access a specific output driver,
set tapedev (or configure your changer to return) a string of the form driver:
driver-info where driver is one of the supported drivers and driver-info is
optional additional information needed by the driver.
The supported drivers are:


  tape
      This is the default driver. The driver-info is the tape device name.
      Entering

        tapedev /dev/rmt/0mn

      is really a short hand for

        tapedev tape:/dev/rmt/0mn

      .

  null
      This driver throws away anything written to it and returns EOF for any
      reads except a special case is made for reading a label, in which case a
      "fake" value is returned that AMANDA checks for and allows through
      regardless of what you have set in labelstr. The driver-info field is not
      used and may be left blank:

        tapedev null:

      The length value from the associated tapetype is used to limit the amount
      of data written. When the limit is reached, the driver will simulate end
      of tape.

      Note

      This driver should only be used for debugging and testing, and probably
      only with the record option set to no.

  rait
      Redundant Array of Inexpensive (?) Tapes. Reads and writes tapes mounted
      on multiple drives by spreading the data across N-1 drives and using the
      last drive for a checksum. See docs/RAIT for more information.
      The driver-info field describes the devices to use. Curly braces indicate
      multiple replacements in the string. For instance:

        tapedev rait:/dev/rmt/tps0d{4,5,6}n

      would use the following devices:
      /dev/rmt/tps0d4n /dev/rmt/tps0d5n /dev/rmt/tps0d6n



  file
      This driver emulates a tape device with a set of files in a directory.
      The driver-info field must be the name of an existing directory. The
      driver will test for a subdirectory of that named data and return offline
      until it is present. When present, the driver uses two files in the data
      subdirectory for each tape file. One contains the actual data. The other
      contains record length information.
      The driver uses a file named status in the file device directory to hold
      driver status information, such as tape position. If not present, the
      driver will create it as though the device is rewound.
      The length value from the associated tapetype is used to limit the amount
      of data written. When the limit is reached, the driver will simulate end
      of tape.
      One way to use this driver with a real device such as a CD-writer is to
      create a directory for the file device and one or more other directories
      for the actual data. Create a symlink named data in the file directory to
      one of the data directories. Set the tapetype length to whatever the
      medium will hold.
      When AMANDA fills the file device, remove the symlink and (optionally)
      create a new symlink to another data area. Use a CD writer software
      package to burn the image from the first data area.
      To read the CD, mount it and create the data symlink in the file device
      directory.


AUTHORIZATION

AMANDA processes on the tape server host run as the dumpuser user listed in
amanda.conf. When they connect to a backup client, they do so with an AMANDA-
specific protocol. They do not, for instance, use rsh or ssh directly.
On the client side, the amandad daemon validates the connection using one of
several methods, depending on how it was compiled and on options it is passed:


  .rhosts
      Even though AMANDA does not use rsh, it can use .rhosts-style
      authentication and a .rhosts file.

  .amandahosts
      This is essentially the same as .rhosts authentication except a different
      file, with almost the same format, is used. This is the default mechanism
      built into AMANDA.
      The format of the .amandahosts file is:
      hostname [ username ]
      If username is ommitted, it defaults to the user running amandad, i.e.
      the user listed in the inetd or xinetd configuration file.

  Kerberos
      AMANDA may use the Kerberos authentication system. Further information is
      in the docs/KERBEROS file that comes with an AMANDA distribution.
      For Samba access, AMANDA needs a file on the Samba server (which may or
      may not also be the tape server) named /etc/amandapass with share names,
      (clear text) passwords and (optional) domain names, in that order, one
      per line, whitespace separated. By default, the user used to connect to
      the PC is the same for all PC's and is compiled into AMANDA. It may be
      changed on a host by host basis by listing it first in the password field
      followed by a percent sign and then the password. For instance:

          //some-pc/home normalpw
          //another-pc/disk otheruser%otherpw

      With clear text passwords, this file should obviously be tightly
      protected. It only needs to be readable by the AMANDA-user on the Samba
      server.
      You can find further information in the docs/SAMBA file that comes with
      an AMANDA distribution.


HOST & DISK EXPRESSION

All host and disk arguments to programs are special expressions. The command
applies to all disks that match your arguments. This section describes the
matcher.
The matcher matches by word, each word is a glob expression, words are
separated by the separator '.' for host and '/' for disk. You can anchor the
expression at left with a '^'. You can anchor the expression at right with a
'$'. The matcher is case insensitive for host but is case sensitive for disk. A
match succeeds if all words in your expression match contiguous words in the
host or disk.

   .   word separator for a host
   /   word separator for a disk
   ^   anchor at left
   $   anchor at right
   ?   match exactly one character except the separator
   *   match zero or more characters except the separator
   **  match zero or more characters including the separator

Some examples:

    EXPRESSION      WILL MATCH              WILL NOT MATCH
    hosta           hosta                   hostb
                    hoSTA.dOMAIna.ORG
                    foo.hosta.org
    host            host                    hosta
    host?           hosta                   host
                    hostb
    ho*na           hoina                   ho.aina.org
    ho**na          hoina
                    ho.aina.org
    ^hosta          hosta                   foo.hosta.org
    sda*            /dev/sda1
                    /dev/sda12
    /opt/           opt (disk)              opt (host)
    .opt.           opt (host)              opt (disk)
    /               /                       any other disk
    /usr            /usr
                    /usr/opt
    /usr$           /usr                    /usr/opt


DATESTAMP EXPRESSION

A datestamp expression is a range expression where we only match the prefix.
Leading ^ is removed. Trailing $ forces an exact match.

    20001212-14  match all dates beginning with 20001212, 20001213 or 20001214
    20001212-4   same as previous
    20001212-24  match all dates between 20001212 and 20001224
    2000121      match all dates that start with 2000121 (20001210-20001219)
    2            match all dates that start with 2 (20000101-29991231)
    2000-10      match all dates between 20000101-20101231
    200010$      match only 200010


AUTHOR

James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org> : Original text
Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the AMANDA-documentation:
XML-conversion,major update

SEE ALSO

amadmin(8), amcheck(8), amcheckdb(8), amcleanup(8), amdd(8), amdump(8), amflush
(8), amgetconf(8), amlabel(8), ammt(8), amoverview(8), amplot(8), amrecover(8),
amreport(8), amrestore(8), amrmtape(8), amstatus(8), amtape(8), amtoc(8),
amverify(8), amverifyrun(8)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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