NAME¶

amanda - The Open Source Backup Platform

DESCRIPTION¶

This manual page gives an overview of the Amanda commands and configuration files for quick reference.

CONFIGURATION¶

There are four user-editable files that control the behavior of Amanda.

The first two are amanda.conf(5) and amanda-client.conf(5), the main configuration files for the server and client, respectively. They contain parameters to customize Amanda for the site.

Next is the disklist(5) file, which lists hosts and disk partitions to back up.

Last is the seldom-edited tapelist(5) 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, usually under /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 /etc/amanda/normal/ and /etc/amanda/archive/, respectively. Part of the job of an Amanda administrator is to create, populate and maintain these directories.

LOG FILES¶

All log and database files generated by Amanda go in corresponding directories somewhere. The exact location is controlled by entries in amanda.conf(5). 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 dump logs -- 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 the trace log. This file constitutes the "catalog" describing the data on the tapes written in a run. It is named log.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.NN where YYYYMMDDHHMMSS is the datestamp of the start of the amdump or amflush 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.

USING SAMBA¶

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.

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.

dot (.)

/

^

$

?

*

**

Some examples:

hosta

host

host?

ho*na

ho**na

^hosta

sda*

/opt

(note dots:) .opt.

/

/usr

/usr$

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

20001212-4

20001212-24

2000121

2

2000-10

200010$

DUMP SPECIFICATIONS¶

A dump specification selects one or more dumps. It has the form [host][:disk][@datestamp], where each component is a pattern as described above. If a component is missing, it is treated as a wildcard. The characters ´:´, ´@´, and ´\´ may be escaped within any component by preceding them with a ´\´.

Some examples:

client17

@20080615

webserver:/var/www

webserver:/var/www@200806150317

:/var/www

CONFIGURATION OVERRIDE¶

Most commands allow the override of specific configuration options on the command line, using the -o option. This option has the form -oname=value. An optional space is allowed after the -o. Each configuration option should be specified in a separate command-line option.

For global options, name is simply the name of the option, e.g.,

amdump -oruntapes=2

amdump -o TAPETYPE:HP-DAT:length=2000m
amdump -o DUMPTYPE:no-compress:compress="server fast"
amdump -o HOLDINGDISK:hd1:use="-100 mb"
amdump -o INTERFACE:local:use="2000 kbps"

When overriding device properties, one must carefully quote the command line to simulate the syntax of real configuration files. The following example should serve as a guide:

amdump -o ´device-property="PROPERTY_MAX_VOLUME_USAGE" "100000"´

Note that configuration overrides are not effective for tape changers, which supply a tapedev based on their own configuration. In order to override tapedev, you must also disable any changer:

amdump -otapedev=/dev/nst1 -otpchanger=´´

AUTHORS¶

James da Silva <jds@amanda.org>

Stefan G. Weichinger <sgw@amanda.org>