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ocean sd0h comp-high # /amanda

# lorien's NT partition mounted via Samba on ocean

ocean //lorien/c$ comp-high-samba # c:\

# prototype

squish yc0t0d0s0 comp-high # /

squish yc0t0d0s6 comp-high # /usr

squish yc0t0d0s3 comp-high # /var

squish yc0t0d0s7 comp-high # /local

# clone

zamboni c0t0d0s0 clone-user # /

zamboni c0t0d0s6 clone-user # /usr

zamboni c0t0d0s3 comp-root # /var

zamboni c0t0d0s7 comp-user # /local

# slow PC

fuzz sd1a nocomp-high # /

fuzz sd1f nocomp-high # /local

fuzz sd1e nocomp-high # /usr

fuzz sd1d nocomp-high # /var

fuzz /dos dos-user # /dos

The first column is the hostname of the client machine to back up. The second column lists the target disk partition. You can use either the device name (as above) or the mount point.

Note that the dump server’s (ocean’s) holding disk, /dumps/amanda, is not mentioned in the disklist file. In our case it is not necessary to back up this partition because its contents are limited to dump images stored during Amanda runs. If you keep Amanda logs or other important information on the holding disk, you should back it up by using the holdingdisk dump type parameter.

The skip-incr option (included in the clone-user type defined above) is handy for backing up clones of a prototype machine. At our site, we have one prototype machine for each architecture that’s cloned onto other machines of the same architecture. Since the root partitions of the clones are the same as that of their prototype, we don’t need to waste tape space backing them up every night.

However, every clone has a few unique files (e.g., config files in /etc), so we still do a level 0 once during the dump cycle. If you have a similar setup and choose not to perform nightly backups of certain filesystems, make sure that they are indeed identical to something that does get archived every night. In our example, zamboni’s /var partition holds users’ email, so it has to be backed up every night.

We’ve installed the Samba program smbtar on our dump server so that we can back up NT filesystems. In this example configuration, we back up lorien’s C: drive. Notice that the client host listed in the disklist file is ocean, not lorien. If you’re using Samba to access a filesystem, the Amanda client must be the UNIX host on which smbtar is located rather than the NT machine. (We don’t specify fuzz’s /dos partition this way because it is always mounted and is not accessed through Samba.) Amanda distinguishes between Samba partitions and regular mount points (e.g., /usr or /dos) by the number of slashes at the beginning: two for Samba and one for regular mounts.

See Chapter 26 for more information about Samba.

Amanda log files

Amanda creates two log files on the server for each run. The first is amdump.n, where n is the number of additional Amanda runs that have occurred since the log file was created. This file contains a verbose description of the scheduling decisions that Amanda has made. The other log file is log.date.n, where date is the date of the run and n is the number of runs already made on that day.

Amanda debugging

After every run, Amanda generates a summary report of the run’s activities and emails it to the dumpmeister. This report includes information about the amount of tape used, the filesystems that were successfully backed up, and any errors that were encountered. Here is an example from a configuration using a different disklist than that shown above:

To: amanda@ocean

Subject: Podunk Univ. AMANDA MAIL REPORT FOR September 1, 1999

These dumps were to tape Podunk-481.

Tonight's dumps should go onto 1 tape: Podunk-482.

FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP SUMMARY:

fuzz sd1a lev 0 FAILED [no estimate or historical data]

...

taper: FATAL syncpipe_get: w: unexpected EOF

STATISTICS: Total Full Daily

-------- --------- --------

Dump Time (hrs:min) 3:02 0:36 0:04 (0:34 start, 1:49 idle)

Output Size (meg) 2954.6 2666.8 287.8

Original Size (meg) 7428.1 6292.5 1135.5

Avg Compressed Size (%) 39.8 42.4 25.3

Tape Used (%) 70.5 63.5 7.0