On Thursday 05 December 2002 20:48, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Thursday 05 December 2002 12:22, Mark Stosberg wrote:

> >I'm curious how some you have dealt with the catch-22 of backing
> > up Amanda's configuration files. Ideally during the restore
> > process Amanda is available with all it's configuration files
> > intact. However, if the Amanda server needs to be restored, you
> > can't restore them in the usual Amanda way, because the config
> > files to do so would be on a backup tape...

> I haven't managed to do that yet myself, as I, like you, found there
> were none-nada-zip-zero of amanda's configs and indexes actually on
> the last dumpcycle tapes.

Mark didn't say that - he wondered how others worked around the issue of 
needing amanda to read the tapes to get the index files to see what was where 
on the tapes. My answer to him was the same as it was to others before - good 
backup practice dictates that you put these index files elsewhere although 
they are also on the tapes, unless you choose not to back them up.

> That seems to be a local puzzle because I was immediately told that
> this absolutely can't happen, but it did.  And yes, I consider that
> to be a huge bug, to be investigated when the new install is
> running stably.

I don't believe there is a bug, except in your configuration, perhaps. There's 
no reason for amanda not to backup its configuration files, although 
sometimes I get 'strange' messages when there's been a race condition with 
the backing up of an index file - that's why I save them elsewhere also.

> bummer.  Amanda is essentially just a drive abuser when the indices
> and such aren't on the tape.

The only reason for the indices not to be on the tape is if the configuration 
causes them not to be put there. Some sample data from my backup server:

amanda@backup:~> amfind TIZ backup /etc/amanda/TIZ/amanda.conf
Date     Disk     Path
20021202 /        /etc/amanda/TIZ/amanda.conf
20021129 /        /etc/amanda/TIZ/amanda.conf
20021128 /        /etc/amanda/TIZ/amanda.conf
20021127 /        /etc/amanda/TIZ/amanda.conf

and lots more - so that's the config file taken care of.

amanda@backup:~> amfind TIZ backup /var/lib/amanda/TIZ/index|wc -l
  15556

So my index files tell me that I have a goodly number of index files on backup 
volumes.

But . . don't trust the index files. The TIZ configuration backs up a BOD so 
it was the work of a minute to examine last night's backup of /var on the 
backup server and sure enough - there were the backup files.

So there are three possiblities Gene:

1) This isn't a problem with amanda at all
2) Your config is borked so that you're not saving it or your indices (but you 
should be saving them elsewhere also anyway)
3) Amanda hates you :-)



Kindest regards,


Niall  O Broin