On Saturday 07 December 2002 01:52, you wrote:

> I'm doing that too.  But I should move that script to after the
> backup is done, as the current way means they are a day older than
> the tape.  Thanks for pointing that detail out Niall.  Doing it
> your way means they'll only be a day out of date if I have to pull
> them from the tape.

No ! No ! - doing it the way I suggested (I hesitate to call it my way - 
sysadmins doing backup seriously have been doing something like that since 
forever) means not pulling it from tape at all, and having a current copy 
always available separate from the tape, and separate from the disk where the 
files normally live. I don't think you can ever really have an accurate copy 
of the index files on tape (*) because the files are being updated as each 
backup is made (or not, but then they're not much use to you). Best you can 
have on tape is a saved away copy of yesterday's indices.



Niall


(*) But, and there's always a but, there is a way of having them on tape. When 
amanda is one, don't have her eject the last tape, but rather seek to EOM and 
then put a copy of the indices in whatever format suits you on the tape. Of 
course Amanda won't know about this copy of the indices. In practice, this is 
about the same as using the method of doing a non-indexed Amanda backup at a 
certain time, I suppose. Bottom line - indices are small, relatively 
speaking. Save them somewhere convenient which is not a tape.