Mystery: configs seem OK, but almost nothing backed up (with solution!)

Hello,

I'm working with configuring amanda to back up an OS X client. Both the
client and server are running 2.4.3. I got the files to backup across
the network using hfstar at some point earlier in my tinkering, so I
suspect the issue I'm experiencing now is not an "OS X" specific issue.

"amcheck" reports no errors with my client, and amdump runs without
reporting any problems, but virtually nothing appears on the tape-- my
hard drive is hardly touched. It didn't even both the first pass of tar
that just pipes stuff "/dev/null". What are possible causes of this?
A report from this is below. I had just cleared out everything but
"amanda.conf" and "disklist" before this run to minimize possible
sources of the issue.

I think what might have been different the time before when the
backup actually transfered data was that I was using DDS3 tapes (which
we regularly use in production with Amanda). For this backup set,
I switched the tape type to a DDS2 tape that we've used before, and is
expected to work with the DD3 drive. (the tape types refer to the tapes,
not the drives, right?).

Any help is appreciated.

[ Moments later, has inspiration, solves own problem. ]

Commenting this line out in amanda.conf appears to have fixed it:

####
       include list optional ".included"
####

Now, the files were optional, and they weren't present, so why would this
line affect the behavior of amanda? My guess is that either my syntax is
wrong, or amanda wasn't respecting the "optional" attribute.

        Mark


 --
 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
   Mark Stosberg            Principal Developer
   mark AT summersault DOT com     Summersault, LLC
   765-939-9301 ext 202     database driven websites
 . . . . . http://www.summersault.com/ . . . . . . . .

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 13 Feb 2003 22:07:54 -0000
From: root AT summersault DOT com
To: mark AT summersault DOT com
Subject: Desktop AMANDA MAIL REPORT FOR February 13, 2003

These dumps were to tape DESKTOP-01.
The next tape Amanda expects to use is: a new tape.


STATISTICS:
                          Total       Full      Daily
                        --------   --------   --------
Estimate Time (hrs:min)    0:00
Run Time (hrs:min)         0:02
Dump Time (hrs:min)        0:00       0:00       0:00
Output Size (meg)           0.0        0.0        0.0
Original Size (meg)         0.0        0.0        0.0
Avg Compressed Size (%)     0.0        0.0        --
Filesystems Dumped            4          4          0
Avg Dump Rate (k/s)         0.0        0.0        --

Tape Time (hrs:min)        0:00       0:00       0:00
Tape Size (meg)             0.2        0.2        0.0
Tape Used (%)               0.0        0.0        0.0
Filesystems Taped             4          4          0
Avg Tp Write Rate (k/s)  3160.5     3160.5        --


NOTES:
  planner: Adding new disk hoobella:/System/Library.
  planner: Adding new disk hoobella:/Volumes/X1/Users/mark.
  planner: Adding new disk hoobella:/Volumes/X1/System_Folder/Fonts.
  planner: Adding new disk hoobella:/Volumes/X1/System_Folder/Preferences.
  taper: tape DESKTOP-01 kb 256 fm 4 [OK]


DUMP SUMMARY:
                                     DUMPER STATS            TAPER STATS
HOSTNAME     DISK        L ORIG-KB OUT-KB COMP% MMM:SS  KB/s MMM:SS  KB/s
-------------------------- --------------------------------- ------------
hoobella     -em/Library 0      10     64 640.0   0:00   0.0   0:003149.9
hoobella     -lder/Fonts 0      10     64 640.0   0:00   0.0   0:003207.2
hoobella     -references 0      10     64 640.0   0:00   0.0   0:003112.4
hoobella     -Users/mark 0      10     64 640.0   0:00   0.0   0:002821.2

(brought to you by Amanda version 2.4.3)