Thank you all for your patience in trying to unravel my problems.

Here's the long listing of the /usr/lib/amanda directory, where runtar is 
stored:
www:~# ls -l /usr/lib/amanda     
total 496
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        11044 Apr  2  2002 amandad
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root          135 Apr  2  2002 amcat.awk
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         7156 Apr  2  2002 amcleanupdisk
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         8292 Apr  2  2002 amidxtaped
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        19112 Apr  2  2002 amindexd
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         5640 Apr  2  2002 amlogroll
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        15709 Apr  2  2002 amplot.awk
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         3283 Apr  2  2002 amplot.g
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root         3293 Apr  2  2002 amplot.gp
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         7700 Apr  2  2002 amtrmidx
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         7144 Apr  2  2002 amtrmlog
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         7144 Apr  2  2002 calcsize
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        10032 Apr  2  2002 chg-chio
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         8236 Apr  2  2002 chg-chs
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         5763 Apr  2  2002 chg-manual
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         9089 Apr  2  2002 chg-multi
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         6415 Apr  2  2002 chg-rth
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        78376 Apr  2  2002 chg-scsi
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        37181 Apr  2  2002 chg-zd-mtx
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        26516 Apr  2  2002 driver
-rwsr-xr--    1 root     backup      25288 Apr  2  2002 dumper
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         5324 Apr  2  2002 killpgrp
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         4585 Apr  2  2002 patch-system
-rwsr-xr--    1 root     backup      25720 Apr  2  2002 planner
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         3680 Apr  2  2002 rundump
-rwsr-xr--    1 root     backup       4576 Apr  2  2002 runtar
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        11916 Apr  2  2002 selfcheck
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        25420 Apr  2  2002 sendbackup
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        21436 Apr  2  2002 sendsize
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        28040 Apr  2  2002 taper
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         3160 Apr  2  2002 versionsuffix

As you can see, runtar is '-rwsr-xr--    1 root     backup       4576 Apr  2  
2002 runtar'. Is this what it should be? Can I make all files in the directory 
/usr/lib/amanada owned by amanda:backup, which would make more sense to me? I 
can't think of how this might have gotten changed, however.

I use inetd. Here's /etc/inetd.conf:
www:~# grep amanda /etc/inetd.conf        
amandaidx stream tcp nowait backup /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/lib/amanda/amindexd
amidxtape stream tcp nowait backup /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/lib/amanda/amidxtaped
# 6-Sep-2002-EKZ: Changed user to see if I could get Debian amanda to work with 
regular amanda tapehost
amanda dgram udp wait amanda /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/lib/amanda/amandad
#amanda dgram udp wait backup /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/lib/amanda/amandad
www:~#  id amanda
uid=1028(amanda) gid=34(backup) groups=34(backup),6(disk)
www:~# 

I don't think anything has been changed in this file for the last year.

Last night the backup of the partitions I'm working on failed again. I noticed 
two files in /tem/amanda/Outside, 'runtar.20030417004542000.debug' and 
'runtar.20030417004542.debug' , both with the same content:
www:/tmp/amanda# cat runtar.20030417004542000.debug
runtar: debug 1 pid 31612 ruid 1028 euid 0 start time Thu Apr 17 00:45:42 2003
/bin/tar: version 2.4.2p2
error [must be invoked by backup]

runtar: pid 31612 finish time Thu Apr 17 00:45:42 2003
www:/tmp/amanda#

The 'offline' errors still showed up in the emailed reports.

I'm lost at this point. From inetd.conf, this should have been invoked by the 
'amanda' user, whose group is 'backup.'

Any thoughts?

Thanks, again, for your suggestions and help.

-Kevin Zembower

>>> Alexander JOLK <alexj AT buf DOT com> 04/17/03 05:29AM >>>
> Here's the portion of the file sendsize.20030416004501.debug
> pertaining to www:sda8 which ran last night: [...]
> runtar: error [must be invoked by backup]

OK, so that is certainly the root of evil.  Now to find out why it isn't
called with whatever ID it needs; as Joshua pointed out, check your
runtar permissions and owner, and your invocation from xinetd or inetd. 
You didn't happen to do a tiny change there recently, or install a new
amanda version where you could have forgotten to give the same
`--with-user' option as before?

Alex

-- 
Alexander Jolk         /         BUF Compagnie
tel +33-1 42 68 18 28 /  fax +33-1 42 68 18 29