Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com> writes:

> On Fri, Jul 18, 2003 at 02:28:21PM +0200, Sven Rudolph wrote:
> > Amanda's estimate phase takes here between 3 and 8 hours (with GNU
> > tar). So I thought about ways of skipping the extra estimate phase.
> > 
> > 
> > Comments? Or what's wrong with my idea?
> 
> 
> Topic comes up periodically.  There have been mentions of ways to
> substitute your own estimate technique.  I think they generally
> involve the "calcsize" command.  Probably making it a wrapper
> on the client.

> You might want to scan the archives for comments on calcsize
> or estimate to review earlier discussions.

I haven't found many useful info on this.

<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=amanda-users&m=98888253924842&w=2>
hardcodes the calcsize calls in sendsize. A bit unflexible.

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amanda-hackers/message/2541> is some previous 
info on this patch.

Both messages mention speedup numbers. calcsize is three times faster,
and it does all levels in one run.

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amanda-hackers/message/2542> tries to
find reasons why calcsize isn't used in default amanda. I guess it
must have a drawback; otherwise it would be amanda's default method.
It sounds like calcsize is basically unmaintained code. 

What are the current advantages and disadvantages of calcsize?

You mentioned the option of doing it as a tar wrapper. If I wanted to
implement my proposal the sendbackup tar would have to remember the
number of bytes written and the following sendsize would present this
number to amanda. This involves storing this number on the client. The
whole thing sounds awkward.

        Sven