Hello!
> 1. Does not handle NT Servers well with smbclient. The biggest problem I
> have is the limited ability to exclude files from the backups. I have a
> server, ntFileServer, that is running Windows NT Server. There are a ton of
> files on the server that are of type mp3, mpeg, avi, etc that I do not want
> to backup. Because there is no way for me to build a smart exclude list
> that will exclude *.mp3, *.mpg, *.avi etc. So lets say I kill this server
> (which I plan to soon) and install in it's place a linux server running
> samba and share out all of these directories to users on the network, just
> as it is currently, but with a linux server instead. Now the only way to
> backup this server, with an exclude list, is to use gnutar. From the
> EXCLUDE doc, "The GNU version of tar, (gnutar or gtar), reads its data at a
> file system, (or higher), level and does include the option to exclude
> specific files and/or directories. It should be mentioned here that tar
> will change the access times no files. Tar has the ability to preserve the
> access times however, doing so effectively disables incremental backups
> since resetting the access time alters the inode change time, which in turn
> causes the file to look like it needs to be archived again." So, now this
> ads another problem to the mix. I cannot do incremental backups on files
> that I decide to backup with gnutar, which I am using to solve my first
> problem. This is unacceptable.
It's quite a late in the evening here, so maybe I am not getting
something, but is there a reason you need to preserve *access* times of
files on the server? I'm backing up a server using GNU tar, I use
exclude lists on some of the DLEs and I've never thought of that as a
problem. Incremental backups work just fine. You are aware, aren't you,
that access time is not the same as creation time or modification time
on Unix file systems?
> If I am understanding this correctly, Amanda has no way to incrementally
> backup a disk that also uses a exclude list to prevent it from backing up
> certain files.
As I said above, incremental backups + exclude lists work together fine
here.
> 2. Not an intuitive way to think about backing things up. This rant is
> somewhat related to the above rant. :) The exclude files need to be
> written on the client? Again, from the EXCLUDE documentation, "An exclude
> list is a file that resides on the CLIENT machine and contains paths to be
> excluded, one per line. This file can be in any location on the CLIENT so
> long as the same path is specified in the dumptype." Why should it be
> necessary for the CLIENT to have this information reside on it.
Because it is the CLIENT who actually runs the backup program (GNU
tar) and the exclude list needs to be passed to GNU tar as a command
line argument '--exclude-list'.
> Perhaps I am just not "getting" the backup paradigm utilized by Amanda. Can
> you clear some of this up for me? Or am I dead on and should perhaps go
> shopping for a backup solution that would better fit my environment?
So far I see nothing that would prevent you using Amanda (that is, once
you get rid of the NT server <g>).
> Amanda also has a lack of support for other areas that I need to have a
> backup solution for. I currently have in my environment 5 NT servers, 1
> runs Exchange 5.5 and one that runs MSSQL Server 2000. I am able to run a
> backup job in MSSQL that dumps the database to a file and I have amanda
> backup that file.
That's pretty standard approach with any database and any backup
software (although some more sophisticated techniques do exist for some
combinations of database + backup program)
> but for the Exchange server I am left to
> backup using BackupExec. :(
Now that one I can't help you with :-(
--
Toomas Aas | toomas.aas AT raad.tartu DOT ee | http://www.raad.tartu.ee/~toomas/
* Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
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