Hello!

> I want to use Amanda to backup my machines, if I backup everything it will
> take up three tapes. I do not have a tape changer and therefore need to
> change the tapes manually this works fine with chg-manual, except I cannot
> start the backup with a cron job. What I would like to happen is to schedule
> the backup to run at 12:00am and then when the next tape is required it
> sends me an email, then I put the next one in and it carries on, or even
> better it carries on where it left of the next night.

Look into the chg-manual script. It contains an alternate (commented 
out in the distribution) version of the request() function which is 
designed to do exactly what you want: it sends an e-mail when the next 
tape is needed, and keeps sending repeated mails once every hour until 
it gets the tape it wants.

That being said, this functionality worked very well for me in version 
2.4.2 but I haven't had any success with it in later versions. Amanda 
asks for the next tape, I insert the correct tape but she spits it out 
and again asks for (the same) correct tape. I tried to debug this 
several times but got nowhere. Maybe it's just me.
--
Toomas Aas | toomas.aas AT raad.tartu DOT ee | http://www.raad.tartu.ee/~toomas/
* Someday we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car.