--On Tuesday, October 26, 2004 18:07:30 +0000 James Marcinek <jmarc1 AT
jemconsult DOT biz> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I'm getting ready to start using Amanda as a backup solution. To prepare, I've
> read the online documentation and I've also read a section in the Red Hat
> Linux
> Bible. I also read through the FAQ's. I am a bit confused with some items.
> Mainly the configuration. The amanda comes with the DailySet1 as an example.
>
> Is it possibly to only use 1 configuration (eg DailySet1) to accomplish both
> the
> full and the incremental backups? From past experiences with other backup
> utilites, one would create and schedule both full and incremental's (as does
> the
> Red Hat Bible's example). The thing that further confuses me is how to define
> an
> incremental. The backup for the full is easy enough in the disklist file to
> call
> the 'always-full' definition. Where I'm confused is which types are for the
> incremental. From what I've read some of the attributes it looks as if it can
> figure this out with the following settings. The following is from the example
> amanda.conf file. I've added what I think I want to accomplish as well:
>
> dumpcycle 4 weeks # the number of days in the normal dump cycle
>
> I'm planning a weekly cycle: Every Friday a full backup so I'm assuming it
> would
> be:
>
> dumpcycle 1 week
>
> runspercycle 4 weeks # the number of amdump runs in dumpcycle days
'runspercycle' is just a number, it has no units. It just tells Amanda
how many times it will run during the dumpcycle so it can schedule
appropriately to level out the backups.
>
> Now I'm planning on doing incrementals from Monday - Thursday and a full on
> Friday:
That is the 'traditional' backup schedule, and it is possible to do that
with Amanda, but it really isn't the way Amanda was designed to run.
Normally, Amanda scatters the full backups across the dumpcycle so as to
use about the same amount of tape each day. You will still have a
full backup done every (in your case) week, it just won't necessarily
be on a Friday.
Unless you have a real need for your fulls to only run on Friday, I
would suugest keeping things simple and just let Amanda do her thing.
If you must have only fulls on Friday and only incrementals during the
week, then you need two configs, one for the fulls and one for the
incrementals.
>
> runspercycle 5 days ???
>
> tapecycle 25 tapes # the number of tapes in rotation
> # 4 weeks (dumpcycle) times 5 tapes per week (just
> # the weekdays) plus a few to handle errors that
> # need amflush and so we do not overwrite the full
> # backups performed at the beginning of the previous
> # cycle
>
> I understand I have to figure out what my capacity requirements are.
>
> If one configuration for the full and one for the incrementals are needed I'd
> be
> interested in how these are configured...
>
>
> I'm also looking for advice on recommendations for single tape drives for
> linux
> as well as media types. I don't want to further complicate my introduction
> with
> additional configuration issues.
We would need more information to recommend drives. It depends on
how much data you have, how long your backup window is (or not, if
you have plenty of holdingdisk space), how many tapes you need in
rotation (if media cost is an issue), and the server hardware (if
you have a very low-end server it may not be able to feed some of
the latest drives fast enough, so the extra cost might not be worth it).
Depending on your backup needs, you might also consider backing up
to disk instead, possibly doing occaisional archive backups to tape
as well.
Frank
>
> Thanks for the help in advance
>
> James
> RHCE
--
Frank Smith fsmith AT hoovers DOT com
Sr. Systems Administrator Voice: 512-374-4673
Hoover's Online Fax: 512-374-4501
|
