On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 09:51:19PM -0700, Nina Pham wrote:
> 
> I wrote to this list once about my problem, but got no reply.

Gee, I'm hurt you did not think my response was a reply ;((

> I have a redhat linux 9 machine running amanda server to backup some 
> folders of its all and backup some folders of another client amanda 
> machine running fedora Core 2. I have 2 configs setup on the server 
> machine, one daily config (6 days/week, Tuesday will not use this 
> config) which is running incremental backup, anothe config run weekly(on 
> Tuesday) runs full backup. Everything from the server itself running 
> correctly. Folders from the client machine are the one having problem. 
> The size backup keeps growing even after the day running full backup. 
> Any idea?
> 
> In the daily set (incremental backup) I have
>    dumpcycle 7 days
>    runspercycle 6
> 
>    define dumptype incremental {
>       hard-disk-tar
>       index yes
>       record yes
>       strategy nofull
>    }
> 
> In the Weekly set (full backup) I have
>    dumpcycle 0 days
>    runspercycle 1
> 
>    define dumptype always-full {
>       hard-disk-tar
>       index yes
>       record yes
>    }
>   

I can only imagine 2 general reasons this might happen.

1. The files actually keep changing, or seem to change, each day
2. Amanda does not record correctly the date of its backups.

About the first, I see back in January you posted about a problem
where the ctime of each file was being changed during an incremental
backup.  Was that resolved?  A changed ctime is reason to backup a file.

About the second, using tar should put the date of dumps in an
"amandates" file, probably in /etc.  Is that file being properly
updated?  Here is a sample of one of mine:

         DLE  LVL  Last dump at LVL
        /usr   0     1061964446
        /usr   1     1061618345
        /usr   2     1054274482
        /var   0     1104908210
        /var   1     1104821697
        /var   2     1103007354

To convert the unix time in the third column to a date, try something like:

        perl -e 'use POSIX; print ctime(1103007354);'

Confirm that your level 0 dumps are being properly recorded in this file.

I'm unclear of the role of the 'gnutar-lists', but they seem to have a
role recording, planning, or executing backups of different levels.
Mine are under /usr/local/var/amanda.  Do you have separate files there
for each DLE and backup level?  Empty or significant contents?


-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
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