On Monday 08 August 2005 06:36, Vects wrote:
>Hi there,
>Is there any way to set up amanda to use bzip2 or other program for
>compression on client/server?
>
>Thanks,  Alexc.

The compression amanda normally uses is gzip, not quite as effective 
as bzip2, but much more efficient in terms of thruput, a large 
consideration when lots of data is being treated.  The enabling lines 
in the dumptype method descriptions in amanda.conf that I'm aware of 
are:

compress server
compress server best
compress server fast
compress client
compress client best
compress client fast

Best means to run gzip at maximum compression, a bit slow.  No 
argument is a bit less efficient & somewhat faster, and fast is the 
quickest but doesn't compress as well.  Compression at high levels of 
compression can and will take a considerable amount of cpu 
horsepower.

So chose a dumptype accordingly, or edit yourself a new one to suit.  

The only caveat that I'm aware of is that when adding a new dumptype 
to your amanda.conf, and you include another by way of reference, it 
must have already been read.  You cannot make a forward reference.  

Your new dumptype can reference a previously defined one, and have a 
line that replaces that same line in the referenced dumptype.
Provided the client is not also the server, then it generally makes 
sense to offload the compression duties to the client since many 
clients can be working in parallel, and it reduces occupied network 
bandwidth if thats a consideration since it will then be the 
compressed version that hits the cat5.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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