Dan Brown wrote:

There is a host however in this new config whose backups magically disappear

after the first chunk.  This host is a temporary copy of the old backup
host, something which will sit in the backup rotation for a month or two to
ensure we don't need any files off of the machine before it's completely
wiped out.
Strangely enough, level 0 backups don't want to be dumped to the holding
disks either.  This is the mailout from amanda after the backup attempt
(I've removed all other hosts in order to debug this).  The holding disks
are 150GB and 50GB in size respectively, both more than enough to hold any
one part of the split up disks.

I still don't understand why holdingdisk is not used, but read on...

*** A TAPE ERROR OCCURRED: [cannot overwrite active tape Full00].
Some dumps may have been left in the holding disk.
Run amflush to flush them to tape.
The next tape Amanda expects to use is: a new tape.

FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP SUMMARY:
  oldgimp  /clients         lev 0  FAILED [dumps too big, 12627453 KB, but
cannot incremental dump
 new disk]
  oldgimp  /var/lib/mysql   lev 0  FAILED [dumps too big, 12627455 KB, but
cannot incremental dump
 new disk]
  oldgimp  /everythingelse  lev 0  FAILED 20051219 [dumper3 died]
  oldgimp  /home            lev 0  FAILED 20051219 [dumper4 died]
  oldgimp  /zu/incoming     lev 0  FAILED 20051219 [dumper5 died]

Note the two values are the same (2k difference)!

You'll see, as I explain further down, you specified actually five
times the same entire root partition to backup.  Planner thought it
could do 3 of them on a 40 Gbyte tape, so delayed two of them.

Now why didn't those 3 at least get to the holdingdisk?  I would take a
close look at the files in /tmp/amanda on the client, and in amdump.X on
the server.  I'm interested to find out too.

STATISTICS:
                          Total       Full      Incr.
                        --------   --------   --------
Estimate Time (hrs:min)    0:01
Run Time (hrs:min)         4:34

[...]

NOTES:
  planner: tapecycle (8) <= runspercycle (20)

Not related to your problem, but you should do something about that too.

  planner: Adding new disk oldgimp:/clients.
  planner: Adding new disk oldgimp:/var/lib/mysql.
  planner: Adding new disk oldgimp:/zu/incoming.
  planner: Adding new disk oldgimp:/home.
  planner: Adding new disk oldgimp:/everythingelse.
  driver: dumper0 pid 18807 is messed up, ignoring it.
  driver: dumper0 died while dumping oldgimp:/everythingelse lev 0.
  driver: dumper1 pid 18808 is messed up, ignoring it.
  driver: dumper1 died while dumping oldgimp:/home lev 0.
  driver: dumper2 pid 18809 is messed up, ignoring it.
  driver: dumper2 died while dumping oldgimp:/zu/incoming lev 0.
  driver: dumper3 pid 18810 is messed up, ignoring it.
  driver: dumper4 pid 18811 is messed up, ignoring it.
  driver: dumper5 pid 18812 is messed up, ignoring it.
  driver: dumper0 exited with signal 25
  driver: dumper1 exited with signal 25
  driver: dumper2 exited with signal 25
  driver: dumper3 exited with signal 25
  driver: dumper4 exited with signal 25
  driver: dumper5 exited with signal 25

And I'll spam with the rest of my config as well since someone will ask for
it...

-----------amanda.conf-----------------

[...]

tapetype DLT4           # what kind of tape it is (see tapetypes below)
labelstr "^Full[0-9][0-9]*$"    # label constraint regex: all tapes must
match

This is also a strange name for tapes having a dumpcycle of 4 weeks.

amrecover_do_fsf yes            # amrecover will call amrestore with the
amrecover_check_label yes       # amrecover will call amrestore with the
amrecover_changer "/dev/null"   # amrecover will use the changer if you restore

Yes, i know this the default value in the example amanda.conf , but

reserve 30 # percent

autoflush no #

# dumptypes
define dumptype high-tar-comp {
   comment "partitions dumped with tar, compressed with gzip"
   priority high
   compress client best
   index yes
   exclude list "/etc/amanda/exclude.gtar"
}

And here is probably the reason:
You are missing the string  ' program "GNUTAR" ' here. Contrary to the
comments, you are using dump instead of gnutar, which dumps whole
partitions, instead of subdirectories.

oldgimp /clients / {
        # all client directories
        high-tar-comp
        include "./clients"
        } 1
oldgimp /var/lib/mysql / {
        # mysqld databases
        high-tar-comp
#       include "./var/lib/mysql"
        } 2
oldgimp /zu/incoming / {
        # the old zu/incoming
        high-tar-comp
#       include "./zu/incoming"
        } 1
oldgimp /home / {
        # home directories
        high-tar-comp
        include "./home"
        } 1
oldgimp /everythingelse / {
        # whatever isn't included in the above four definitions
        high-tar-comp
        include "./*"
        exclude "./clients" "./tmp" "./zu/incoming" "./home"

The 'include ./*" ' is not needed anyway.

to "exclude append"?


--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation                            Tel  +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM    Fax  +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/          email:  Paul.Bijnens AT xplanation DOT com
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