On 2007-07-02 17:12, Mark Scheufele wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> in our amanda setup there are no other clients than the backup server
> itself. The amanda software was compiled with the
> options--with-user=amanda --with-owner=amanda --with-group=sys so that
> all services do run under a separate amanda user. 

Good.


> 
> To be able to read all files within the local filesystems I have set the
> parameter dumpuser to "root" in the amanda.conf file. Backups are now
> running fine. But I am running into permission problems with amrecover.

Bad.  Amanda already runs the real backup program (gnutar) with
a setuid-root program, ("runtar" -- look in libexec) , giving it all
the permissions needed.  For dump all that is needed is that the amanda
has read-access to the disk-groups.  There are other programs needing a
setuid-flag on the executable as well.

It could be that while installing, you did not do "make install" as the
root user, thereby losing the setuid-bit on many programs that need it.
Another frequent error is that you have the setuid-programs on a
partition that is mounted with the "nosuid" option.


> 
> The problem is that all files under etc/<config>/index and all log.*
> files under etc/<config> are all assigned to the root user. The amindexd
> yet runs under the amanda user and therefore isn't able to read those
> files properly.

Revert to user "amanda", and "chown -R amanda" all the index, and log
files.  Then at least, amrecover works again.


> 
> To fix the problem I was thinking about recompiling amanda to run all
> services completely under the uid root to avoid the permission problems.
> 
> But maybe there is a better way to accomplish my goal. It would be great
> if someone could point me into the right direction.

No, better find out why the setuid bit was not working for your
installation.


-- 
Paul Bijnens, xplanation Technology Services        Tel  +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM    Fax  +32 16 397.512
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