There is a tar-wrapper script for people who don't have GNUTar or need to do
something non-tar, like dumping a database. Search the amanda-users list
archives for it. It works with 2.4.x. 

> 
> AFAICS, Amanda "out of the box" does not support pre-/post-backup 
> triggers ("stop database before backup and start it when finished"), 
> nor does it support adapting a database specific backup tool.
> 
> The 2.5 line may have some support for this.
> 
>       hauke
>