Hi Jon, Hi all,
My experience is with precompiled stuff only. I use both RedHat 7.2
and Suse 7.2 RPMs and Debian 2.2 packages. They seem to work nicely
toghether.
The big disadvantage of building your own binaries are
1) You need a compiler
2) It takes time
3) You need to save your configuration for future rebuilds.
One of the documents describes the restore process. Even when
the server is blown. The most difficult scenario is getting your
binaries back. With a precompiled package, that is a snap.
You still need to configure the disklist and amanda.conf, but that is
all.
And you need to configure the .amadahost file on the clients and the
server.
Inetd stuff, services, suid bits, are all set by someone knowing what
(s)he is doing. Gives me a good feeling.
On including tape-types, I would recommend to put in all tape-types
(with clear names, possibly in a separately included file)
and have the amanda.conf file referencing one in a as an example
(with comment-marks).
Providing packages like this (for multiple OS'es) that can interact
with each-other would very much help with the speading of Amanda.
For me, it worked out of the box. (exept for hardware tape-errors,
which were saved with the help of this list.)
Jon LaBadie wrote:
> I've never installed and used amanda from a pre-built package.
> Thus I'm not familiar with the needs and problems creating and
> using such a package entail.
>
> Sun Freeware is a quasi official and supported Sun site for
> distributing compiled freeware for solaris. Current their list
> includes a pretty old version of amanda for Sparc systems only.
>
> I have the ear of the site maintainer and think I can influence
> what goes into the amanda package. But I need some suggestions.
>
> Here are some things I've considered, but please supply any
> experience or thoughts you may have.
>
> - amanda 2.4.3 official release is imminent, use that as the base
> when it is released
>
Good
>
> - the current package does not chown root, and setuid the several
> necessary programs, this should be done during installation
>
Yes
>
> - what config options should be used?
>
See below for the RedHat config that works really well.
>
> - should tapetype be precompiled too?
>
Yes, see above
>
> - how does a package handle the "defaults" like tape device, ...
>
Provide an commented out example.
>
> - should an amanda specific user and backup group be created by
> the installation, which names?
>
amanda.disk seems the obvious choice to me.
>
> - should a default amanda configuration directory, with example
> conf files be installed
>
Yes, in /etc/amanda/DailySet1
>
> - any other thoughts or war stories appreciated
>
One patch that RedHat puts in is to not backup sockets. This won;t work
anyway, so they decided to
not back them up at all. This saves space in logfiles, and also prevents
real errors or warnings to
go undetected. It would be very nice if this would be the default. Or
configurable.
This is run with RPM, which fixes up these prefixes. Everything installs
in /usr /var/ and /etc/amanada.
(but you can control that during install)
./configure \
--prefix=%{_prefix} \
--exec-prefix=%{_exec_prefix} \
--bindir=%{_bindir} \
--sbindir=%{_sbindir} \
--sysconfdir=%{_sysconfdir} \
--datadir=%{_datadir} \
--includedir=%{_includedir} \
--libdir=%{_libdir} \
--libexecdir=%{_libexecdir} \
--localstatedir=%{_localstatedir} \
--sharedstatedir=%{_sharedstatedir} \
--mandir=%{_mandir} \
--host=%{_host} \
--infodir=%{_infodir} \
--enable-shared \
--with-index-server=localhost \
--with-gnutar-listdir=%{_localstatedir}/amanda/gnutar-lists \
--with-smbclient=%{_bindir}/smbclient \
--with-amandahosts \
--with-user=amanda \
--with-group=disk \
--with-gnutar=/bin/tar
>
> --
> Jon H. LaBadie jon AT jgcomp DOT com
> JG Computing
> 4455 Province Line Road (609) 252-0159
> Princeton, NJ 08540-4322 (609) 683-7220 (fax)
I hope this helps to get Amanda being used by as many people as
possible. It is a GREAT package!
Cheers,
Edwin Hakkennes
Zarlink Semiconductor XIC B.V.
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