The reason for my slightly strange requirements is that I want to
offsite archive sets of backup tapes that have at least one level 0 for
every system. So I need to have enough tapes so I can have a set that is
being written to, a set that is on the way to offsite storage and a set
that will soon return from offsite. Since the offsite storage place only
picks up twice a week and someone MUST be here to sign for them, I need
to have a few extra tapes just in case the old archives don't arrive
before I need them. 

My plan (when I had only 11 tapes) was to have 3 sets of 3 plus 2
spares. A sequence of three tapes would be set to offsite once a week,
where it would stay until the next set arrived. Then it would be
returned to me and put back into rotation. The no-reuse/reuse options
seem to do a wonderful job helping me manage this. But if I miss a
delivery, I may end up with 6 tapes offsite and a weeks worth of backups
onsite. With backups 5 days a week, that's 11 tapes with no room for
error. So I got 5 more tapes. But I'd still like to see this work so I
will be sure that when I have to go to 4 or 5 day cycles, I'll have a
system that works. 

What I have found (that seems to work) is to set dumpcycle to 5 on
Mondays and Tuesdays (so Amanda will look back far enough in time). Then
I set it back to 3 days on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. This seems
to have the exact desired affect. This morning's (Monday's) backups had
level 0's for each system that had not gotten a level 0 last Thursday or
Friday. 

Jeremy Mordkoff
Tatara Systems
978-206-0808 (direct)
978-206-0888 (fax)
 
injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere -- Dr. Martin Luther
King