The amanda tape server is running Redhat 7.1. You were correct - xinetd
was the problem. I added the line groups = users to
/etc/xinetd.d/amidxtape and it worked fine.

Thank you for your prompt response.

Regards,

--Paul

* Joshua Baker-LePain (jlb17 AT duke DOT edu) wrote:
> On Mon, 19 May 2003 at 2:40pm, Paul Barton wrote
> 
> > amrestore: could not open /dev/tape: Permission denied
> > amidxtaped: time 0.005: amrestore terminated normally with status: 2
> > amidxtaped: time 0.005: rewinding tape ...
> > amidxtaped: time 0.005: tape_rewind: tape open: /dev/tape: Permission denied
> > amidxtaped: time 0.005: pid 16792 finish time Mon May 19 13:50:19 2003
> > 
> > I tried running amrestore with the 6 arguments listed above on the tape
> > server (data1) as user amanda - it worked fine. Any ideas why I would be
> > getting Permission denied errors on /dev/tape with amidxtaped?
> 
> You don't mention the OS on the tape server, but here's a guess.  With 
> xinetd, e.g., only the primary group permissions are used unless you 
> specify "groups = yes" in the relevant service config file.  So, if you 
> give the amanda user access to whatever /dev/tape points to via a 
> secondary group permission, this may not get applied to amidxtaped when it 
> gets run via xinetd.
> 
> If that's not it, we'll need more info on the server side OS/config.
> 
> -- 
> Joshua Baker-LePain
> Department of Biomedical Engineering
> Duke University
Paul Barton             http://www.moonkhan.org     -o)
paul AT moonkhan DOT org                                   /\\
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."       _\_V