Re: How to label tapes with amanda!

Benoit Martin "Sky Services" wrote:

First of all, I'm not a unix master at all, I'm trying to install and
configure amanda on my system, which is a system including 3 servers, with
only one having a tape device.

I don't understand how to label my tapes?


In amanda.conf you have to specify a regular expression that matches
your tapenames (see "labelstr").
E.g. you would like to label them Daily-01, Daily-02 etc.
then you give amanda the following labelstr:
  labelstr "^Daily-[0-9][0-9]$".
Or you could label them Sky-DLY-01, Sky-DLY-02, etc with:
  labelstr "^Sky-DLY-[0-9][0-9]$"

OK, now that we have defined how to name our tapes, we have to
label them.  This way Amanda recognizes her tapes, and she will
not overwrite the tape with your nobelprize project that you
forgot in the drive.

First we have to configure the tape drive.
It's best to use variable blocksize and no hardware compression.
How to set these is dependent on your OS, but I assume you use
Linux (because you still use the old amanda-2.4.2p2, which Redhat
still distributes). Insert a blank tape, and then you do:

   mt -t /dev/nst0 setblk 0
   mt -t /dev/nst0 compression off

And we bless our first tape with a name:

   amlabel YourConfig Sky-DLY-01

this takes a minute or so.  Insert your second blank tape and:

   amlabel YourConfig Sky-DLY-02

and so on.

You only have to label your tapes once.  After that Amanda
recognises the tapes and accepts any tape which conforms to
your labelstr and which is old enough (see tapecycle in amanda.conf).

I don't understand either how to start amandad on the clients.


If you use Redhat, then you have to configure xinetd start start
amandad for you.  You find a file in /etc/xinetd.d named "amanda".
Probably it is configured (by default by Redhat) to "off".
Turn it on by executing as root "chkconfig amanda on".


When I do #amcheck DailySet1 on my server, I got this:

bash-2.05$ /usr/sbin/amcheck DailySet1/
Amanda Tape Server Host Check
-----------------------------
Holding disk /var/tmp: 342562 KB disk space available, that's plenty
ERROR: /dev/st0: not an amanda tape


Error:  You should use the NON-rewinding device, called /dev/nst0.

       (expecting a new tape)
NOTE: skipping tape-writable test
NOTE: info dir /var/lib/amanda/DailySet1/curinfo: does not exist
NOTE: it will be created on the next run
NOTE: index dir /var/lib/amanda/DailySet1/index/cfeweb3/_home: does not
exist
NOTE: index dir /var/lib/amanda/DailySet1/index/localhost/_etc: does not
exist



The NOTE's are just informational, you may ignore them now.

Server check took 9.930 seconds

Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check
--------------------------------
WARNING: cfeweb3: selfcheck request timed out.  Host down?
WARNING: localhost: selfcheck request timed out.  Host down?
Client check: 2 hosts checked in 29.997 seconds, 2 problems found

(brought to you by Amanda 2.4.2p2)




--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation                            Tel  +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM    Fax  +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/          email:  Paul.Bijnens AT xplanation DOT com
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