Ok, so it looks like my version of gnutar (1.13.90) might have some pbs, 
and it keeps locking up while trying to build the index of some of the 
larger DLEs of one of my dumpsets.

So while it's sitting there, locked up, does anyone have any ideas for 
what I can try so that it gives up on this DLE and moves on to the next 
one?

Like I said, I've tried sending SIGHUP and SIGALRM to several of the 
processes at different times, but to no avail.  In fact, there seems to 
be a dearth in process communication by this point, because even after 
I've killed the client 'sendbackup' processes, the server processes 
don't seem to notice.  Shouldn't the server side at least get a SIGPIPE 
or something?  Or maybe it'd eventually time out and then move on to the 
next DLE.

In this particular case, the dump is in the indexing phase, as Paul B. 
pointed out.  Doesn't anyone else think it's odd that there isn't also 
an "itimeout" parameter, one that would limit how long it spends trying 
to build the index for a DLE?  Seems like it could go into 
client-src/sendsize.c, f'rinstance.  But from the way it's behaving, my 
guess is that the time spent indexing is not part of the "dtimeout" 
value, which is why the indexing phase of one of my DLEs has been 
sitting there since midnight...  *sigh*

Anyway, if someone has some ideas for how to nicely push Amanda on to 
the next DLE, I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks!
-- Mark