On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 10:39:20AM -0600, Michael D Schleif wrote:
> * Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com> [2004:01:28:11:08:19-0500] scribed:
> > On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 09:52:41AM -0600, Michael D Schleif wrote:
> <snip />
> 
> 
>    # ls -adl /usr/local/home/mds/mail
>    drwxr-xr-x   19 mds      mds          4096 Jan 28 10:29 
> /usr/local/home/mds/mail
> 
> This allows amcheck to run _without_ errors, even _without_
> /usr/local/home/mds/mail/.amanda.excludes , which is what I wanted.
> 
> Nonetheless, I remain confused, since conf uses:
> 
>    exclude list optional ".amanda.excludes"
> 
> So, even though it is `optional', amcheck *must* have permissions
> adequate to see whether or not the `optional' file exists?
> 
> Would that condition impact the actual backup itself?  Or, since it runs
> as superuser, it would have access to the exclude file, and everything
> would be OK?
> 
> Am I getting closer to understanding this?

Yes,

JLM pointed out another thing I did not know.  amcheck does not consider it an
error for the file to not exist, it is listed as "optional".  But amcheck does
consider it an error if the file has the wrong permissions or if it is unable
to determine if it exists.  The latter was your problem.  amcheck could not
determine if there was a good exclude file (or none) in the mail directory.
It did not have permission to visit the directory.
-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
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