On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 06:30:20AM -0500, Kevin Alford wrote:
> My Amanda backup server crashed, and I had to rebuild it.  I was running
> Amanda 2.4.2p2 on AIX 5.1 ML6.
> I desperately need to restore the data from my Amanda tapes, but I don't
> have the Amanda index files.
> Isn't there a way I can use native Unix to read and restore my tapes
> written by Amanda?
> Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.

If you have rebuilt your amanda installation you could use amrestore
which does not depend on the index files.

Alternatively the manual approach you asked about involves a few
steps outlined here (remember to use the no rewind tape device):


1) Using mt's fsf option (or asf) position the tape at the beginning
   of a tape file (each DLE tapes to a separate tape file)

2) Using dd read the first 32KB block of the file (amanda header).
   Something like "dd if=<tapedev> bs=32k count=1".

   It will tell you what DLE/date/level the tape file contains and
   whether it used dump or tar.  

3) Assuming you want these data you will then use dd to extract from
   tape and pipe into gzip if compressed and tar or dump as appropriate.
   If your tapedrive leaves you at the 32KB position after set two
   you can do "dd if=<tapedev> bs=32k | ?gzip -d? | tar or dump"

   I've sometimes had this fail where I attributed the second dd cmd
   not picking up were the first left off; in that case you need to
   use mt to reposition the tape to the beginning of the tape file
   and tell dd to "skip" the first block "dd if=... bs=32k skip=1 | ..."

   Remember the data is on tape relative to the root of the DLE, not
   the root of the system.  So if the DLE were /var/spool and you want
   to recover the files to their original location you must issue the
   3rd step commands from /var/spool.  I prefer to recover to an
   empty directory and the move or copy to the actual location.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 4455 Province Line Road        (609) 252-0159
 Princeton, NJ  08540-4322      (609) 683-7220 (fax)