On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 06:38:00PM +0100, Stefan G. Weichinger wrote:
> Hi, Jon,
> 
> on Mittwoch, 02. März 2005 at 17:03 you wrote to amanda-users:
> 
> JL> Is there any way of specifying a relative value?  Say "starttime +30"
> JL> so it would begin no less than 30 min after the first dump starts.
> JL> I guess it couldn't be after amdump starts because the estimate and
> JL> planning stage varies in length.
> 
> JL> OK Jon, follow your own, oft given, advice, RTFM  ....
> 
> JL> Well there certainly is nothing in the man page describing relative
> JL> values, so I suspect I answered my own query.  Perhaps it would be
> JL> a good "Wish List" item.
> 
> It is relative when you read http://www.amanda.org/docs/using.html
> (still not formatted completely ...):

You mean TFM is sometimes inaccurate ;-))

> >    The starttime dumptype parameter delays a backup some amount of
> >    time after AMANDA is started. The value is entered as HHMM, so 230,
> >    for instance, would wait 2.5 hours. This may be used to delay
> >    backups of some areas until they are known to be idle.

> The manpage says:
> 
> > starttime "int"
> > Default:  none.   Backups  will not start until after this time of
> > day.  The value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be
> > entered as 1830.
> 
> No relativity here, you're right.
> 
> >         Allow certain dumptypes to be kicked off at specific times.
> >         Add a new, optional, parameter to the dumptype description in
> >         the config file.  The parameter is called "starttime" and takes
> >         one argument which is a time of day (local timezone) formated
> >         as either hhmm or hmm (no `.'s, no `:'s, just an integer).
> >                 define dumptype comp-user-2am {
> >                         comment "Non-root partitions on fast machines"
> >                         options compress-fast
> >                         priority medium
> >                         starttime 0200
> >                 }


Grossly different meanings.  Yet I can see Paul B's description of his usage
as fitting either actuality.  He indicated a "starttime 0200".  But if his
amdump was run at about midnight, 2AM would also be about 2 hours after the
start.

Definitely needs clarification.  My dusted-off, little gray cells say the
discussion when starttime was introduced covered things like laptops and
PC's that were only on during work hours for sites that did overnight
amdumps for their servers.  So I'd think the starttime argument was clocktime.

Sounds like availability of both could be useful

        starttime 0430          # start at 4:30AM
        starttime +200          # delay start by 2 hours.
        starttime -100          # start 1 hour before amdump is started  :))

BTW how is estimating and planning done when some DLEs are delayed for a while
and may not even be on the network or booted when amdump starts?

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
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