[Please reply to amanda-users when asking questions on the list]

On Thu, 12 May 2005, Guy Dallaire wrote:

2005/5/12, Mitch Collinsworth <mitch AT ccmr.cornell DOT edu>:

No.  Amanda guarantees it will take all data your backup program
sends it, put it onto the tape, and get it back off again, assuming
the tape is still good at that time.

Whether or not a modified file gets included in the next dump is
the responsibility of whatever backup program you tell amanda to
invoke.  Typically dump or gnutar, but folks have managed to glue
in a number of others as well.  Amanda doesn't "do backups", she
only oversees the process.

-Mitch

Well...

What I meant is that, provided I have a standard dump cycle, I use
gnutar for some DLE's, and dump for other DLE's, and I run amanda at
time x. Will amanda run dump or gnu-tar in a way that if a file is
modified before time x, it will ALWAYS be included in the backup ?

ALWAYS is a very strong word.  I see others have been responding yes
to this but nevertheless the answer is still no.  Amanda makes a very
good effort to always do the right thing but there are various ways in
which things can still go wrong.  The best you can really say is that
amanda will ALWAYS try.

For example if you have way too much data to fit on the tape, sometimes
amanda will say "[dumps way too big, must skip incremental dumps]".
Now this is generally a very rare occurance and typically one that is
not caused by any failing in amanda, only that you gave her more to do
than is physically possible and she had to decide SOMETHING.

Also note that there are ways to configure your amanda setup to make
this highly unlikely.  For example a tape loader with plenty of
tapes available and a configuration that tells amanda she can use
multiple tapes per run if necessary.  etc.

-Mitch