On Thu, May 12, 2005 at 05:58:02PM -0400, Mitch Collinsworth wrote:
>
> On Thu, 12 May 2005, Guy Dallaire wrote:
>
> >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.
I had a similar reaction to Mitch. And thus I'll just pass on some
other examples of how "always" should "never" be specified :)
Suppose the file(s) in question were on a file system or a laptop
that at the time of backup were not available.
A client of mine changed the system clock by a week, then by another week
to avoid a license expiration. Really messed with the backups.
Windows will not let you copy or backup a file already open for use by
another application. So if it was modified, but in use, no backup.
Note, these are all problems outside of amanda's control. And of the
various backup programs amanda relies upon.
But to answer your real concern, given the use of standard dump's and
guntar, a file modified since the last run of amdump 'should' be in the
backup file of the next run of amdump.
Ahh, I just thought of an exception; I have two DiskListEntries that are
for directories that almost never change. One is only CD images. I have
set them up to "skip-incrementals" and only do level 0, full dumps of them
every two weeks. If anything changes on the 13 days between full dumps
I would not have a backup copy of it. But that is because I chose to
not have a copy.
--
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)
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