On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 05:17:16PM -0500, Drew Derbyshire enlightened us:
> I've run amanda for years on various FreeBSD machines.  I THINK in days 
> of old I also backed up at least one Redhat 8 client system, but the 
> system retired a while back so I have no data and little memory.
> 
> I'm now trying to add a Fedora 4 client, with poor results.  amcheck 
> runs fine, but the infamous estimate failed keeps happening when I 
> actually try to run.   It's not a timeout (total execution is only 30 
> seconds), and sendsize seems to be actively failing.  I'm not sure what 
> to make of it.   In particular:
> 
>    * "/sbin/dump 0Ssf 1048576 - /dev/sda1" works fine as the amanda
>      user run from the command line.
>    * GNU dump output hasn't changed much in years
>    * /etc/dumpdates is world readable and group writable.
> 
> Suggestions?
> 
> sendsize: debug 1 pid 22313 ruid 33 euid 33: start at Mon Feb 20 13:17:20 
> 2006
> sendsize: version 2.4.5
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.012: calculating for amname '/dev/sda1', dirname 
> '/boot', spindle 1
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.012: getting size via dump for /dev/sda1 level 0
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.015: calculating for device '/dev/sda1' with 'ext3'
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.016: running "/sbin/dump 0Ssf 1048576 - /dev/sda1"
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.029: running /usr/lib/amanda/killpgrp
> sendsize[22313]: time 0.037: waiting for any estimate child: 1 running
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.045:   DUMP: cannot read /etc/dumpdates: Permission 
> denied
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.047:   DUMP: The ENTIRE dump is aborted.
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.049: .....
> sendsize[22315]: estimate time for /dev/sda1 level 0: 0.032
> sendsize[22315]: no size line match in /sbin/dump output for "/dev/sda1"
> sendsize[22315]: .....
> sendsize[22315]: estimate size for /dev/sda1 level 0: -1 KB
> sendsize[22315]: time 0.049: asking killpgrp to terminate
> sendsize[22315]: time 1.053: done with amname '/dev/sda1', dirname '/boot', 
> spindle 1
> sendsize[22313]: time 1.054: child 22315 terminated normally
> sendsize[22318]: time 1.055: calculating for amname '/dev/sda5', dirname 
> '/', spindle 1
> sendsize[22318]: time 1.055: getting size via dump for /dev/sda5 level 0
> sendsize[22318]: time 1.057: calculating for device '/dev/sda5' with 'ext3'
> sendsize[22318]: time 1.057: running "/sbin/dump 0Ssf 1048576 - /dev/sda5"
> sendsize[22318]: time 1.065: running /usr/lib/amanda/killpgrp
> sendsize[22313]: time 1.073: waiting for any estimate child: 1 running
> sendsize[22318]: time 1.087:   DUMP: cannot read /etc/dumpdates: Permission 
> denied

If I had to guess, I'd say you've got SELinux enabled and it's interfering.
Anything in /var/log/messages to tell if that's the case?

Matt

-- 
Matt Hyclak
Department of Mathematics 
Department of Social Work
Ohio University
(740) 593-1263