> > Correct me if I am wrong. It seems that when a DLE is set to
> > incremental backup, Amanda will try to get the size using various
> 
> How did you specify "incremental backup"?
> There are several methods which have an influence:
> 
>    skip-full yes           # when planner scheduled a lvl 0 skip it
>    strategy nofull    # only level 1 during planning/estimate
>    strategy incronly  # similar to skip-full but allows full
>                    # dumps with "amadmin force"

Hrom my config it is nothing of the above, the dumptype just mention
nothing.
 
> > methods:
> > 
> > - full backup size
> > - same incremental level as the last one size
> > - next incremental level size
> > 
> > I see in /tmp/amanda/sendsize... the following lines:
> > 
> > sendsize[78984]: time 27.295: getting size via gnutar for /home/fidji level > > 0
> > sendsize[78984]: time 36.611: getting size via gnutar for /home/fidji level 
> > 3
> > sendsize[78984]: time 38.428: getting size via gnutar for /home/fidji level 
> > 4
> > 
> > and it happens that the last incremental backup for /home/fidji was
> > level 3.
> > 
> > Then Amanda would choose what level to use (0, 3 or 4).
> 
> I guess that from the above lines you have "skip-full" and not
> "strategy incronly".

Neither, I have no strategy, nor skip anything.

> > Do I understand well?
> > 
> > My problem is the following. I need to backup a Zope
> > installation. Zope keeps all the data in one single BIG file (it
> > quickly grows GBs). Amanda cannot do proper backup on the fly so I
> > need to either:
> > 
> > - stop zope during the backup. Easy using a gnutar wrapper, but that
> >   would put my web site away for some time.
> > 
> > - use a tool provided by zope to make a safe copy of that big data
> >   file and backup that copy.
> >  
> >   That tool allows incremental copies. How nice, I could match the
> >   full copy with Amanda full backup and incremental copies with Amanda
> >   incremental copies... But to get the size right, I need to make the
> >   copy at the size estimate stage, not at the dump stage. And the size
> >   estimate of Amanda always proceed to do a full estimate, so I would
> >   end up anyway using Zope tool to do a full copy.
> > 
> >   If I do the copy at dump type only, the size estimate will be all
> >   wrong (eventually by a large amount). How much can that affect
> >   Amanda?

> If I understand your problem is that doing an estimate for lvl 0, N, N+1
> takes too long, especially the lvl 0.

Problem is not the time, but more of strategy:

It seems that there is an estimate full run every day, even if the
dump ends up being incremental.

If I do my full copy just before the full estimate, I will end up
doing a full copy every day, that defeates the purpose of having
incremental copy.

I will look at estimate server then.

best regards,

Olivier