Hello everyone,

Approximately once a month, some of my servers fail to make backups
with this error message:

FAILURE AND STRANGE DUMP SUMMARY:
  capote     sda8 lev 1 FAILED [ [access as backup not allowed from sys-maint 
AT linuxbackup2.smarterlinux DOT com] open of /var/backups/.amandahosts failed]

But, there's simply no way this error message is correct.  I have two
reasons:

1) This host has three other DLEs that worked fine:
capote           sda1         1       4640        547  11.8   0:07 81.6   0:00  
  93138.1
capote           sda7         1     117750       8472   7.2   0:27 313.9   0:00 
  190309.3
capote           sda8         1 FAILED 
------------------------------------------------------
capote           sda9         3    1633400     340849  20.9  13:11
431.2   0:11    31918.6

2) The permissions on /, /var, /var/backups/.amandahosts, /etc,
/etc/amandahosts are all correct and none have been updated in at
least a week.

I've seen this before on other servers, and the major common fact
between them: they are all Debian woody servers running amanda-client
2.4.2p2-4.  I'd love to upgrade this, but upgrading woody's
amanda-client without upgrading glibc has proven very, very
challenging.

Is there any chance this is a known issue with the old client
software?  Maybe there's something else that could be failing?


-- 
Ross Vandegrift
ross AT kallisti DOT us

"The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell."
        --St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37