On Wed, Jul 26, 2006 at 07:35:49AM +0200, Sebastian Kösters wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 25, 2006 at 05:46:45PM +0200, Sebastian Kösters wrote:
> >> I forgot to say.
> >> 
> >> I did that because my backup size is between 40 and 160 GB each tape,
> >>every
> >> day. So i set it to 300 to guarantee that the end of the tape is never
> >> reached and that i do not get the error "tape full".
> >> 
> >> Hope you unterstand what i mean
> >> 
> >> >Hi,
> >> >
> >> >all together i have 2 TB.
> >> >
> >> >I use 8 configs (4 with 14 tapecycles each and 4 with 1 tapecycle each).
> >> >
> >> >In each config i told amanda to use a maximum of 300GB. 
> >> >
> 
> >OK, I'm confused. 
> >
> >A typical amanda installation has a single config, not 8.
> >Maybe a second one for special purposes, like off-site archives.
> >But seldom (?never?) 8.
> >
> >What do you mean by a config?
> >
> >
> >A tapecycle of 1 is never a good idea.  It means as soon as you start
> >a backup, you are destroying the only backup you have of those data.
> >
> >-- 
> >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)
> 
> 
> 
> With config i mean the amanda.conf files in the subdirectorys in /etc/amanda
> 
> I have 8 of this sudirectorys. I did that to seperate the backups.
> 
> 1 config is for non-critical machines (low netusage, incrementel, tapecycle
> 14)
> 
> 1 config is for our high-critical mashines (high netusage, incrementel,
> tapecycle 14)
> 
> 1 config is specialy for our Outlook PST files on a seperate "PST-Server"
> (incrementel, about 100GB for a Level 0 Backup)
> 
> 1 config is only for our samba Servers which have critical data saved on
> their hddŽs so they are very critical too.
> 
> This 4 Backups run every weekday.

You can't have a config that is incremental only.  An incremental
backup is based on an earlier, higher level backup, going all the
way back to level 0.  Dumpcycle is used to tell amanda how often
it should do that level 0 and reset the base.

> 
> The other 4 configs are the "same" as above but they only do a Level 0
> Backup of every Server only on Saturday.

Ahh, so what you want is for amanda to act like all the other
"traditional" backup systems out there (those that do full and
incremental on a fixed schedule).

With your plan, what happens if a client or the network is down
just at the time you are running your level 0?  Are you willing
to wait until the next weekend to get a full backup of those data?

I'm pretty sure you can get something like what you want with
half the configs.  Set a long dumpcycle.  Set whatever the parameters
are for incremental only.  Then add a new cronjob that on Saturday,
before running amdump, you run amadmin 'force' to manually schedule
a level 0, full dump the next time each DLE is backed up.

I sometimes wonder, if you don't want to take advantage of amanda's
primary differentiating feature, automatic dynamic scheduling, what
aspects of amanda caused you to choose amanda?
> 
> I splitted it into 8 configs to seperate the disklists, netusage....
> 

When you have individual distinct requirements that is fine.

Be aware the limitations of running multiple amdumps.  If you have
only one tape drive, multiple configs can't write to it at the same
time and will not be able to use the same physical tape one after
the other.  Also, there are limitations at the client end such that
you can't have two configs connected at the same time unless you
go through some hoops a bit off-topic here.  So if either of those
conditions exist, single archive device or same client in multiple
configs, you have to run the amdumps consecutively, not simultaneously.

> Which tapecycle should i set? 2 or more? 
> 
> 

-- 
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)