Amanda-Users

Re: Incorrect bahaviour causes backup loss !!

2006-07-27 11:51:33
Subject: Re: Incorrect bahaviour causes backup loss !!
From: Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com>
To: amanda-hackers AT amanda DOT org, amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 11:42:53 -0400
On Thu, Jul 27, 2006 at 04:07:40PM +0100, Alan Pearson wrote:
> Guys,
> 
> I'm running amanda 2.5.0p2.
> 
> Last night, I got the following report from amdump (relevant lines  
> extracted) :
> 
> FAILED AND STRANGE DUMP DETAILS:
> 
> /--  qtvpdc / lev 2 STRANGE
> sendbackup: start [qtvpdc:/ level 2]
> sendbackup: info BACKUP=/usr/bin/gnutar
> sendbackup: info RECOVER_CMD=/usr/bin/gnutar -f... -
> sendbackup: info end
> ? gtar: ./Library/Logs/PasswordService/ApplePasswordServer.Server.log. 
> 1: file changed as we read it
> | Total bytes written: 912343040 (871MiB, 3.9MiB/s)
> sendbackup: size 890960
> sendbackup: end
> \--------
> 
> NOTES:
>   planner: Last full dump of qtvpdc:/ on tape DailySet1-3  
> overwritten on this run.
>   planner: Incremental of qtvpdc:/ bumped to level 2.
>   planner: qtvpdc / 20060727 0 [dump larger than available tape  
> space, 35448530 KB, full dump delayed]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the NOTES section it says that a full dump of the machine qtvpdc  
> was delayed because it was larger than available tape space.
> Yet it says it is going to overwrite the last full dump of this  
> machine 2 lines previous.
> 
> Today a user came and asked me to restore a file from a few days back  
> from this machine. I can't because Amanda blew away the last full  
> backup.
> When Amanda realises it's going to blow away the only full backup of  
> a machine still in it's disklist, it should be a LOT clever than this.
> 
> Yes I realise it wouldn't fit on the tape, but Amanda should at least  
> have put it in the holding disk area or NOT overwritten the only full  
> backup at all.
> 
> Maybe a compromise, leave the backup in the holding disk, and backup  
> the other stuff that will fit to tape.

That would seem to be a hard call.  For just one example, I've got
a DLE that I only do weekly full dumps, no incrementals.  It contains
nothing but *.iso files, dvd or cd images, that I can easily recreate
from the original optical media.  And some of my DLEs go directly
to tape, bypassing the holding disk.  Should the backup of those
direct to tape DLEs be skipped to preserve my relatively unimportant
last full dump of the *.iso DLE?

Just for info, how did you get to the situation of only having one
full dump in the tapecycle?  If that tape failed you would have
been in a similar situation.  Failed tapes were pretty common for
me when I was using DDS tapes.  Typically I have 3-5 full dumps
within a tapecycle.  (Not counting those in the archive config)

-- 
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)