Well, we're getting there, but 2.5.1 still doesn't quite work for me,
this time because of what looks like an Amanda permissions bug.
The only work-around I can see is to have Amanda be super-user.
Here's what happens...

Nothing gets written to the holdingdisk.  Amdump complains that
it's not writeable.  Amstatus complains that the dumpers are all
idle because there's no disk space.

Well, the holdingdisk is perfectly writeable.  And amdump creates a
directory in it whose name is a timestamp.  The permissions on that
directory are 700 (drwx------), with "root" as owner and "disk" as
group.  The amanda user is supposed to be "amanda".  Both root and
amanda are in group "disk".  So evidently the dumpers can't write to
the spool directory (named with a timestamp) because they are not
running as superuser, and it doesn't matter whether the dumpers are in
group disk because there are no group permissions on that directory.

To make things even more bizarre, the timestamp directory is only
there for a minute or two, and then it is deleted, probably because
there's nothing in it to flush.  This is extremely confusing, because
when the whole misadventure is over, unless you noticed the transient
existence of this almost permissionless directory, Amanda leaves you
with the following misinformation:

  * amstatus says there was no disk space.  But there's plenty.

  * the emailed report from Amanda says, for example:

     bruno.coolheads.com / lev 0 FAILED [can't dump required holdingdisk]

     ...but there's no reason why the holdingdisk can't be written
     upon by both root and amanda, and any other member of group disk.

#######################################################

I think the above problem is a critical problem.  The following
problem is not critical, but it's similar and it's quite annoying:

Amcheck complains that tapelist isn't writeable.  And it's true: it's
not writeable, and that's because Amanda made it that way during the
previous run.  Then, when you change the permissions on tapelist,
amcheck can see it, and that's when amcheck can start to tell you
whether you've got the right tapes in the right drives.  Otherwise,
amcheck thinks that your tapes are very nice Amanda-labelled tapes,
but it knows nothing about them.  But after the next run, amcheck will
be broken again for the same reason.

#######################################################

Thanks, guys, for any advice or help.  I'd rather not make the amanda
user the super user, but what the hey, she has to SUID to root
anyway...  Is that the way you're supposed to run Amanda?  I never
have done so before.


-- Steve

Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant
Coolheads Consulting

Co-editor, Topic Maps International Standard (ISO/IEC 13250)
Co-editor, draft Topic Maps -- Reference Model (ISO/IEC 13250-5)

srn AT coolheads DOT com
http://www.coolheads.com

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