Folks -- I looked into this '-o' question, and have some answers for
you.

On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 03:44:55PM -0400, Chris Hoogendyk wrote:
> Jon LaBadie wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 01:48:59PM -0400, Chris Hoogendyk wrote:
> >> I checked the documentation & man pages and the documentation of the -o
> >> option is pretty sparse. All references say "see the configuration
> >> override section in amanda(8)". That section is only a few lines long
> >> and makes no reference to the syntax with a comma separating multiple
> >> parameter=value pairs.
> >>
> >> So, possibilities ...
> >>
> >> 1. The syntax is wrong? And I need to use "amdump daily -o reserve=100
> >> -o tapedev=/dev/rmt/0n"? (In either case, this should be documented,
> >> since one would typically want to override more than one parameter if
> >> any at all.)

The documentation could use some help there, for sure.  FWIW, it doesn't
seem that comma-separated options are supported, from my look at the
source.

The basic problem is that, since you're using a changer, tapedev is
actually supplied by the *changer*, which looks directly in amanda.conf.
There's no provision to hand configuration overrides (-o) to changers.
Furthermore, many changers (e.g., chg-multi) supply their own tapedev.

The best solution, in this case, is to completely disable the changer,
too:

  amdump -o tapedev=/no/such/dev -o tpchanger=

I hope that helps.  I'll work on the documentation.

Dustin

-- 
        Dustin J. Mitchell
        Storage Software Engineer, Zmanda, Inc.
        http://www.zmanda.com/