* Dustin J. Mitchell <dustin AT zmanda DOT com> [20070927 11:59]:
> On 9/27/07, Jean-Francois Malouin
> <Jean-Francois.Malouin AT bic.mni.mcgill DOT ca> wrote:
> > Yes, you're right that it is manually feasable. However conceptually
> > simple the task is, I feel that potential mistakes are bound to
> > happen, particularly when doing a restore under pressure! Remember,
> > you have the mob^H^H^Husers on your back, yelling bad words at you :)
> >
> > I'll see if I can write a dirty little script that could somehow
> > automate the procedure...
> 
> Just to be clear, while native-tools restores are important, and not a
> feature we're considering dropping, they should be *very* rare.

right, but just because it is a very remote possibility doesn't mean
one must not be prepared for it! It's all about contingency plans...
Like monitoring asteroids in the Earth vicinity...no one really cares
until the Big Hit :)

> It's the purpose of the inventory mode, as well as amrestore, to deal
> with the situation where a fresh install of Amanda, without much
> configuration (just a tapedev), must perform a restore.
> 
> To summarize the levels of functionality for restore:
>  OS, Amanda, Config, Logs, Indices: use amrecover
>  OS, Amanda, Config, Logs: use amfetchdump
>  OS, Amanda: use amrestore[1], or use inventory to recover the logs
> and then use amfetchdump
>  OS: use native tools

> 
> Unless you're locked in a bunker without access to Amanda binaries,
> installing Amanda on a fresh box should probably be the first step of
> your bare-metal restore process.  That said, you can be confident
> that, given a swiss army knife, some duct tape, and a basic UNIX
> system, you *can* get at your data.

Funny, our machine room is actually called 'The Bunker'!
Concrete all over the walls, ceiling and floor...
Not ideal but we had no choice. And one 1.5T and 3T MRI scanners
located directly underneath it!

> 
> Dustin
> 
> P.S. I think it will make more sense to move the inventory mode to
> amrestore, making that the generic restore-without-config-or-indices
> tool.  It doesn't really fit well with the operation of amfetchdump,
> IMHO.  Opinions welcome.

As you clearly explained above you're right that the inventory
functionality should then be at the amrestore level...

> 
> [1] At the moment, amrestore doesn't support splitfile reassembly,
> although it's easy enough to do manually with 'cat'.  We'll be adding
> that capability to amrestore soon.
> 
> -- 
> Storage Software Engineer
> http://www.zmanda.com

regards,
jf
-- 
<° ><