Amanda-Users

Re: Open file backup?

2007-10-19 15:29:57
Subject: Re: Open file backup?
From: Chris Hoogendyk <hoogendyk AT bio.umass DOT edu>
To: amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:22:35 -0400


Chris Hoogendyk wrote:


Greg Troxel wrote:
Amanda doesn't actually handle reading the files; it uses dump
(available on BSD and traditional unixes) and GNU tar (available pretty
much everywhere) to read files and make a dump stream.

I'm not sure if you're asking about a problem where some methods skip
files that are currently open, issues with getting an atomic snapshot,
or something more complicated about files that are being written.

I'm not sure about VSS, but fss is a term in NetBSD for taking snapshots
of filesystems so that dump and tar can get consistent views.  Other
UNIX-like systems have similar features.  I would expect that a feature
like this is available on Macs, and I don't know about windows.

Windows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_Shadow_Copy_Service

Also, see http://www.zmanda.com/amanda-enterprise-edition.html, for references to VSS and backing up open files in Windows.

The traditional Amanda backup of Windows clients using samba cannot do open files: http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/Backup_client#Windows_client


------------------

Mac OS X -- I've searched a bit for an answer and don't have it yet. Perhaps someone else can jump in.



Interesting. I found the following link: http://www.tolisgroup.com/products/macosx/le/faq.html

which says:

    ----------
    Does BRU LE for Mac OS X back up "open files?"

    Backing up "open files" was a Mac OS 9 and earlier concern.
Mac OS X is a Unix core operating system, and the issue does not exist under Unix.
    ----------


I had been going over a bunch of stuff that indicated problems various backup programs have with extended file attributes as well as HFS+ resource forks in Mac OS X. One of those sources found serious fault with Retrospect, which surprised me. However, things seem to have been getting better for Mac OS X and backups. In particular, the tar that came with 10.4 can handle the attributes and resource forks. I'm not sure about dump. If you want to avoid experimenting endlessly with google search terms, the sequence I landed on that turned up a bunch of references was

  "mac os x" 10.4 acl file attribute fork

To find the open files comment quoted above, I used

  "mac os x" "backing up" "open files"

both of those searches landed good links on the first page.

As far as installing Amanda on Mac OS X, the available information is here: http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/Installation/OS_Specific_Notes/Installing_Amanda_on_Mac_OS_X



---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
  O__  ---- Systems Administrator
 c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
(*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst
<hoogendyk AT bio.umass DOT edu>

---------------
Erdös 4



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