Estimate size question

AMANDA Version: 2.5.2p1
AMANDA Server: Solaris 10 Sparc

Normally I run my backups at night but yesterday I had to run it in the day and was noticing that size estimate part was taking a very long time to run. Looking at the amdump file I see the following: “planner: time 18363.178: getting estimates took 18362.848 secs” which is 5 hours.

I also noticed that no backup started before the the last estimated completed. I assume this is normal.

I want to see if there is some way to cut the estimate size time down or see if maybe I am doing something dumb.

How I do things.

Before each backup

    1. I run a program that gets a list of all the home directories that begin with each letter of the alphabet and places them in a file called “/local/Amanda/UsersList/users-?”. Example auser1, auser2, auser3 , will be in the file /local/Amanda/UsersList/users-a and buser1, buser2, buser 3 will be placed in file /local/Amanda/UsersList/users-b and so on for each letter of the alphabet.
    2. I do a fssnap of the users file systems which is /export/fssnap/users.
    3. I them run amdump.

A snippet of my disklist looks like the following.

zorn /export/users-a /export/fssnap/users {
      users-tar
      include list "/local/Amanda/UsersList/users-a"
}
zorn /export/users-b /export/fssnap/users {
      users-tar
      include list "/local/Amanda/UsersList/users-b"
}
:
:

In the above case all the users are on the same host as the amanda server and I use the default “client” to do the estimate and I use tar to do the backup of the users. I have to do the fssnap and I have to use tar to do the backup of user data.

QUESTIONS:

    1. How does the estimate work when using an include list. Does it have to go to each user directory in the include list and figure the estimate size for all the users in /local/Amanda/UsersList/users-??

    2. I was thinking about using the “server” estimate for the users in the include list to try and increase the speed of the backup. Our user directories do no change that much so I think I am ok in this area.

    3. Any other suggestions on how to cut down the time it takes to get estimate size?

Thanks

Robert

--
Robert P. McGraw, Jr.
Manager, Computer System               EMAIL: rmcgraw AT purdue DOT edu
Purdue University                       ROOM: MATH-807
Department of Mathematics              PHONE: (765) 494-6055
150 N. University Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2067