>... I understand the
>concepts of how Amanda works and what takes place when it is working
>properly, however, I simply don't know how to get started. ...
:-)
Not to worry. That's a pretty normal situation with lots of software
packages. And you've certainly come to the right place for help.
>... Which
>command do I run first? Which .conf file to edit? amanda.conf or create my own
>?
You didn't mention which documentation you had gone through, but "the
chapter" at www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html tries to do things in a
more or less step by step mode. Have you read that?
If you have gone through that and are still confused, here's a **very**
rough overview. I'm not sure how far you got, so just skip over the
points you've already figured out:
* You need to create a configuration directory that will hold
amanda.conf and some other things. The name of the directory is
also the name of your configuration, e.g. "Daily". You need to
put it wherever "amadmin xx version" says CONFIG_DIR is. Make the
directory owned by your Amanda user (whatever you used for --with-user
on ./configure).
* Copy example/amanda.conf into the configuration directory. The only
thing you *have* to edit is the tape changer directives. For a
brand new install, I'd probably comment out "tpchanger" and all the
"changerfile" entries, even if you have a tape changer. You can check
out a lot of the Amanda installation without messing with the tapes,
and configuring a changer can be quite an adventure all by itself :-).
* Create a disklist file in the configuration directory or copy and
edit the one from the examples source directory. Use fully qualified
host names. Do not use "localhost".
* For the dumptype in the disklist, pick one from amanda.conf that
is closest to what you want to do (use GNU tar or dump, compress
or not, etc). For testing, set "record" to "no" in the "global"
dumptype that all the others inherit. When you go into production,
don't forget to set it back to "yes". If you want to enable indexing
(the amrecover tool uses it to aid file recovery, most people use it),
set "index" to "yes" in "global".
* Set up the inetd.conf or xinetd configuration on the client. This
is, without a doubt, the spot that causes the most trouble. There are
several FAQ items about it.
* Set up .amandahosts in the home directory of the Amanda user on
the client. Make it owned by the Amanda user and mode 0600 or 0400.
It should contain a single line. The first field should be the name
of the Amanda server (the one with the tape drive) and the second
field should be the Amanda user.
* The first real Amanda command to run is "amcheck -cl <config>".
That does all sorts of tests, other than tape, on both the server
and client. Don't bother trying anything else until it is happy.
Make sure you run it (and all other Amanda commands except amrecover)
as the Amanda user, **never** as root.
* If you have a tape changer, now is the time to add it to amanda.conf
and test it out with "amtape".
* Choose how you're going to label your tapes and use "amlabel" to
initialize them. Most people put the configuration name in the label
and then some sequence number, for instance "Daily000", "Daily001"
and so on. Set "labelstr" in amanda.conf to match.
* Now you're ready to try amcheck again without any flags, which
will do what it did before and also verify the tape.
* At this point you're ready to do a real backup with "amdump".
Either do it by hand, or set up a cron job. You might decide whether
now is the time to change "record" to "yes" or not.
>I would like someone to mentor me through the process and let me ask a few
>questions to get started.
I think you'll find this mailing list a very easy going place to get help,
so post away :-).
And welcome to Amanda!
>John Holstein
John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
