Anyone have a .conf for using the new tapeless backup techniques introduced in 2.4.3? I too am stuck; my best guess is this:
There are 2 ways to do tapeless backup: (a) The 2.4.2 and below way (just uses holding disk) (b) the 2.4.3 way (if anyone has this working please post your .conf!) (no holding disk needed I guess; uses new file driver, somehow) Way (a) seems to be well described, and oughta works with 2.4.3 and up The FAQ http://amanda.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/fom? _highlightWords=tapeless&file=191 states... ...I've set up a system using 2.4.2p2 to backup to nfs mounted drive space just recently. If you are able to use 2.4.3, there is a setting to save to disk. Check the docs or the mail archives... I have checked the docs and the mail archives and have had no joy. I'd would love to use the whiz-bang new 2.4.3 technique but despite the optimistic language in the FAQ, the docs and the mail archives do not adequately describe technique (b). Following are 2 long posts. The first is the somewhat sparse documentation in the 2.4.3 docs. It may soon be time to give up on (b) and surrender to the adequately documented (a) technique. People won't use new features if they are not documented enough. The second long posting details one man's use of technique (a). We should all stop confusing the 2 different tapeless approaches. And if anyone is successfully using the new 2.4.3 (b) technique, could you post your .conf file? The helpful descriptions of the (a) technique are masking the need for fuller documentation of the (b) technique. I tried something like Mohamed in his earlier post with the same bad results. -Steve New in 2.4.3 man page... but hard to grok... can't make it work (See Mohamed's posting)... OUTPUT DRIVERS The normal value for the tapedev parameter, or for what a tape changer returns, is a full path name to a non-rewind- ing tape device, such as /dev/nst0 or /dev/rmt/0mn or /dev/nst0.1 or whatever conventions the operating system uses. Amanda provides additional application level drivers that support non-tradition tape simulatation or features. To access a specific output driver, set tapedev (or configure your changer to return) a string of the form driver:driver-info where driver is one of the supported drivers and driver-info is optional additional information needed by the driver. The supported drivers are: tape This is the default driver. The driver-info is the tape device name. Entering /dev/rmt/0mn is really a short hand for tape:/dev/rmt/0mn. null This driver throws away anything written to it and returns EOF for any reads except a special case is made for reading a label, in which case a "fake" value is returned that Amanda checks for and allows through regardless of what you have set in labelstr. The driver-info field is not used and may be left blank: tapedev "null:" The length value from the associated tapetype is used to limit the amount of data written. When the limit is reached, the driver will simulate end of tape. NOTE: this driver should only be used for debug- ging and testing, and probably only with the record option set to no. rait Redundant Array of Inexpensive (?) Tapes. Reads and writes tapes mounted on multiple drives by spreading the data across N-1 drives and using the last drive for a checksum. See docs/RAIT for more information. The driver-info field describes the devices to use. Curly braces indicate multiple replace- ments in the string. For instance: tapedev "rait:/dev/rmt/tps0d{4,5,6}n" would use the following devices: /dev/rmt/tps0d4n /dev/rmt/tps0d5n /dev/rmt/tps0d6n file This driver emulates a tape device with a set of files in a directory. The driver-info field must be the name of an existing directory. The driver will test for a subdirectory of that named data and return offline until it is pre- sent. When present, the driver uses two files in the data subdirectory for each tape file. One contains the actual data. The other con- tains record length information. The driver uses a file named status in the file device directory to hold driver status informa- tion, such as tape position. If not present, the driver will create it as though the device is rewound. The length value from the associated tapetype is used to limit the amount of data written. When the limit is reached, the driver will simulate end of tape. One way to use this driver with a real device such as a CD is to create a directory for the file device and one or more other directories for the actual data. Create a symlink named data in the file directory to one of the data directories. Set the tapetype length to what- ever the medium will hold. When Amanda fills the file device, remove the symlink and (optionally) create a new symlink to another data area. Use a CD writer software package to burn the image from the first data area. To read the CD, mount it and create the data symlink in the file device directory. Clear Documentation of the old school (a) technique: Hello, Per a recent request, this is my own little HOWTO on how to set up Amanda to backup using a hard disk instead of tape. I tried to post this to the FOM at <http://amanda.sourceforge.net/fom-serve/cache/191.html> but I received a permission denied error when I tried to create a new login. So I'm posting it here. In addition to installation, I added a section on recovering with amrecover. Thanks especially to John R. Jackson for helping me set this up. Also, as noted recently, there's also a nice summary by Alex Muc at <http://www.mail-archive.com/amanda-users@amanda.org/msg07758.html>. Regards, Clinton Hogge Industrial Images Backing up to hard disk instead of tape --------------------------------------- Assumes that: Config files are in /etc/amanda Configuration named "DailySet1" Local state directory is /var/lib/amanda Amanda is configured --with-user=amanda --with-group=disk 14 day dump cycle with an unattended "rotation" of the "tapes" For the backup device I use a separate 4 gig hard drive mounted at /var2 Installation ------------ 1. Obtain the tapeio source from sourceforge: $cvs -d:pserver:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/cvsroot/amanda login $cvs -z3 - d:pserver:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:/cvsroot/amanda checkout -r amanda-242-tapeio amanda $cd amanda $./autogen 2. Install Amanda as usual. 3. Edit the following config files (all mode 644, owner amanda, group disk): --------------------------------- /etc/amanda/DailySet1/amanda.conf --------------------------------- # These are the options that differ from examples/amanda.conf dumpcycle 14 days tapecycle 14 #runspercycle # defaults to 1 per day runtapes 1 tpchanger "chg-multi" changerfile "/etc/amanda/DailySet1/changer.conf" # Comment out tapedev and changerdev tapetype HARD-DISK labelstr "^DailySet1[0-9][0-9]*$" define tapetype HARD-DISK { comment "Hard disk instead of tape" length 4000 mbytes # Simulates end of tape on hard disk (a 4 GB disk here) } define dumptype hard-disk-dump { global comment "Back up to hard disk instead of tape - using dump" holdingdisk no index yes priority high } define dumptype hard-disk-tar { hard-disk-dump comment "Back up to hard disk instead of tape - using tar" program "GNUTAR" } ---------------------------------- /etc/amanda/DailySet1/changer.conf ---------------------------------- multieject 0 gravity 0 needeject 0 ejectdelay 0 statefile /var/lib/amanda/DailySet1/changer-status firstslot 1 lastslot 14 slot 1 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape01 slot 2 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape02 slot 3 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape03 slot 4 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape04 slot 5 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape05 slot 6 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape06 slot 7 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape07 slot 8 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape08 slot 9 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape09 slot 10 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape10 slot 11 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape11 slot 12 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape12 slot 13 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape13 slot 14 file:/var2/amandadumps/tape14 ------------------------------ /etc/amanda/DailySet1/disklist ------------------------------ # hostname diskdev dumptype # Replace "dumptype" with either "hard-disk-dump" or "hard-disk-tar" # localhost /home hard-disk-dump # localhost /etc hard-disk-tar ------------------------------ 4. Create the "tapes" on the tape server hard drive with the associated data directories: $mkdir /var2/amandadumps $mkdir /var2/amandadumps/tape01 $mkdir /var2/amandadumps/tape01/data ... $mkdir /var2/amandadumps/tape14 $mkdir /var2/amandadumps/tape14/data $chown -R amanda.disk /var2/amandadumps $chmod -R 770 /var2/amandadumps 5. Use amlabel to label the tapes: $amlabel DailySet1 DailySet101 slot 1 ... $amlabel DailySet1 DailySet114 slot 14 Recovery with amrecover ----------------------- As root on the tape server: $mkdir /tmp/restore $cd /tmp/restore $amrecover DailySet1 $setdate (Optional) $sethost foo $setdisk bar $cd dir/which/contains/filetorecover $add filetorecover $list (note which "tape" the file is on) $settape host:file:/var2/amandadumps/tapeXX In this step, replace the appropriate host and tape values. For example to extract a file from host "rustler" that's on tape 12: $settape rustler:file:/var2/amandadumps/tape12 $extract $quit The only gotcha with amrecover is that if the files you want to extract are on different tapes, you need to add only the files that are on tape01, settape for tape01, extract, add files for tape02, settape tape02, extract, etc. As a work-around, you can give amrecover a "fake" name (/tmp/whatever) with the "-d" option and then symlink that to the appropriate "tape" as it asks for it.
