RE: Disklist file
Two amanda configs needed and two cronjobs? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kaushal Shriyan Sent: 23 August 2004 05:40 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Disklist file Hi ! i have two sets of client one who owns laptop and others who own desktop now i wanted to take backup of Laptop at 13:00 hrs and desktop at 21:00 hrs is there any way out to have seperate disklist file i mean one for laptop and other for desktop -- Regards, Kaushal Shriyan Technical Engineer Red Hat India Pvt. Ltd. Tel : +91-22-22881326/27 Fax : +91-22-22881318 Cell : +91-9820367783
Amanda Backup
Hi All Wanted to know about the time schedule of backups. Can i take backup during the working hours or is it compulsory to take in the night when there is no I/O operation. -- Regards, Kaushal Shriyan Technical Engineer Red Hat India Pvt. Ltd. Tel : +91-22-22881326/27 Fax : +91-22-22881318
RE: Amanda Backup
Hi, It's best to do it when no one is writing or saving documents etc. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kaushal Shriyan Sent: 23 August 2004 13:46 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Amanda Backup Hi All Wanted to know about the time schedule of backups. Can i take backup during the working hours or is it compulsory to take in the night when there is no I/O operation. -- Regards, Kaushal Shriyan Technical Engineer Red Hat India Pvt. Ltd. Tel : +91-22-22881326/27 Fax : +91-22-22881318
Re: AMANDA Documentation at www.oops.co.at
> On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, "Stefan" == Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: Stefan> about one month has gone now, since I put a pre-release Stefan> of "The Official AMANDA Documentation" online at Stefan> http://www.oops.co.at/AMANDA-docs/index.html Very nice! I must have been on vacation when you first put this up. Is there away I can get the raw docbook source (I'd like to print out a PDF so I can read this during my commute on the train :) If so, I'll gladly provide assitance with edits/corrections, etc. -- Seeya, Paul GPG Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
Re: advice please!
In a message dated: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 13:34:06 BST Maccy said: >I'm after some advice, as I haven't had any experience of setting up a >backup system before. I apologize for the delay in responding, I was on vacation when you posted this and am now just catching up on my Amanda mail :) >I recently acquired a Overland Powerloader with 17 slots and 1 LTO-2 >drive. Ahh, nice set up, that's what I have and really like it. Mine has a barcode reader in it too, though I've not spent the time to configure that yet (it's on the "todo" list when I find some more 'round tuits' :) >I want to backup ~3TB of data, and I'd like to do it incrementally >throughout the working week and fully Friday thru Sunday. Not overly complicated, just run 2 different configurations. (I'm assuming that the Fri-Sun backups are meant for offsite storage ?) >Ideally I'd like 3 cycles on the full dump and 2 cycles of tapes for >the incremental. I have a total of 25 LTO-2 tapes at my disposal. > >How would I go about labelling the tapes? Is there anything else I need to >look for? As I said, I would use 2 different configurations, a 'daily' and a 'weekly' configuration. (this is exactly what I do, incidently). Set up 'daily' such that it runs Mon-Thu nights, and 'weekly' Fri-Sun. The big problem is going to be your full dumps. Do you really want to run a full dump Fri, Sat, and Sun? Or do you just want to run a single full dump of the data allowing it to run over those 3 days? If the former, then I'd recommend that you allow for incrementals of some file systems to be done on certain nights. The reason is, 3 TB is a lot of time, and if you can't get it all done in one night, then there's no way you'll be able to back it all up on each of 3 nights. For the tape division between the 2 configs, that really depends upon how many tapes a single night takes. LTO2 tapes hold about 400GB (compressed). You mentioned 3TB to back up, so you're talking, for a level 0 of everything, about 8 tapes. You can probably cut that in half for the daily incremental runs, since a level 0 doesn't need to be done of everything every night. You could, perhaps, cut that back to 2 tapes if you have a rather high bumpsize. You'll also probably want to slowly introduce different file systems into the backup strategy at first in order to avoid requiring 8 or more tapes to start with. In other words, say you have 10 file systems which comprise that 3TB. If your disklist contains them all that first night, amanda will want to perform a level 0 of all 10 that first night. Some will fail if you run out of room on the tape since it can't fall back to incremental (since it doesn't have a level 0 to base that incremental on!). Rather, pick 2 or 3 file systems to backup the first night, then add a couple more the second night. Since those backed up the first night now have a level 0 base, amanda can bump those to a level 1, thereby making room for level 0s of the new file systems. Continue this until all of your file systems are in the disk list and have been backed up. Then you can start playing with the bumpsize to tweak when amanda bumps different file systems to new levels in order to save room. So, assuming your able to get your daily incrementals onto 2 tapes per night, times 4 nights, that's 8 tapes per week. You wanted 2 cycles for the incremental runs, that would be 16 tapes. Add a few for good measure (to guard agains sudden expansion, or a bad tape) and you've got 18-20 tapes in your daily config. Since you stated you were limited to 25 tapes, you might want to keep it on the low side, like 17-18 tapes. Additionally, since it's a 17 slot carrier that fits in there, you probably want to occupy 16 slots with tapes, and keep a cleaning tape in the 17th slot. You can reserve slots 0-7 for the daily tapes and 8-16 for the weekly tapes. Now for the 'full dump' configuration. If you've allocated 18 tapes for the incrementals, that only leaves you with 7 tapes for the full dump configuration, which is pretty tight. There's almost no way you'll fit 3TB onto 7 tapes at 400GB each. Especially if that 300TB number is only going to grow. And you certainly won't be able to run with 3 sets of full backups that way. If you really need to do full backups Fri-Sun of all file systems, I'd invest in more tapes. However, another alternative is to run a weekend configuration which allows for incrementals. Essentially, this is just like the daily incremental configuration. At 2 tapes per day, times 3 days, that's 6 tapes. You've got 7, which will handle either a bad tape, or a sudden increase in data set size. Of course, this doesn't allow for maintaing 3 *sets* of weekend tapes, so you'll still need more tapes (I'd say at least 14; ( (2 tapes * 3 days) + 1 extra) * 2 weeks ) Well, that's a start anyway, and should give you something to think about. I hope it's helpful. Feel free to ask more questions
Re: advice please!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >I recently acquired a Overland Powerloader with 17 slots and 1 LTO-2 > >drive. > > Ahh, nice set up, that's what I have and really like it. Mine has a > barcode reader in it too, though I've not spent the time to configure > that yet (it's on the "todo" list when I find some more 'round tuits' :) I have a similar Overland library with barcode reader, and I got mine to work. Some notes on preparing barcodes for my library are on the amanda FAQ-O-Matic; if you can't find them, feel free to mail me in private if you're interested. (Comes down essentially to installing GNU barcode, and then fiddling with the layout parameters.) Alex -- Alexander Jolk / BUF Compagnie tel +33-1 42 68 18 28 / fax +33-1 42 68 18 29
flushin the holding disk along with a backup?
Hi all, Is there anyway to flush backups on the holding disk prior to dumping new backups? I have a bunch of stuff sitting on a holding disk which will likely fit fine on the same tape as tonights backups. However, even if something it causes tonight's backups to be placed on the holding disk, I'd rather get the older stuff onto tape and deal with the new stuff later. Is there a variable somewhere which can tell amanda to look for data on the holding disk and prioritize writing that to tape before writing other newer stuff? Thanks, -- Seeya, Paul GPG Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
Re: flushin the holding disk along with a backup?
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 at 12:47pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote > Is there anyway to flush backups on the holding disk prior to dumping > new backups? I have a bunch of stuff sitting on a holding disk which > will likely fit fine on the same tape as tonights backups. However, > even if something it causes tonight's backups to be placed on the > holding disk, I'd rather get the older stuff onto tape and deal with > the new stuff later. > > Is there a variable somewhere which can tell amanda to look for data > on the holding disk and prioritize writing that to tape before > writing other newer stuff? autoflush yes -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Re: flushin the holding disk along with a backup?
In a message dated: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:55:28 EDT Joshua Baker-LePain said: >autoflush yes G! I hate it when I RTFM, but my v-grep fails me :) Thanks. -- Seeya, Paul GPG Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
Re: HPUX client index database format problem
Eric and Andreas, Thanks for your help with this. Indeed my HPUX clients were running GNU tar version 1.13; after upgrading them to 1.13.94 things are working fine. - Tim Metz > Eric Siegerman wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 04:06:36PM -0700, Tim Metz wrote: > > > >>Somewhere in the process extraneous (dumpdates(?)) are > >>being included in the index files generated by HPUX clients. > > > > > > One (or the only?) source of these is using a bad version of GNU > > tar. 1.13 has this problem; 1.13.19 and later versions don't. > > 1.13.25 has been the recommended gtar version for quite some time > > (available from ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.13.25.tar.gz). > > > > Version 1.14 has been out for a few months. I don't know how > > widely it's been tested with Amanda (I haven't tried it yet > > myself), but there's at least one report that it works too: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amanda-users/message/51267. > > (That's not a given, by the way; people reported problems using > > some of the betas (1.13.9x) with Amanda.) > > I use the new 1.14 and it works for me on Linux. Both backup and > restore tested. The earlier tar betas had problems but that change > was reversed (had to do with the "./" that files begin with in > current gnutar versions). > > /Andreas Sundstrom >
enabling hardware compression ?
Hello, I'm using amanda with IBM 3581 tapechanger, my tapetypes.conf is : # IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 tape Charger define tapetype IBM-LTO3581 { comment "IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 (Hardware Compression off)" length 100608 mbytes filemark 0 kbytes speed 13120 kps } I'm gonna use dump instead of tar so I want to enable hardware compression, but I can'y find any in the amanda doc ? Some Hints ?? Thanks -- Frederic Medery System Administrator LexUM, University of Montreal
Re: enabling hardware compression ?
Fred, Fact The options are not exclusive. You can SW compress on the client or on the server or in the HW having nothing to do with the choice of dump v tar. Opinion HW compression is great if you are trying to save CPU on the client or server, but doesn't allow you to estimate tape usage as well since amanda doesn't learn from the drive what the compression ratios are for the file systems you are dumping. er, I should say the DLE - disk list entries, since tar allows you to put to tape (or disk file) things other than "partitions". YMMV On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 02:52:29PM -0400, Frederic Medery wrote: > Hello, I'm using amanda with IBM 3581 tapechanger, > my tapetypes.conf is : > > # IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 tape Charger > define tapetype IBM-LTO3581 { > comment "IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 (Hardware Compression off)" > length 100608 mbytes > filemark 0 kbytes > speed 13120 kps > } > > > I'm gonna use dump instead of tar so I want to enable hardware > compression, but I can'y find any in the amanda doc ? > > Some Hints ?? > > Thanks > > -- > Frederic Medery > System Administrator > > LexUM, University of Montreal > --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
Re: enabling hardware compression ?
Fred, I've hit a limit on at least on one of my amanda servers (yes, multiple, 14ish, I lose track). I've found that the spool space is not being filled on my server because the clients can't send the data any faster than they are. Why that is in my case is probably different than yours and I've found that "amplot" is an excellent tool to help determine where the bottleneck might be. [Its only fair that I tell you about it since I was fortunately enough to be told by others on the list] You might even find its worthwhile to compress some partitions on clients and some on the server, depending on where your free CPU time is and where/if you have any network bottlenecks. Each DLE can be individually selected for client/server/no compression, though HW compression is an all or nothing deal. Warning - never double compress a DLE ! As far as moving amanda to a high end system, all amanda does, (which I say as a bit of a joke) is to manage the levels and issue remote commands, handle the spool area and drive the tape. All of the "dump/tar/compression" is typically handled by the client systems. The driver end of amanda on the server is not CPU intensive unless you perform server-side SW-compression. On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 03:12:52PM -0400, Frederic Medery wrote: > Thanks, > in fact what I want is to speed up my backup so i moved my tape charger > to the biggest server, now I have a /amanda with 160 GB of free space. I > thought that HW compression would also speed up my backup. > > thanks again > > Frederic Medery > System Administrator > > LexUM, University of Montreal > > > > Brian Cuttler wrote: > > >Fred, > > > >Fact > >The options are not exclusive. You can SW compress on the client > >or on the server or in the HW having nothing to do with the choice > >of dump v tar. > > > >Opinion > >HW compression is great if you are trying to save CPU on the client > >or server, but doesn't allow you to estimate tape usage as well since > >amanda doesn't learn from the drive what the compression ratios are > >for the file systems you are dumping. > > > >er, I should say the DLE - disk list entries, since tar allows you > >to put to tape (or disk file) things other than "partitions". > > > > YMMV > > > >On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 02:52:29PM -0400, Frederic Medery wrote: > > > > > >>Hello, I'm using amanda with IBM 3581 tapechanger, > >>my tapetypes.conf is : > >> > >># IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 tape Charger > >>define tapetype IBM-LTO3581 { > >>comment "IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 (Hardware Compression off)" > >>length 100608 mbytes > >>filemark 0 kbytes > >>speed 13120 kps > >>} > >> > >> > >>I'm gonna use dump instead of tar so I want to enable hardware > >>compression, but I can'y find any in the amanda doc ? > >> > >>Some Hints ?? > >> > >>Thanks > >> > >>-- > >>Frederic Medery > >>System Administrator > >> > >>LexUM, University of Montreal > >> > >> > >> > >--- > > Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 > > Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 > > NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773 > > > > > > --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773
Re: enabling hardware compression ?
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 at 3:33pm, Brian Cuttler wrote > You might even find its worthwhile to compress some partitions on > clients and some on the server, depending on where your free CPU > time is and where/if you have any network bottlenecks. Each DLE > can be individually selected for client/server/no compression, > though HW compression is an all or nothing deal. > > Warning - never double compress a DLE ! Keep in the mind that the OP is using an Ultrium Drive. Those are actually smart enough to *not* hardware compress incompressible data. So, with those drives, you can actuall mix hardware and software compression, something that is a strict no-no with any other tape hardware. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Re: enabling hardware compression ?
Frederic, This is _generic_ information that may or may not apply to your particular tape drive. - Turning on/off hardware compression is specific to your tape drive, not the changer. - Look in the manual for a dip switch that may turn on/off the compression. - There's another dip switch that allows for software control of hardware compression regardless of the position of the dip switch described above. - If the second dip switch is set to enable software control, you'll be able to control the compression using the 'mt' command. - Find the device file name of the tape drive (not the changer), e.g. /dev/nst0 - To turn on hardware compression: mt -f /dev/nst0 compress 1 - To turn off hardware compression: mt -f /dev/nst0 compress 0 - The effect of your command lasts until the tape is ejected. - If you plan on using compressionr a lot, you should set the default behavior using the first dip switch described above. - This is not Amanda-specific information, but might be appropriate for inclusion in the amanda document. (Hint, hint.) :) Hope that answers the question. Ivan Frederic Medery a e'crit: > Hello, I'm using amanda with IBM 3581 tapechanger, > my tapetypes.conf is : > > # IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 tape Charger > define tapetype IBM-LTO3581 { > comment "IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 (Hardware Compression off)" > length 100608 mbytes > filemark 0 kbytes > speed 13120 kps > } > > > I'm gonna use dump instead of tar so I want to enable hardware > compression, but I can'y find any in the amanda doc ? > > Some Hints ?? > > Thanks > > -- > Frederic Medery > System Administrator > > LexUM, University of Montreal
Re: AMANDA Documentation at www.oops.co.at
Hi, Paul, on Montag, 23. August 2004 at 15:58 you wrote to amanda-users: >> On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, "Stefan" == Stefan G. Weichinger wrote: papc> Stefan> about one month has gone now, since I put a pre-release papc> Stefan> of "The Official AMANDA Documentation" online at papc> Stefan> http://www.oops.co.at/AMANDA-docs/index.html papc> Very nice! Thanks a lot ... papc> I must have been on vacation when you first put this up. papc> Is there away I can get the raw docbook source (I'd like to print out papc> a PDF so I can read this during my commute on the train :) papc> If so, I'll gladly provide assitance with edits/corrections, etc. I would prefer to just put the current pdf online, as I want to put the xml-stuff online in early september. I want to avoid the side-effects of distributing stuff per email ... I am very busy with other things these days, but I hope to get back to the AMANDA-docs in september. Just get the file at: http://www.oops.co.at/AMANDA-docs/index.html And note: this is still heavily ALPHA-stuff. Notes/corrections/additions welcome. btw, the AMANDA-manpages will be added soon ... -- best regards, Stefan.
Re: AMANDA Documentation at www.oops.co.at
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 > btw, the AMANDA-manpages will be added soon ... Me or you? It will only take a hour if you provide your CSS or I can use mine? - -- Kind Regards, Gavin Henry. Managing Director. T +44 (0) 1467 624141 M +44 (0) 7930 323266 F +44 (0) 1224 742001 E [EMAIL PROTECTED] Open Source. Open Solutions. http://www.suretecsystems.com/ -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFBKm8neWseh9tzvqgRAsgFAJ0XjKws2yFVwDmtBfIDgHJNFyInJQCfUO/q HiiLE++s2R/Q2qu+VJOmtjE= =MpQs -END PGP SIGNATURE-
RE: Another 'Amanda through firewall' problem
Kevin: Sorry about responding late to this post, I have been away from the mailing list for a while, so this may be a stale issue. Be sure and study the docs/PORT.USAGE file in the Amanda distribution for a detailed explanation of how to set up your ports. There appears to be confusion about the use of port ranges through the firewall. Amanda needs three sets of ports opened in a firewall: UDP/10080, TCP/10082, TCP/10083 -> the well-known services that connect clients to Amanda services the UDP port Range -> a set of ports for Amanda to exchange information between the clients and the server the TCP port Range -> a set of ports to pass the backup data streams between the Amanda clients and servers During a session, the Amanda server connects to the Amanda UDP port on the client to perform an operation, the request originates from one of the UDP ports in the UDPPORTRANGE. Amanda uses this connection to send commands to the remote client and receive reports of results on the client. To perform a backup, Amanda sends the client a set of three ports in the TCPPORTRANGE that will be used for standard input, output, and error streams. Amanda uses the three ports to send/receive information with the client. The range of addresses needs to be large enough to conduct as many remote sessions as needed by the configuration going through the firewall. For my firewall, I have the following ports open: To each client: UDP 10080 - Amanda control port TCP 10082 - Amanda index service TCP 10083 - Amanda tape service UDP 880-899 - for bi-directional status data flows TCP 5-50040 - for bi-directional backup stream flows From clients to the server: UDP 10080 - Amanda control port TCP 10082 - Amanda index service TCP 10083 - Amanda tape service UDP 880-899 - for bi-directional status data flows Return connections for each established outbound connection Since I don't control the firewall, I have to depend on rule and port listings from the Firewall group. Good communication of the contents of the docs/PORT.USAGE file from the Amanda distribution file tree is essential for the Firewall Team to be able to setup the firewall to correctly pass the Amanda data streams. Best of luck with Amanda and hopefully this will get your moving, Donald L. (Don) Ritchey Information Technology Exelon Corporation -Original Message- From: KEVIN ZEMBOWER [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 3:40 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Another 'Amanda through firewall' problem Two years ago, I wrote here about problems getting Amanda to work through a firewall using NAT which couldn't be turned-off. I finally gave up in frustration, despite the helpful advice of the folks here, and set up two separate backup systems, one inside and outside the firewall. Adding to my frustration is the fact that I don't administer the firewall, and can't verify directly that what I requested was implemented. Now, I'm trying again to back up all my host with just one Amanda system. My tapehost 'centernet' is trying to back up hosts 'admin' and 'mailinglists' in addition to itself, inside the firewall, and hosts 'www' and 'real' outside the firewall. I've read and tried to follow the advice given to others in this situation. I changed the file common-src/security.c to comment out the section where the port number is checked. I also used the script, first given here, pasted in at the end of this note, to configure Amanda on both the server and the clients. I have the new Amanda system (tapehost inside the firewall) working on all the other hosts inside the firewall, but it times out with the hosts outside the firewall. When I amcheck it, I don't get anything written in either the working or non-working clients, in either /tmp/Amanda or /tmp/Amanda-dbg. Can anyone suggest any diagnostic tools or methods that I can use to verify that the firewall is set up the way I requested? I've tried to use 'netcat' in the past to verify proper transmission through a firewall, but don't understand how I could use it in this case, as I don't know what port the firewall will NAT the request to. I'm not getting any diagnostic messages in any of the logs I've looked at, on either the host or clients. Any suggestions? Thanks for all your help and advice. -Kevin Zembower = [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ cat configure_amanda.sh #!/bin/sh # since I'm always forgetting to su amanda... if [ `whoami` != 'amanda' ]; then echo echo " Warning " echo "Amanda needs to be configured and built by the user amanda," echo "but must be installed by user root." echo exit 1 fi echo " Warning " echo "Did you remember to make the changes in common_src/security.c" echo "to di
Re: AMANDA Documentation at www.oops.co.at
Hi, Gavin Henry, on Dienstag, 24. August 2004 at 00:26 you wrote to amanda-users: GH> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- GH> Hash: SHA1 >> btw, the AMANDA-manpages will be added soon ... GH> Me or you? GH> It will only take a hour if you provide your CSS or I can use mine? Didn't understand at first, now I do: Have a look at the manpages at http://www.oops.co.at/AMANDA-docs/index.html As always, corrections are welcome (and necessary). Thanks, Stefan Stefan G. Weichinger mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Compression Ratio" misprinting on labels
Hi, Anyone else seeing the "Compression Ratio" as printed on paper (postscript) labels being wildly inaccurate under 2.4.4p2? An example, transcribed from last night's dump: Total Size: 19547.7 MB Tape Used (%) 63.1 % Compression Ratio: 254.9 % however, the emailed report got it right: Output Size (meg) 19547.716125.2 3422.4 Original Size (meg) 25040.518786.2 6254.3 Avg Compressed Size (%)77.6 85.8 50.9 (level:#disks ...) [...] Tape Used (%) 63.1 52.0 11.0 (level:#disks ...) This seems to have started occurring sometime since 2.4.4 (not sure now whether 2.4.4p1 behaved, but I know 2.4.4 was good.) Anyone? -- Phil Homewood, Systems Janitor, http://www.SnapGear.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph: +61 7 3435 2810 Fx: +61 7 3891 3630 SnapGear - A CyberGuard Company
Re: enabling hardware compression ?
Thanks, in fact what I want is to speed up my backup so i moved my tape charger to the biggest server, now I have a /amanda with 160 GB of free space. I thought that HW compression would also speed up my backup. thanks again Frederic Medery System Administrator LexUM, University of Montreal Brian Cuttler wrote: Fred, Fact The options are not exclusive. You can SW compress on the client or on the server or in the HW having nothing to do with the choice of dump v tar. Opinion HW compression is great if you are trying to save CPU on the client or server, but doesn't allow you to estimate tape usage as well since amanda doesn't learn from the drive what the compression ratios are for the file systems you are dumping. er, I should say the DLE - disk list entries, since tar allows you to put to tape (or disk file) things other than "partitions". YMMV On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 02:52:29PM -0400, Frederic Medery wrote: Hello, I'm using amanda with IBM 3581 tapechanger, my tapetypes.conf is : # IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 tape Charger define tapetype IBM-LTO3581 { comment "IBM LTO Ultrium 3581 (Hardware Compression off)" length 100608 mbytes filemark 0 kbytes speed 13120 kps } I'm gonna use dump instead of tar so I want to enable hardware compression, but I can'y find any in the amanda doc ? Some Hints ?? Thanks -- Frederic Medery System Administrator LexUM, University of Montreal --- Brian R Cuttler [EMAIL PROTECTED] Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773