Re: New error from amcheck
On Sunday 07 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: >On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 8:53 AM, Gene Heskett wrote: >> I also grabbed the 3.2alpha, anything I need to change to use it? > >Right now 3.2alpha and 3.1 are basically the same. > >At this point your testing would be more helpful on 3.1. It's already >been helpful, in fact! > >Dustin > I was referring to diffs between the 2.6.2alpha I've been using more or less normally, and the 3.2alpha. Curious, I fired up my newmanda script with that as an argument, and it runs amcheck at the end: Amanda Tape Server Host Check - ERROR:lbl-templ set but no LPRCMD defined. You should reconfigure amanda and make sure it finds a lpr or lp command. Holding disk /dumps: 85819392 kB disk space available, using 85307392 kB slot 21: volume 'Dailys-21' is still active and cannot be overwritten slot 22: volume 'Dailys-22' Will write to volume 'Dailys-22' in slot 22. NOTE: skipping tape-writable test Server check took 1.635 seconds Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check Client check: 2 hosts checked in 6.472 seconds. 0 problems found. (brought to you by Amanda 3.2alpha) Looks copacetic to me. ;-) -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Simon: "She's just a kid. She just... wants to be a kid." --Episode #14, "Objects in Space"
[Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
Gene Heskett wrote: > On Saturday 06 March 2010, Jon LaBadie wrote: > > > Because the scsi buss is a transmission line, and demands a decent VSWR, > there are 2 things to remember when dealing with scsi. > > 1.A list of pre-requisites that must be met if it is to work: > > 1.a: termination power, it has to come from someplace, preferably the host > controller. > > 1.b: terminations can only be at the ends of the cable, one and exactly one > on each end. Leaving a 6" pigtail hanging out because you removed the drive > on the end of the cable, and which co-incidentally also was the terminating > device is a more common mistake than one would think. > > 1.c: when supplying scsi term power, there needs to be an isolation diode > between the supply and the term power line in the cable, pointed so that the > voltage can get to the cable ok, but cannot be fed back into an accessory > device after it has powered the terminators on that device. > > 1.d: Because this diode has a voltage drop, and the original idiots (yes, > that _is_ the right terminology) chose the resistor values based on std > values AND a 5 volt supply, so a common silicon diode virtually cannot be > used if the scsi bus is to be error free. The .65 to .7 volts of drop in an > Si diode reduces the logic one voltages noise margin by about 2/3rds. from > the target of 3.0 volts, but usually about 2.85 due to the resistors chosen, > throw in the .7 loss of the diode divided by the resistor ratio's (330 to > ground, 220 to the 5 volt line, and your logic 1 noise margin is whats left > after you subtract the 2.4 volts of a guaranteed logic 1. At 2.7 volts it > might work if the resistor tolerance are spot on. At 2.55 volts, you have > only a 150 millivolt noise margin and you may as well hold a seance, its > dead, Jim. Therefore this diode must be either a power germanium or a > schotkey rated for the current in order to get a decently low forward voltage > drop. Otherwise find a 6 volt supply for termination power. TBT, when the > psu voltage in the host machine is starting to sag in its old age, and is > already 200 millivolts low, I've been known to go get a 6 volt dc wall wart > from the shack and use that. It Just Works(TM). FWIW, I have yet to see a > Ge or Schotkey diode used on any of the major scsi vendors cards, so don't > assume that just because it says Adaptec on it, it can't be wrong. And it is > precisely those cards I've had to wall wart power several times. > > If you've done all that & it still doesn't work, have a tech with a 100+ mhz > scope look at it to see why the signal echos (aka VSWR) are so bad. Maybe > you've got one bad resistor in the termination packs, so check all active > lines, 21 of them in a 50 wire scsi-II cable IIRC. Make sure he understands > exactly what the term 'VSWR' means, a great many don't, somehow thinking it > only applies to continuous wave radio/tv transmitters. VSWR is VSWR whether > its digital, or CW, its still VSWR. > > 2: Alternatively, you can advertise for a virgin to be sacrificed. It won't > help of course. And its a terrible waste considering how hard it is to find > one these days. > > -- > Cheers, Gene > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > > Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth? > -- Patrick Sky Well, thanks for the long explanation. I doubt i will be able to test the setup as much as you have described but it's useful information. I've tried a couple of different cables, unplugged and plugged back in, all that jazz. These are the cables i've used previously without any trouble. I'm more inclined then to think it is the drive. but who knows.. +-- |This was sent by r...@mrxfx.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: [Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
On Monday 08 March 2010, rory_f wrote: >Gene Heskett wrote: [huge snip] >Well, thanks for the long explanation. I doubt i will be able to test the > setup as much as you have described but it's useful information. I've > tried a couple of different cables, unplugged and plugged back in, all > that jazz. These are the cables i've used previously without any trouble. > >I'm more inclined then to think it is the drive. but who knows.. In your case, two things. Is it the last drive on the cable?, and is it terminated properly? And I would certainly check the 5 volt line of the host computer to see if its sagging in its old age. 4.85 volts won't cause the host to reset itself, but it does put the noise margin of a scsi buss in danger. You need every millivolt you can get there. >+-- > >|This was sent by r...@mrxfx.com via Backup Central. >|Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. > >+-- > -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Accept people for what they are -- completely unacceptable.
Re: [Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
On Monday 08 March 2010, Charles Curley wrote: >On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:16:09 -0500 > >Gene Heskett wrote: >> Refresher course 101 on scsi here folks, bear with me. > >Very nice write-up, Gene. Thanks. > >This is a good candidate for the Wiki. > Be my guest if you have write privileges. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) How should I know if it works? That's what beta testers are for. I only coded it. -- Attributed to Linus Torvalds, somewhere in a posting
[Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
[quote="Gene Heskett"]On Monday 08 March 2010, rory_f wrote: > Gene Heskett wrote: > > In your case, two things. Is it the last drive on the cable?, and is it > terminated properly? And I would certainly check the 5 volt line of the host > computer to see if its sagging in its old age. 4.85 volts won't cause the > host to reset itself, but it does put the noise margin of a scsi buss in > danger. You need every millivolt you can get there. > > It is setup as such: Overland tape library, drive inside it. Drive connects to library via one cable, then another cable connects to scsi card in linux machine - It has been setup like this for a couple of years now. It could very well be the cable degrading, or the card in the linux machine. That is something I am yet to check. Our other drive is being replaced today (For a NEW ibm lto 3 drive) so hopefully i can test that one - if i get th same issues ,we can say it is something else other than the drives. I'll let you all know what i find. Thanks. +-- |This was sent by r...@mrxfx.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: [Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Gene Heskett wrote: > Be my guest if you have write privileges. It's a wiki - everyone has write privileges (including, to my dismay, spammers .. but I try to keep up with them). Please do add this to the wiki! Dustin -- Open Source Storage Engineer http://www.zmanda.com
compile issue on solaris X/x86_64
Hello list! I'm struggling to compile 2.6.1 (or 2.6.1p2 - same error) on Solaris 10 x86_64 with gcc packages from sunfreeware. I've gone through a few iterations, and have also followed the instructions for PKG_CONFIG at OS specific notes here in the FAQ. When I run configure without pointing PKG_CONFIG at /usr/bin/pkg-config, I get a failure: checking for GLIB - version >= 2.2.0... no *** Could not run GLIB test program, checking why... *** The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the *** exact error that occured. This usually means GLIB is incorrectly installed. configure: error: glib not found or too old; See http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/Installation for help Pointing the PKG_CONFIG var at the proper location lets configure pass, but I then get: gcc -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I../config -D_REENTRANT -fno-strict-aliasing -D_GNU_SOURCE -I/usr/local/include -mt -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -Wno-error -Wno-sign-compare -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include/glib-2.0 -fno-strict-aliasing -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -MT base64.lo -MD -MP -MF .deps/base64.Tpo -c base64.c -fPIC -DPIC -o .libs/base64.o cc1: error: invalid option `t' make[3]: *** [base64.lo] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/amanda-2.6.1/gnulib' make[2]: *** [all] Error 2 make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/amanda-2.6.1/gnulib' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/local/src/amanda-2.6.1' make: *** [all] Error 2 I'm at a loss on how to get amanda compiled from here. Other notes I can share: gcc 3.4.6 glib 2.20.4 Any pointers are greatly appreciated. Thanks! _ -- Matthew Boeckman Manager - Unix Admin & Networking ServiceMagic 303 963 7889
Re: compile issue on solaris X/x86_64
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Matthew Boeckman wrote: > Any pointers are greatly appreciated. Thanks! Ah, Solaris. The problem is that pkg-config gives the compiler flags with which glib (and in particular gthread) was compiled, and with which you'll need to compile Amanda as well. The problem is, those flags were for the Sun Studio (Oracle Studio?) compiler. So you'll need to either use that compiler (which works fine, although it emits a lot of spurious warnings) or tweak the pkg-config glib-2.0.pc file to give the proper threads flag for gcc. I believe that's -pthreads, but don't quote me on it.. Dustin -- Open Source Storage Engineer http://www.zmanda.com
Re: device_property setting in amanda.conf
Dustin, Updated amanda.conf with device_property "BLOCK_SIZE" "2 mbytes" Tried to relabel a labeled but never used tape, priviously Curie46, labeled with the default device_property (default as in I hadn't specified anything). I have to overwrite the tape header, there is a level below the amanda label I have to get to ? Device is an LTO4 imbedded in an SL24 library fiber connected to a x4500 Solaris 10x86 box. > amlabel -f curie Curie47 slot 23 labeling tape in slot 23 (/dev/rmt/0n): Reading label... Found an empty tape. Writing label Curie47.. amlabel: Error writing label: Error writing tapestart header: I/O error. thank you, Brian On Fri, Mar 05, 2010 at 05:54:40PM -0600, Dustin Mitchell wrote: > On Mar 5, 2010, at 12:25 PM, Brian Cuttler wrote: > > >Is the advice not valid for our config ? > >Do we need to re-label tapes if we set this parameter ? > > The advice is valid, but yes you will need to relabel the tapes. > > Dustin --- Brian R Cuttler brian.cutt...@wadsworth.org Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773 IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential or sensitive information which is, or may be, legally privileged or otherwise protected by law from further disclosure. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, please do not distribute, copy or use it or any attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.
Re: device_property setting in amanda.conf
Dustin, Ivan at my site nailed it. Mar 8 12:59:37 curie scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /p...@3,0/pci1022,7...@9/pci1000,1...@1/f...@0,0/t...@w500110a0008b3fda,0 (st0): Mar 8 12:59:37 curie Cannot alloc contig buf for I/O for 2097152 blk size setting the block_size to 1 meg took. device_property "BLOCK_SIZE" "1 mbytes" Waiting on amcheck to complete, then we will allow a test run this evening to see if we have any better I/O to the tape. On Mon, Mar 08, 2010 at 12:47:43PM -0600, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Brian Cuttler wrote: > > I have to overwrite the tape header, there is a level below > > the amanda label I have to get to ? > > I don't actually know the answer to that one. You may need to degauss the > tape? > > Dustin > > -- > Open Source Storage Engineer > http://www.zmanda.com --- Brian R Cuttler brian.cutt...@wadsworth.org Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773 IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential or sensitive information which is, or may be, legally privileged or otherwise protected by law from further disclosure. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, please do not distribute, copy or use it or any attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.
built 2.6.1p2 on Solaris 10 x86
Amanda users, We do a couple of weird things here, restricting ports as a matter of course because sometimes we install on firewalls and I don't want to rebuild special for them. Besides, its not a bad idea in general to be mildly security minded. In this case we have clients where the /usr/local is NFS mounted and altering the ./configure --prefix option was the simpler solution, also avoiding NFS root write to permitting suid across NFS. We had a not so working 2.6.1p1 but as long as we where rebuilding we went with 2.6.1p2. The not working was related to NFS (meantioned above). The server for this system is also our first application of VTapes within amanda. You will also see a couple of very simple SMF related commands (that took me a while to work out). I offer the following as 'works for me' take from it what you will. # mkdir /tmp/am-inst Get the new amanda tar ball, unpack it into the /tmp/am-inst directory. # cd amanda-2.6.1p2 [curie]: /tmp/am-inst/amanda-2.6.1p2 > printenv PATH /opt/SUNWspro/bin:/opt/sfw/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin [curie]: /tmp/am-inst/amanda-2.6.1p2 > printenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH /usr/lib:/usr/include:/opt/SUNWspro/lib:/opt/sfw/lib:/usr/sfw/lib:/usr/local/lib [curie]: /tmp/am-inst/amanda-2.6.1p2 > ./configure LDFLAGS="-L/usr/sfw/lib -L/opt/sfw/lib -L/usr/local/lib/amanda -R/usr/sfw/lib -R/opt/sfw/lib -R/usr/local/lib/amanda" --with-user=amanda --with-group=sys --with-udpportrange=932,948 --with-tcpportrange=10084,10100 --with-gnutar=/usr/sfw/bin/gtar CPFLAGS="-I/usr/sfw/include -I/opt/swf/include" CLFAGS="/usr/sfw/include -I/opt/sfw/include -I/usr/local/include" --prefix=/opt/amanda # make build a tarball we can drag to the target system. [curie]: /tmp/am-inst/amanda-2.6.1p2 > tar -cf ~/amanda261p2x86.tar . [bioqq6]: /tmp/am-inst/amanda-2.6.1p2 > tar -xf ~/amanda261p2x86.tar As root, # make install Update /etc/inetd.conf #amanda dgram udp wait amanda /usr/local/libexec/amanda/amandad amandad amanda dgram udp wait amanda /opt/amanda/libexec/amanda/amandad amandad Cleanup the SMF manifest and the registry. # svcadm disable amanda/udp # rm /var/svc/manifest/network/amanda-udp.xml # svccfg svc:> list network/aman* network/amanda/udp svc:> delete network/amanda/udp svc:> exit Create the new manifest and add to SMF. # inetconv amanda -> /var/svc/manifest/network/amanda-udp.xml Importing amanda-udp.xml ...Done Test from the server, note, we haven't updated the server. flower (amanda) amdump -c flower bioqq6 Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check ERROR: bioqq6: [/opt/amanda/var/amanda/gnutar-lists: No such file or directory] Client check: 1 host checked in 2.795 seconds. 1 problem found. (brought to you by Amanda 2.6.1p1) Fix the obvious problems... # mkdir -p /opt/amanda/var/amanda/gnutar-lists # chown -R amanda:sys /opt/amanda/var retest > amcheck -c flower bioqq6 Amanda Backup Client Hosts Check Client check: 1 host checked in 2.677 seconds. 0 problems found. (brought to you by Amanda 2.6.1p1) Looking good. --- Brian R Cuttler brian.cutt...@wadsworth.org Computer Systems Support(v) 518 486-1697 Wadsworth Center(f) 518 473-6384 NYS Department of HealthHelp Desk 518 473-0773 IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail and any attachments may contain confidential or sensitive information which is, or may be, legally privileged or otherwise protected by law from further disclosure. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, please do not distribute, copy or use it or any attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete this from your system. Thank you for your cooperation.
Re: built 2.6.1p2 on Solaris 10 x86
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 3:11 PM, Brian Cuttler wrote: > I offer the following as 'works for me' take from it what you will. Sounds like something that's worth putting on the wiki. Perhaps you can make a sub-page, linked from the Solaris installation page (which is already quite long). The wiki is down as I write this, but Mike's working on it, so with luck it will be up again in an hour or so. Dustin -- Open Source Storage Engineer http://www.zmanda.com
Re: [Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
On Monday 08 March 2010, rory_f wrote: >[quote="Gene Heskett"]On Monday 08 March 2010, rory_f wrote: >> Gene Heskett wrote: >> >> In your case, two things. Is it the last drive on the cable?, and is it >> terminated properly? And I would certainly check the 5 volt line of the >> host computer to see if its sagging in its old age. 4.85 volts won't >> cause the host to reset itself, but it does put the noise margin of a >> scsi buss in danger. You need every millivolt you can get there. > >It is setup as such: > >Overland tape library, drive inside it. Drive connects to library via one > cable, then another cable connects to scsi card in linux machine - It has > been setup like this for a couple of years now. > >It could very well be the cable degrading, or the card in the linux > machine. That is something I am yet to check. Our other drive is being > replaced today (For a NEW ibm lto 3 drive) so hopefully i can test that > one - if i get th same issues ,we can say it is something else other than > the drives. > >I'll let you all know what i find. > >Thanks. > Please do. It could be something I missed, or it could be a brand new phenomenon to file away in my trivia file. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it too. -- Ayn Rand
Re: [Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
On Monday 08 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: >On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Gene Heskett wrote: >> Be my guest if you have write privileges. > >It's a wiki - everyone has write privileges (including, to my dismay, >spammers .. but I try to keep up with them). > >Please do add this to the wiki! > >Dustin > I would Dustin, but 2 questions: Where do I put in, or can I make a new category? And 2, I don't see any edit buttons anyplace, security by obscurity I believe they call that. So that seems to be a show stopper. :( -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Feanor: u have no idea of the depth of the stupidty of american law
[Amanda-users] Amtapetype not returning right tape length?
Gene Heskett wrote: > On Monday 08 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: > > > On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:55 AM, Gene Heskett > > verizon.net> > > > wrote: > > > > > > Be my guest if you have write privileges. > > > > > > > It's a wiki - everyone has write privileges (including, to my dismay, > > spammers .. but I try to keep up with them). > > > > Please do add this to the wiki! > > > > Dustin > > > > > I would Dustin, but 2 questions: Where do I put in, or can I make a new > category? > > And 2, I don't see any edit buttons anyplace, security by obscurity I believe > they call that. So that seems to be a show stopper. :( > > -- > Cheers, Gene > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > > Feanor: u have no idea of the depth of the stupidty of american law I started an amtapetype earlier on the new drive, and it's still running now. Writing 1024 Mbyte uncompresseable data: 31 sec Estimated time to write 2 * 409600 Mbyte: 24800 sec = 6 h 53 min wrote 12845056 32 Kb blocks in 98 files in 11738 seconds (No space left on device) wrote 3473408 32 Kb blocks in 53 files that estimated time write is still high (i think) but the 'no space left on device' is roughly about double the amount of seconds as it was when the tape was only being filled 50%. So i think this is going to produce a proper tapetype, if not a slow one. So it could be a combination of things.. i'll know more tomorrow. +-- |This was sent by r...@mrxfx.com via Backup Central. |Forward SPAM to ab...@backupcentral.com. +--
Re: intermittent amanda failure
On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Steve Wray wrote: > Right, so the LATEST most up-to-date version of Debian uses a 3 year old > version of amanda. Fantastic, thanks Debian for keeping things so 'stable'. To be fair, that's exactly the intent, and maintaining a Linux distribution is *not* easy. All of the binary-only distros are "behind the times" to varying degrees, although Debian is usually bringing up the rear of the bunch. > I downloaded the actual latest stable version of amanda (2.6.1p2 from > November 2009), compiled it and tested it. > > No bug. Yay! > Thanks, Debian package maintainer. Not. > > Backup software is mission critical. Failing to track the upstream to this > extent is simply unforgivable. I'm revising my opinion of Debian. I hear from a *lot* of folks on #amanda in exactly the same situation as you. Please do consider contacting the maintainer, or perhaps other Debian maintainers that might be able to poke the maintainer more effectively. I, as an upstream developer, don't have much impact on distro maintainers - apparently "why don't you ship the latest release?!" is a common refrain from upstreams. Distros aren't democracies, but they do listen to their users, and if enough people are asking "why hasn't Amanda been bumped in 3 years?" then someone with commit access will step up to take care of it. If there are Amanda bugs that are holding back a version bump, please let me know. At the moment, I only see two open bugs, one from 2006 and one from 2008, neither of which is blocking a bump. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=500364 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=370319 Dustin -- Open Source Storage Engineer http://www.zmanda.com
Re: intermittent amanda failure
On Tuesday 09 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: >On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Steve Wray wrote: >> Right, so the LATEST most up-to-date version of Debian uses a 3 year old >> version of amanda. Fantastic, thanks Debian for keeping things so >> 'stable'. > >To be fair, that's exactly the intent, and maintaining a Linux >distribution is *not* easy. All of the binary-only distros are >"behind the times" to varying degrees, although Debian is usually >bringing up the rear of the bunch. > >> I downloaded the actual latest stable version of amanda (2.6.1p2 from >> November 2009), compiled it and tested it. >> >> No bug. > >Yay! > >> Thanks, Debian package maintainer. Not. >> >> Backup software is mission critical. Failing to track the upstream to >> this extent is simply unforgivable. I'm revising my opinion of Debian. > >I hear from a *lot* of folks on #amanda in exactly the same situation as > you. Amanda is not one of the distros favorite applications, having its own security model that has been at odds with the constraints of the packaging systems. Rpm in particular broke it regularly, and I long ago gave up helping the rpm folks who were determined to bend amanda to suit them. The tarball, OTOH, lends itself to the enterprising bash script writer, who can then install and test check the latest version of amanda in about 3, maybe 4 minutes on a fast machine using ccache. In fact I just installed the 20100308 snapshot of amanda-3.2alpha. And I used the same pair of scripts that has been installing amanda for me since about 2.5.1. >Please do consider contacting the maintainer, or perhaps other Debian >maintainers that might be able to poke the maintainer more >effectively. I, as an upstream developer, don't have much impact on >distro maintainers - apparently "why don't you ship the latest >release?!" is a common refrain from upstreams. Distros aren't >democracies, but they do listen to their users, and if enough people >are asking "why hasn't Amanda been bumped in 3 years?" then someone >with commit access will step up to take care of it. or you could build the tarball, which very nicely auto-configures amanda to run optimally on _your_ system. You have to setup a couple of files, maybe 3, and then just let the crontab of the amanda user take over from there. If configured to send the operator an email, you can 'read all about it' the next morning with your first cuppa. Whats not to like? My scripts are available, just ask. They are not 'big' scripts either. >If there are Amanda bugs that are holding back a version bump, please >let me know. At the moment, I only see two open bugs, one from 2006 >and one from 2008, neither of which is blocking a bump. > > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=500364 > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=370319 > >Dustin I'm on your side here Dustin. The distros, debian in particular need prodding. What you use for a prod is up to you. :-) I go back 11+ years with amanda, usually running the bleeding edge as now. Considering that I build the new snapshot and use it nightly several times a week, the number of real bugs has been almost vanishingly small even when its labeled as alpha, not for production use. FWIW, 90% of those were tar's fault, not amanda's. There are several tar versions about, not all of which are even compatible with themselves. Amanda is compatible with itself with one exception, a format change a good 8 or 9 years ago. Folks like Dustin and Jean-Louis write tight, and correct code. I mentally salute them as I toss last nights printout on top of the stack (should, heaven forbid, I need to consult it) every morning. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Visits always give pleasure: if not on arrival, then on the departure. -- Edouard Le Berquier, "Pensees des Autres"