The skinny on indexing
I've been using Amanda for a while, but I'm not terribly clear on the details of indexing. My impression to date is that indexing is required if you which to use amrecover, but is not if you're willing to hand-restore filesystems with a dump or tar image from a tape. Is that mostly accurate? If so, and I'm correct that indexing is off by default (at least in Debian and FreeBSD installations), doesn't that mean that admins can't use 'amrecover' without tweaking? Is there a reason for not having it enabled by default? Why would you *not* want indexing enabled? Why *would* you want indexing enabled? Note: I'll be perfectly happy for an RTFM answer if it also includes a pointer to documentation that concisely answers my questions. :) -- Kirk Strauser
Re: The skinny on indexing
On Wed, 2002-05-22 at 18:57, Kirk Strauser wrote: I've been using Amanda for a while, but I'm not terribly clear on the details of indexing. My impression to date is that indexing is required if you which to use amrecover, but is not if you're willing to hand-restore filesystems with a dump or tar image from a tape. Not 100% correct as I see it. If you're using index, you'll be able to browse through your indexes and select individual files for restore. If you not use indexes you will only be able to restore whole filesystems with amrestore, or use the native tools such as tar or dump, combined with mt. Why would you *not* want indexing enabled? To save diskspace for indexing on filesystems containing your OS or similar (/usr and such). Why *would* you want indexing enabled? To be able to restore individual files with amrecover. Note: I'll be perfectly happy for an RTFM answer if it also includes a pointer to documentation that concisely answers my questions. :) I can recomend John and Alexandres chapter about amanda from Unix Backup Recovery (can be found on http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html). It's an execelent introduction to amanda. Now that I'm at it, the whole book is recommendable. The man-pages is also worth a read. Kind regards, Jens Rohde
Re: The skinny on indexing
At 2002-05-22T20:04:14Z, Jens Rohde [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Not 100% correct as I see it. If you're using index, you'll be able to browse through your indexes and select individual files for restore. If you not use indexes you will only be able to restore whole filesystems with amrestore, or use the native tools such as tar or dump, combined with mt. OK. So you *can* still use amrecover, just not in the FTP-like mode. Why would you *not* want indexing enabled? To save diskspace for indexing on filesystems containing your OS or similar (/usr and such). I hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Unless, of course, you routinely manage to delete 1 or 2 files from /usr/bin, in which case indexing would still be handy. Why *would* you want indexing enabled? To be able to restore individual files with amrecover. I can recomend John and Alexandres chapter about amanda from Unix Backup Recovery (can be found on http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html). It's an execelent introduction to amanda. Now that I'm at it, the whole book is recommendable. The man-pages is also worth a read. Actually, I have the book and have perused the man pages. I just hadn't seen an explanation of indexing that adequately explained why you would use it or not. -- Kirk Strauser
Re: The skinny on indexing
On 22 May 2002 at 3:26pm, Kirk Strauser wrote Not 100% correct as I see it. If you're using index, you'll be able to browse through your indexes and select individual files for restore. If you not use indexes you will only be able to restore whole filesystems with amrestore, or use the native tools such as tar or dump, combined with mt. OK. So you *can* still use amrecover, just not in the FTP-like mode. No. amrecover depends upon the existence of the indexes. You can use amrestore with or without indexing, but not amrecover. I hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Unless, of course, you routinely manage to delete 1 or 2 files from /usr/bin, in which case indexing would still be handy. My nightly amanda setup has 74 disklist entries of varying sizes, a dumpcycle of 1 week, runspercycle of 5, and (here's the kicker) a tapecycle of 60. So I've got 12 weeks of daily history. My indexdir is 135 MB. With disk space as cheap as it is these days, I really can't see any reason to run without indexing enabled. -- Joshua Baker-LePain Department of Biomedical Engineering Duke University
Re: The skinny on indexing
On Wed, 2002-05-22 at 22:26, Kirk Strauser wrote: OK. So you *can* still use amrecover, just not in the FTP-like mode. No it's actually amrestore. amrecover is using amrestore to manage the restore after selection of files. Kind regards, Jens Rohde
Re: The skinny on indexing
At 2002-05-22T20:56:32Z, Jens Rohde [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: No it's actually amrestore. amrecover is using amrestore to manage the restore after selection of files. Thanks for the clarification. I think I read that a little too quickly. :) -- Kirk Strauser
Re: The skinny on indexing
At 2002-05-22T20:39:25Z, Joshua Baker-LePain [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My nightly amanda setup has 74 disklist entries of varying sizes, a dumpcycle of 1 week, runspercycle of 5, and (here's the kicker) a tapecycle of 60. So I've got 12 weeks of daily history. My indexdir is 135 MB. With disk space as cheap as it is these days, I really can't see any reason to run without indexing enabled. I just du'ed my index directory and realized that I'm spending 32MB on indexes. I think I can live with that. -- Kirk Strauser
