>As far as I understand Amanda can not append to a tape.
I like to say "deliberately does not" instead of "can not", but be that
as it may ...
>Now if I still have no tape to use can amanda run the level 1 scheduled
>for
>for tonight to the holding disk - without fail? Do I need to amflush the
>holding
>disk or will the new dump append to the holding disk?
If you look at your holding disk, you'll notice Amanda creates a
subdirectory to put the images in and that it is made up of a datestamp,
YYYYMMDD. As long as your next run is not done on the same day as the
previous one, it will get a new directory name and be separate from the
other run.
>(part 2 of 2)
>I need to run incrementals - or a level - not full dumps -
>
>so i went ahead and edited the disklist file from:
>
>sundev1.corp.walid.com c0t0d0s0 always-full
>
>to the following:
>
>sundev1.corp.walid.com c0t0d0s0 nofull
>...
"nofull" is a dumptype option, not a dumptype name. You need to create
a new dumptype section in your amanda.conf and include "strategy nofull".
>how can i get amanda to perform incremental backups and store
> them in the holding disk?
That's what it will do by default if you do not have a tape to write to,
you have left the "reserve" parameter alone and you have enough holding
disk space.
>define dumptype always-full {
> global
> comment "Full dump of this filesystem always"
> compress none
> priority low
> strategy nofull
> dumpcycle 0
>}
>
>Is this close?
Close. You don't want "dumpcycle 0" since that's what tells Amanda to
do a full dump every time.
I'd make a copy of these few lines, give the dumptype a new name, change
the comment and remote the dumpcycle line. Then change your disklist
to refer to the new name.
You seem to be working awfully hard at this and I'm trying to see the
goal. Did I understand it correctly that you only have two tapes to
work with? Total? Does that mean your idea is to let Amanda to a full
dump to one of them once a week (or so) and let it write incrementals
to the holding disk in between, then you'll do an amflush just before
the next full dump?
I won't bug you with all the normal warnings about the potential problems
such a minimal configuration present. I'm sure there are reasons :-).
Here's an alternate way to do this that might be easier, though:
* Create a single Amanda configuration and set it up like you were
going to run every day to tape.
* Do not put the Amanda tape in the drive for most days. That will
cause it to drop back to degraded mode and put incrementals in the
holding disk.
* When you're ready to do a full dump:
+ Run amflush to empty the holding disk to one of the tapes.
+ Run "amadmin <config> force ..." to tell Amanda it should do a
full dump of everything on the next run.
+ Put the "full dump tape" in the drive and the next run should
do full dumps of everything to it.
>Denise E. Ives
John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
