Jon LaBadie wrote:
>
> On Sat, Dec 02, 2000 at 03:28:49AM +0100, Chris Karakas wrote:
> >
> > If you say that AMANDA can backup SAMBA shares, people will believe it
> > and be happy. People like me (a mathematician...) will believe it so
> > much, that they will eventually construct a case that does not work -
> > and will get a problem. The case that does not work is when you have a
> > dual boot system (Win/Linux) and the SAMBA shares you are trying to
> > backup with AMANDA (when running Linux) are the vfat partitions of
> > Windows. Just because exceptions confirm the rules, does not mean that
> > we should not point them out.
>
> I'm missing something here. If I have it correct you have some
> client systems that run windows (maybe some linux clients too).
> Your amanda backup host runs linux, but is also bootable into
> windows. Further, it is the windows partitions on the backup
> host you are having difficulties with. Am I correct?
>
Yes.
> If so, I don't understand where samba comes into play. Window's
> is not running to share the vfat partitions so you must be
> simply mounting them as vfat file systems under linux. In that
> case I would think normal tar would work. It does for me on my
> dual-boot Solaris box with windows partitions mounted under that os.
> No need for samba or smbtar or ...
>
I've been trying for 6 months now to get the Windows partitions on the
backup server to be backed up correctly while running Linux and AMANDA.
I first tried it as follows: I told AMANDA to backup the SAMBA shares
that a SAMBA server made available on the backup server. The SAMBA
server got those shares from as mounted vfat partitions. This is where
SAMBA came into play. It did not work - incrementals were almost as big
as full backups. Then I said myself "why have this SAMBA stuff at all?
Just mount the vfat partitions and tell AMANDA to use tar and backup the
mount point directory". This did not work either for the same reason. I
am still looking for a solution.
> >
> > You understand a chance as a curse: AMANDA _has_ the qualities to become
> > a real, integrative, superlative backup tool.
>
> Some would say it already is :))
>
Well, maybe for many people, but still not for me, because it cannot
handle the above situation sufficiently. And, now that all this
discussion is going on, I know I am not alone - another participant said
he gave up on backing up Windows partitions just because of this.
>
> Be aware that amanda is NOT a backup program. It is a backup manager.
> There are no backup programs nor recovery programs supplied with it.
> Only interfaces to other, non-supplied programs.
>
> It was also created as a unix backup manager, not for windows, samba,
> oracle, mvs, or anything else. That it can and has been used for
> these purposes is a compliment to its design.
>
> To suggest that the people who maintain amanda should be responsible
> for the programs that it schedules and manages is analogous to saying
> the people who wrote the cron deamon on unix are responsible for
> debugging the programs cron kicks off.
>
O.K, I have understood that. Now I want you to understand that I have a
problem (the above one) and I cannot find a solution with AMANDA. When I
read the "AMANDA chapter" on backupcentral.com, stating that "Recent
versions can also use SAMBA to back up Microsoft Windows
(95/98/NT/2000)-based hosts", I thought "Fine! That's the _ultimate_
solution!". It turned out that the above statement may be technically
correct, but somewhat misleading to the unaware: when you use SAMBA for
the vfat partitions of your dual boot system, it does not work. It seems
that either you have to run Windows on those partitions the same time
that you run Linux and AMANDA to back them up (which is impossible on a
dual boot system...eh, OK, maybe VMware could solve this "detail") or
run the SMB shares that you want to backup on ext2, not vfat,
filesystems (also impossible for a dual boot system, as long as Windows
does not run on ext2 ;-)). It does not work even if you abandon SAMBA
and just try to backup a vfat directory. The problem is estimating the
incrementals and has more to do with tar, vfat, the kernel, or whatever,
than AMANDA itself but I insist on refining the above statement by
pointing out this - admittedly very special - case, where it is just not
true. Believe me, I will be very happy to find out that this refinement
is not necessary and that I was wrong after all ;-)
--
Regards
Chris Karakas
Don´t waste your cpu time - crack rc5: http://www.distributed.net
