On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Aaron Rainwater - TXDC SysAdmin wrote:
>Has anyone out there configured Amanda to make backups
>to multiple hosts and tape-drives simultaneously without
>having to create copious amounts of config files.
>
>The full realization of this concept would be to be able
>to backup data from, say, 4 filesystems on 4 machines
>to 4 tape-drives on 4 machines, simultaneously.
Well, here's a theory. I have no idea if this would work, so YMMV.
Setup Amanda in the usual fashion, i.e. choose a machine to run the
Amanda server and install the client on all 4 machines. Configure the
Amanda server with 4 seperate configs, one for each machine you want to
backup. In each config find a way to make amanda use the remote tape
drives via rmt (I don't know if this is possible, I'm sure one of the
Amanda hackers could answer it). That might work.
I however strongly question your motivations for wanting to setup
something like this. I assume you want to do it because you already own
4 tape drives and want to make use of all of them? Here's a better
suggestion:
Find an obsolete machine you can devote to running Amanda and move all 4
tape drives into it. I have seen a 486 DX/2 66 w/ an Adaptec 1542 ISA
SCSI card in it do DAE across 6 SCSI CDROM drives and not saturate the
bus. You'll have no problem using an old 486 or Pentium class machine
with any supported SCSI or IDE (depending on what kind of drives you
have) controller card. 4 tape drives definitely won't stream fast
enough to saturate the bus. I'd use something like NetBSD to keep the
machine lean. Obviously the slower your tape server the more inclined
you should be to use client compression, but the devil's in the details.
You might even be able to write a changer script that would allow you to
treat all 4 drives like a 4-tape changer and use just one amanda config.
You'd be able to go a whole week without going into your closet to
change a tape. I actually have considered doing this at the house with
a stack of old Travan drives I have, for my personal backups. Load them
up at the beginning of the week and forget about them.
--
Brandon D. Valentine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Computer Geek, Center for Structural Biology
"This isn't rocket science -- but it _is_ computer science."
- Terry Lambert on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
