This is actually something that Amanda will mostly do for you. There are two issues: the schedule of backups across your dumpcycle, and the process of starting amanda so it can execute those jobs.
First, amanda will try to even out your tape usage by automaticallys scheduling an appropriate mix of full/partial backups across the dumpcycle period. You can help it out by telling amanda the number of runs to expect during each cycle and the number of tapes you have available. These parameters are set in the 'amanda.conf' file located in your backup config directory (usually /usr/local/etc/amanda/<config>). Say you are doing a backup cycle 14 days (two weeks), with 12 runs per cycle (6 days a week), and you have 20 tapes to use (although with a tapeless system this number will be special). These values are recorded in the amanda.conf file and Amanda will schedule a mix of full and partial backups based on the actual successful backups. Now, you need to schedule the backups. As the amanda user you should set up crontab to execute amdump 6 days a week using your configuration (let's call it 'daily'): %crontab -e >>in your favorite editor 5 3 * * 2-7 /usr/local/sbin/amdump daily This will run amdump a 3:05 AM Monday through Saturday using the 'daily' configuration. Amanda will e-mail you a report on the backup telling you which disks were given full and which were given incremental backups. Since you are using a tapeless system, you will need to use the latest (2.4.3b3) version and look at the amanda man page for the correct setup of tapecycle, tapedev and tapetype. However, the scheduling of dumpcycle and runspercycle should remain the same. DTS Joseph Myers wrote: > I have AMANDA ready to backup the other 6 computer in our intranet now. > The thing is, I don't know how to set up the backup schedule and I'm having > trouble finding good documentation on doing so (I'll keep looking of > course). Can someone please explain to me the best way to setup the > schedule? I know it involves cron tables and the like but how do you do > incremental backups? I can always do full backups all the time but what's > the point if you don't have to. I'm using a tapeless backup system as well > so the tapecycles make absolutely no difference to me. Anyone think they > can help a newbie figure this stuff out? Thanks. > > Joseph > -- David T. Smith PGP Fingerprint: 7B01 0086 BC4E C092 5348 B9AE E79A 07F2 9E59 29C2 ph: 1 203 364 1796 fax: 1 203 364 1795 cell: 1 203 770 1685 E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
