Yes, I see that as a valid potential way to go, if only it was that simple the script you are suggesting could run in advance of the amanda-server startup.
yes, in your crontab file you could add a line like this: (say the script would be called dlmaintainer)
00 2 * * * (dlmaintainer && su amanda -c "amdump DailySetX")
(the parentesis are not needed, actually, and I would put amdump in the crontab of amanda itself, instead of root and not needing to do a su -- but that's only details.)
But the problem is that the disks that you want to add to disklist with the yet-te-written program "dlmaintainer" are on the clients. So you're pushing the real problem inside this program. How can a program on the server get to each client and get the uptodate disklist for that client back to the server. Not easily accomplished...
What I use in my disklist is a setup like:
#first this very big directory gets his own dle bigserver /bigdisk/verybig/subdir /bigdisk { comp-user-tar include "./verybig/subdir" } 1 # all files/dirs A-M, except bigdir bigserver /bigdisk/files_A-M /bigdisk { comp-user-tar include "./[a-mA-M]" exclude "./bigdir" } 1 # all files/dirs N-Z bigserver /bigdisk/files_N-Z /bigdisk { comp-user-tar include "./[n-zN-Z]" } 1 # all the rest, include .xxx files etc bigserver /bigdisk/files_rest /bigdisk { comp-user-tar exclude append "./[a-mA-M]" exclude append "./[n-zN-Z]" } 1
The trick here is to divide large chunks, and keep a "rest" chunk that includes everything else. Now even clients that create files/directories on places where they shouldn't are still included in the backup.
You need 2.4.3 at least for this to work, and, because of a bug in 2.4.4p1, you need 2.4.4p1-20030716 to get the first entry (without wildcards) to work.
-- Paul Bijnens @ Home
