I believe there is a dumper->taper connection, for direct-to-tape dumps. That's how I read docs/PORT.USAGE, anyway -- see the bits on stream_server() and stream_client(). But both of those
Aha, yes, indeed. That's correct.
processes run on the same host, so it's still hard to see how a firewall could get between them. Unless Amanda's running on the firewall machine itself -- which I'd consider an unsafe idea anyway!
As many linux distributions ship with a firewall installed and configured (just as MS Windows with a personal firewall) it could indeed block traffic to its own sockets, when slightly misconfigured, or with paranoid settings.
