[snip]On Sun, 13 Feb 2005, Gene Heskett wrote:
On Sunday 13 February 2005 12:02, David Newman wrote:
Greetings. For backups to a server with one DLT-IV drive, I would like to change the tape once per week. During the week, I would like to do one full backup on day 1, and incremental backups on days 2-5.
Yes, because it thinks its over-writing the last full level 0 with each new backup.
This isn't so good; again, I'm looking for one full dump and four incremental dumps on each tape. (FWIW, the server in question is at a remote location and we can't get to it every day.)
Jon LaBadie's post on the Amanda top 10 list suggests that Amanda is not the right tool for this. Is there some way to do this using Amanda?
If not, any recommendations for alternatives?
Not exactly an answer to your question, but its a familiar problem; I know 'stuff' about the backups and the machines that are being backed up. I know 'stuff' about rate of file changes and filesystem growth. How do I explain this to amanda?
Eg;
Cases where zero-level backups are virtually guaranteed to fit onto a tape... I've been experimenting with 'stratecy noinc' (IIRC the spelling of that).
Unfortunately, I've found that when, in rare cases, the zero-level won't fit I sometimes see messages like 'cannot switch to incremental' and knock me down with a feather but it doesn't back anything up at all for that DLE.
What I'd like to know is how to tell it "always do a full dump except when theres not enough room and then -- and *only* then -- revert to an incremental"
