AMANDA.CONF(5)AMANDA.CONF(5)NAMEamanda.conf - Main configuration file for Amanda, the Advanced Maryland
Automatic Network Disk Archiver
DESCRIPTIONamanda.conf is the main configuration file for Amanda. This manpage
lists the relevant sections and parameters of this file for quick ref‐
erence.
PARAMETERS
There are a number of configuration parameters that control the behav‐
ior of the Amanda programs. All have default values, so you need not
specify the parameter in amanda.conf if the default is suitable.
Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines. Comments may be
placed on a line with a directive by starting the comment with a #. The
remainder of the line is ignored.
Keywords are case insensitive, i.e. mailto and MailTo are treated the
same.
Integer arguments may have one of the following (case insensitive) suf‐
fixes, some of which have a multiplier effect:
POSSIBLE SUFFIXES
b byte bytes
Some number of bytes.
bps Some number of bytes per second.
k kb kbyte kbytes kilobyte kilobytes
Some number of kilobytes (bytes*1024).
kps kbps
Some number of kilobytes per second (bytes*1024).
m mb meg mbyte mbytes megabyte megabytes
Some number of megabytes (bytes*1024*1024).
mps mbps
Some number of megabytes per second (bytes*1024*1024).
g gb gbyte gbytes gigabyte gigabytes
Some number of gigabytes (bytes*1024*1024*1024).
tape tapes
Some number of tapes.
day days
Some number of days.
week weeks
Some number of weeks (days*7).
Note
The value inf may be used in most places where an integer is
expected to mean an infinite amount.
Boolean arguments may have any of the values y, yes, t, true or
on to indicate a true state, or n, no, f, false or off to indi‐
cate a false state. If no argument is given, true is assumed.
PARAMETERS
org string
Default: daily. A descriptive name for the configuration. This
string appears in the Subject line of mail reports. Each Amanda
configuration should have a different string to keep mail
reports distinct.
mailto string
Default: operators. A space separated list of recipients for
mail reports.
dumpcycle int
Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each
disk will get a full backup at least this often. Setting this to
zero tries to do a full backup each run.
Note
This parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype (see
below). This value sets the default for all dumptypes so must
appear in amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined..TP run‐
spercycle int Default: same as dumpcycle. The number of amdump
runs in dumpcycle days. A value of 0 means the same value as
dumpcycle. A value of -1 means guess the number of runs from the
tapelist file, which is the number of tapes used in the last
dumpcycle days / runtapes.
tapecycle int
Default: 15 tapes. Typically tapes are used by Amanda in an
ordered rotation. The tapecycle parameter defines the size of
that rotation. The number of tapes in rotation must be larger
than the number of tapes required for a complete dump cycle (see
the dumpcycle parameter).
This is calculated by multiplying the number of amdump runs per
dump cycle (runspercycle parameter) times the number of tapes
used per run (runtapes parameter). Typically two to four times
this calculated number of tapes are in rotation. While Amanda is
always willing to use a new tape in its rotation, it refuses to
reuse a tape until at least 'tapecycle -1' number of other tapes
have been used.
It is considered good administrative practice to set the tapecy‐
cle parameter slightly lower than the actual number of tapes in
rotation. This allows the administrator to more easily cope with
damaged or misplaced tapes or schedule adjustments that call for
slight adjustments in the rotation order.
label_new_tapes string
Default: not set. When set, this directive will cause Amanda to
automatically write an Amanda tape label to any blank tape she
encounters. This option is DANGEROUS because when set, Amanda
will ERASE any non-Amanda tapes you may have, and may also ERASE
any near-failing tapes. Use with caution.
When using this directive, specify the template for new tape
labels. The template should contain some number of contiguous
'%' characters, which will be replaced with a generated number.
Be sure to specify enough '%' characters that you do not run out
of tape labels. Example: label_new_tapes "DailySet1-%%%"
label_new_tapes string
=======
Default: not set. When set, this directive will cause Amanda
to automatically write an Amanda tape label to any black tape
she encounters. This option is DANGEROUS because when set,
Amanda will ERASE any non-Amanda tapes you may have, and may
also ERASE any near-failing tapes. Use with caution.
When using this directive, specify the template for new tape
labels. The template should contain some number of contiguous
'%' characters, which will be replaced with a generated number.
Be sure to specify enough '%' characters that you do not run out
of tape labels. Example: label_new_tapes "DailySet1-%%%"
dumpuser string
Default: amanda. The login name Amanda uses to run the backups.
The backup client hosts must allow access from the tape server
host as this user via or Amanda software was built.
printer string
Printer to use when doing tape labels. See the lbl-templtapetype
option.
tapedev string
Default: null:. The path name of the non-rewinding tape device.
Non-rewinding tape device names often have an 'n' in the name,
e.g. /dev/rmt/0mn, however this is operating system specific
and you should consult that documentation for detailed naming
information.
If a tape changer is configured (see the tpchanger option), this
option might not be used.
If the null output driver is selected (see the section OUTPUT
DRIVERS in the amanda(8) manpage for more information), programs
such as amdump will run normally but all images will be thrown
away. This should only be used for debugging and testing, and
probably only with the record option set to no.
rawtapedev string
Default: null:. The path name of the raw tape device. This is
only used if Amanda is compiled for Linux machines with floppy
tapes and is needed for QIC volume table operations.
tpchanger string
Default: none. The name of the tape changer. If a tape changer
is not configured, this option is not used and should be com‐
mented out of the configuration file.
If a tape changer is configured, choose one of the changer
scripts (e.g. chg-scsi) and enter that here.
changerdev string
Default: /dev/null. A tape changer configuration parameter.
Usage depends on the particular changer defined with the
tpchanger option.
changerfile string
Default: /usr/adm/amanda/log/changer-status. A tape changer con‐
figuration parameter. Usage depends on the particular changer
defined with the tpchanger option.
runtapes int
Default: 1. The maximum number of tapes used in a single run. If
a tape changer is not configured, this option is not used and
should be commented out of the configuration file.
If a tape changer is configured, this may be set larger than one
to let Amanda write to more than one tape.
Note that this is an upper bound on the number of tapes, and
Amanda may use less.
Also note that as of this release, Amanda does not support true
tape overflow. When it reaches the end of one tape, the backup
image Amanda was processing starts over again on the next tape.
maxdumpsize int
Default: runtapes*tape_length. Maximum number of bytes the plan‐
ner will schedule for a run.
taperalgo [first|firstfit|largest|largestfit|smallest|last]
Default: first. The algorithm used to choose which dump image to
send to the taper.
first First in, first out.
firstfit
The first dump image that will fit on the current tape.
largest
The largest dump image.
largestfit
The largest dump image that will fit on the current tape.
smallest
The smallest dump image.
last Last in, first out.
labelstr string
Default: .*. The tape label constraint regular expression. All
tape labels generated (see amlabel(8)) and used by this configu‐
ration must match the regular expression. If multiple configura‐
tions are run from the same tape server host, it is helpful to
set their labels to different strings (for example,
"DAILY[0-9][0-9]*" vs. "ARCHIVE[0-9][0-9]*") to avoid overwrit‐
ing each other's tapes.
tapetype string
Default: EXABYTE. The type of tape drive associated with tapedev
or tpchanger. This refers to one of the defined tapetypes in the
config file (see below), which specify various tape parameters,
like the length, filemark size, and speed of the tape media and
device.
First character of a tapetype string must be an alphabetic char‐
acter
ctimeout int
Default: 30 seconds. Maximum amount of time that amcheck will
wait for each client host.
dtimeout int
Default: 1800 seconds. Amount of idle time per disk on a given
client that a dumper running from within amdump will wait before
it fails with a data timeout error.
etimeout int
Default: 300 seconds. Amount of time per disk on a given client
that the planner step of amdump will wait to get the dump size
estimates. For instance, with the default of 300 seconds and
four disks on client A, planner will wait up to 20 minutes for
that machine. A negative value will be interpreted as a total
amount of time to wait per client instead of per disk.
netusage int
Default: 300 Kbps. The maximum network bandwidth allocated to
Amanda, in Kbytes per second. See also the interface section.
inparallel int
Default: 10. The maximum number of backups that Amanda will
attempt to run in parallel. Amanda will stay within the con‐
straints of network bandwidth and holding disk space available,
so it doesn't hurt to set this number a bit high. Some con‐
tention can occur with larger numbers of backups, but this
effect is relatively small on most systems.
displayunit "k|m|g|t"
Default: "k". The unit used to print many numbers, k=kilo,
m=mega, g=giga, t=tera.
dumporder string
Default: tttTTTTTTT. The priority order of each dumper:
•
s: smallest size
•
S: largest size
•
t: smallest time
•
T: largest time
•
b: smallest bandwidth
•
B: largest bandwidth
maxdumps int
Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host
that Amanda will attempt to run in parallel. See also the inpar‐
allel option.
Note that this parameter may also be set in a specific dumptype
(see below). This value sets the default for all dumptypes so
must appear in amanda.conf before any dumptypes are defined.
bumpsize int
Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an
automatic bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed
as size. If Amanda determines that the next higher backup level
will be this much smaller than the current level, it will do the
next level. The value of this parameter is used only if the
parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside
of a dumptype-definition.
See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
bumppercent int
Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an
automatic bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed
as percentage of the current size of the DLE (size of current
level 0). If Amanda determines that the next higher backup level
will be this much smaller than the current level, it will do the
next level.
If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bump‐
size is used to trigger bumping.
The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside
of a dumptype-definition.
See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
bumpmult float
Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bump‐
size by this factor for each level. This prevents active
filesystems from bumping too much by making it harder to bump to
the next level. For example, with the default bumpsize and bump‐
mult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be 10 Mbytes for level
one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level three, and so
on.
The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside
of a dumptype-definition.
bumpdays int
Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays
days, even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
The global setting of this parameter can be overwritten inside
of a dumptype-definition.
diskfile string
Default: disklist. The file name for the disklist file holding
client hosts, disks and other client dumping information.
infofile string
Default: /usr/adm/amanda/curinfo. The file or directory name for
the historical information database. If Amanda was configured to
use DBM databases, this is the base file name for them. If it
was configured to use text formated databases (the default),
this is the base directory and within here will be a directory
per client, then a directory per disk, then a text file of data.
logdir string
Default: /usr/adm/amanda. The directory for the amdump and log
files.
indexdir string
Default /usr/adm/amanda/index. The directory where index files
(backup image catalogues) are stored. Index files are only gen‐
erated for filesystems whose dumptype has the index option
enabled.
tapelist string
Default: tapelist. The file name for the active tapelist file.
Amanda maintains this file with information about the active set
of tapes.
tapebufs int
Default: 20. The number of buffers used by the taper process run
by amdump and amflush to hold data as it is read from the net‐
work or disk before it is written to tape. Each buffer is a lit‐
tle larger than 32 KBytes and is held in a shared memory region.
reserve number
Default: 100. The part of holding-disk space that should be
reserved for incremental backups if no tape is available,
expressed as a percentage of the available holding-disk space
(0-100). By default, when there is no tape to write to, degraded
mode (incremental) backups will be performed to the holding
disk. If full backups should also be allowed in this case, the
amount of holding disk space reserved for incrementals should be
lowered.
autoflush bool
Default: off. Whether an amdump run will flush the dumps from
holding disk to tape.
amrecover_do_fsf bool
Default: off. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -f flag for
faster positioning of the tape.
amrecover_check_label bool
Default: off. Amrecover will call amrestore with the -l flag to
check the label.
amrecover_changer string
Default: ''. Amrecover will use the changer if you use 'settape
<string>' and that string is the same as the amrecover_changer
setting.
columnspec string
Defines the width of columns amreport should use. String is a
comma (',') separated list of triples. Each triple consists of
three parts which are separated by a equal sign ('=') and a
colon (':') (see the example). These three parts specify:
•
the name of the column, which may be:
•
Compress (compression ratio)
•
Disk (client disk name)
•
DumpRate (dump rate in KBytes/sec)
•
DumpTime (total dump time in hours:minutes)
•
HostName (client host name)
•
Level (dump level)
•
OrigKB (original image size in KBytes)
•
OutKB (output image size in KBytes)
•
TapeRate (tape writing rate in KBytes/sec)
•
TapeTime (total tape time in hours:minutes)
•
the amount of space to display before the column (used to get
whitespace between columns).
•
the width of the column itself. If set to a negative value,
the width will be calculated on demand to fit the largest
entry in this column.
Here is an example:
columnspec "Disk=1:18,HostName=0:10,OutKB=1:7"
The above will display the disk information in 18 characters and
put one space before it. The hostname column will be 10 charac‐
ters wide with no space to the left. The output KBytes column is
seven characters wide with one space before it.
.TP includefile string Default: none. The name of an Amanda
configuration file to include within the current file. Useful
for sharing dumptypes, tapetypes and interface definitions among
several configurations.
HOLDINGDISK SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define one or more holding disks used as buf‐
fers to hold backup images before they are written to tape. The syntax
is:
holdingdisk name {
holdingdisk-option holdingdisk-value
...
}.fi
Name
is a logical name for this holding disk.
The options and values are:
comment string
Default:
none. A comment string describing this holding disk.
directory disk
Default:
/dumps/amanda. The path to this holding area.
use int
Default:
0 Gb.
Amount of space that can be used in this holding disk area.
If the value is zero, all available space on the file system is used.
If the value is negative, Amanda will use all available space minus that value.
.TP
chunksize int
Default:
1 Gb.
Holding disk chunk size. Dumps larger than the specified size will be stored in multiple
holding disk files. The size of each chunk will not exceed the specified value.
However, even though dump images are split in the holding disk, they are concatenated as
they are written to tape, so each dump image still corresponds to a single continuous
tape section.
If 0 is specified, Amanda will create holding disk chunks as large as
((INT_MAX/1024)-64) Kbytes.
Each holding disk chunk includes a 32 Kbyte header, so the minimum
chunk size is 64 Kbytes (but that would be really silly).
Operating systems that are limited to a maximum file size of 2 Gbytes
actually cannot handle files that large.
They must be at least one byte less than 2 Gbytes.
Since Amanda works with 32 Kbyte blocks, and
to handle the final read at the end of the chunk, the chunk size
should be at least 64 Kbytes (2 * 32 Kbytes) smaller than the maximum
file size, e.g. 2047 Mbytes.
.SH "DUMPTYPE SECTION"
The
amanda.conf
file may define multiple sets of backup options and refer to them by name from the
disklist
file. For instance, one set of options might be defined for file systems that can benefit from high compression, another set that does not compress well, another set for file systems that should always get a full backup and so on.
A set of backup options are entered in a
dumptype
section, which looks like this:
define dumptype name {
dumptype-option dumptype-value
...
}
Name is the name of this set of backup options. It is referenced from
the disklist file.
Some of the options in a dumptype section are the same as those in the
main part of amanda.conf. The main option value is used to set the
default for all dumptype sections. For instance, setting dumpcycle to
50 in the main part of the config file causes all following dumptype
sections to start with that value, but the value may be changed on a
section by section basis. Changes to variables in the main part of the
config file must be done before (earlier in the file) any dumptypes are
defined.
The dumptype options and values are:
auth string
Default: bsd. Type of authorization to perform between tape
server and backup client hosts.
krb4 to use Kerberos-IV authorization.
krb5 to use Kerberos-V authorization.
ssh to use OpenSSH authorization.
bumpsize int
Default: 10 Mbytes. The minimum savings required to trigger an
automatic bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed
as size. If Amanda determines that the next higher backup level
will be this much smaller than the current level, it will do the
next level. The value of this parameter is used only if the
parameter bumppercent is set to 0.
See also the options bumppercent, bumpmult and bumpdays.
bumppercent int
Default: 0 percent. The minimum savings required to trigger an
automatic bump from one incremental level to the next, expressed
as percentage of the current size of the DLE (size of current
level 0). If Amanda determines that the next higher backup level
will be this much smaller than the current level, it will do the
next level.
If this parameter is set to 0, the value of the parameter bump‐
size is used to trigger bumping.
See also the options bumpsize, bumpmult and bumpdays.
bumpmult float
Default: 1.5. The bump size multiplier. Amanda multiplies bump‐
size by this factor for each level. This prevents active
filesystems from bumping too much by making it harder to bump to
the next level. For example, with the default bumpsize and bump‐
mult set to 2.0, the bump threshold will be 10 Mbytes for level
one, 20 Mbytes for level two, 40 Mbytes for level three, and so
on.
bumpdays int
Default: 2 days. To insure redundancy in the dumps, Amanda keeps
filesystems at the same incremental level for at least bumpdays
days, even if the other bump threshold criteria are met.
comment string
Default: none. A comment string describing this set of backup
options.
comprate float [, float ]
Default: 0.50, 0.50. The expected full and incremental compres‐
sion factor for dumps. It is only used if Amanda does not have
any history information on compression rates for a filesystem,
so should not usually need to be set. However, it may be useful
for the first time a very large filesystem that compresses very
little is backed up.
compress [client|server] string
Default: client fast. If Amanda does compression of the backup
images, it can do so either on the backup client host before it
crosses the network or on the tape server host as it goes from
the network into the holding disk or to tape. Which place to do
compression (if at all) depends on how well the dump image usu‐
ally compresses, the speed and load on the client or server,
network capacity, holding disk capacity, availability of tape
hardware compression, etc.
For either type of compression, Amanda also allows the selection
of three styles of compression. Best is the best compression
available, often at the expense of CPU overhead. Fast is often
not as good a compression as best, but usually less CPU over‐
head. Or to specify Custom to use your own compression method.
(See dumptype custom-compress in example/amanda.conf for refer‐
ence)
So the compress options line may be one of:
•
compress none
•
compress [client] fast
•
compress [client] best
•
compress client custom
Specify client_custom_compress "PROG"
PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for
uncompress.
•
compress server fast
•
compress server best
•
compress server custom
Specify server_custom_compress "PROG"
PROG must not contain white space and it must accept -d for
uncompress.
Note that some tape devices do compression and this option has
nothing to do with whether that is used. If hardware compression
is used (usually via a particular tape device name or mt
option), Amanda (software) compression should be disabled.
dumpcycle int
Default: 10 days. The number of days in the backup cycle. Each
disk using this set of options will get a full backup at least
this of ten. Setting this to zero tries to do a full backup each
run.
encrypt [none|client|server]
Default: none. To encrypt backup images, it can do so either on
the backup client host before it crosses the network or on the
tape server host as it goes from the network into the holding
disk or to tape.
So the encrypt options line may be one of:
•
encrypt none
•
encrypt client
Specify client_encrypt "PROG"
PROG must not contain white space.
Specify client_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default:
"-d"
decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
(See dumptype encrypt-fast in example/amanda.conf for refer‐
ence)
•
encrypt server
Specify server_encrypt "PROG"
PROG must not contain white space.
Specify server_decrypt_option "decryption-parameter" Default:
"-d"
decryption-parameter must not contain white space.
Note that current logic assumes compression then encryption during
backup(thus decrypt then uncompress during restore). So specifying
client-encryption AND server-compression is not supported. amcrypt
which is a wrapper of aespipe is provided as a reference encryption
program.
estimate client|calcsize|server
Default: client. Determine the way Amanda does it's estimate.
•
client:
Use the same program as the dumping program, this is the most
accurate way to do estimates, but it can take a long time.
•
calcsize:
Use a faster program to do estimates, but the result is less
accurate.
•
server:
Use only statistics from the previous run to give an esti‐
mate, it takes only a few seconds but the result is not accu‐
rate if your disk usage changes from day to day.
exclude [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
Default: file. There are two exclude lists, exclude file and
exclude list. With exclude file , the string is a GNU-tar
exclude expression. With exclude list , the string is a file
name on the client containing GNU-tar exclude expressions. The
path to the specified exclude list file, if present (see
description of 'optional' below), must be readable by the Amanda
user.
All exclude expressions are concatenated in one file and passed
to GNU-tar as an --exclude-from argument.
Exclude expressions must always be specified as relative to the
head directory of the DLE.
With the append keyword, the string is appended to the current
list, without it, the string overwrites the list.
If optional is specified for exclude list, then amcheck will not
complain if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
For exclude list, if the file name is relative, the disk name
being backed up is prepended. So if this is entered:
exclude list ".amanda.excludes"
the actual file used would be /var/.amanda.excludes for a backup
of /var, /usr/local/.amanda.excludes for a backup of /usr/local,
and so on.
holdingdisk boolean
Default: yes. Whether a holding disk should be used for these
backups or whether they should go directly to tape. If the hold‐
ing disk is a portion of another file system that Amanda is
backing up, that file system should refer to a dumptype with
holdingdisk set to no to avoid backing up the holding disk into
itself.
ignore boolean
Default: no. Whether disks associated with this backup type
should be backed up or not. This option is useful when the
disklist file is shared among several configurations, some of
which should not back up all the listed file systems.
include [ list|file ][[optional][ append ][ string ]+]
Default: file ".". There are two include lists, include file and
include list. With include file , the string is a glob expres‐
sion. With include list , the string is a file name on the
client containing glob expressions.
All include expressions are expanded by Amanda, concatenated in
one file and passed to GNU-tar as a --files-from argument. They
must start with "./" and contain no other "/".
Include expressions must always be specified as relative to the
head directory of the DLE.
Note
For globbing to work at all, even the limited single level, the
top level directory of the DLE must be readable by the Amanda
user.With the append keyword, the string is appended to the cur‐
rent list, without it, the string overwrites the list.
If optional is specified for include list, then amcheck will not
complain if the file doesn't exist or is not readable.
For include list, If the file name is relative, the disk name
being backed up is prepended.
index boolean
Default: no. Whether an index (catalogue) of the backup should
be generated and saved in indexdir. These catalogues are used by
the amrecover utility.
kencrypt boolean
Default: no. Whether the backup image should be encrypted by
Kerberos as it is sent across the network from the backup client
host to the tape server host.
maxdumps int
Default: 1. The maximum number of backups from a single host
that Amanda will attempt to run in parallel. See also the main
section parameter inparallel.
maxpromoteday int
Default: 10000. The maximum number of day for a promotion, set
it 0 if you don't want promotion, set it to 1 or 2 if your disks
get overpromoted.
priority string
Default: medium. When there is no tape to write to, Amanda will
do incremental backups in priority order to the holding disk.
The priority may be high (2), medium (1), low (0) or a number of
your choice.
program string
Default: DUMP. The type of backup to perform. Valid values are
DUMP for the native operating system backup program, and GNUTAR
to use GNU-tar or to do PC backups using Samba.
record boolean
Default: yes. Whether to ask the backup program to update its
database (e.g. /etc/dumpdates for DUMP or
/usr/local/var/amanda/gnutar-lists for GNUTAR) of time stamps.
This is normally enabled for daily backups and turned off for
periodic archival runs.
skip-full boolean
Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled a full backup,
these disks will be skipped, and full backups should be run off-
line on these days. It was reported that Amanda only schedules
level 1 incrementals in this configuration; this is probably a
bug.
skip-incr boolean
Default: no. If true and planner has scheduled an incremental
backup, these disks will be skipped.
starttime int
Default: none. Backups will not start until after this time of
day. The value should be hh*100+mm, e.g. 6:30PM (18:30) would be
entered as 1830.
strategy string
Default: standard. Strategy to use when planning what level of
backup to run next. Values are:
standard
The standard Amanda schedule.
nofull Never do full backups, only level 1 incrementals.
noinc Never do incremental backups, only full dumps.
skip Never do backups (useful when sharing the disklist file).
incronly
Only do incremental dumps. amadmin force should be used
to tell Amanda that a full dump has been performed off-
line, so that it resets to level 1. It is similar to
skip-full, but with incronly full dumps may be scheduled
manually. Unfortunately, it appears that Amanda will per‐
form full backups with this configuration, which is prob‐
ably a bug.
tape_splitsize int
Default: none. Split dump file on tape into pieces of a speci‐
fied size. This allows dumps to be spread across multiple tapes,
and can potentially make more efficient use of tape space. Note
that if this value is too large (more than half the size of the
average dump being split), substantial tape space can be wasted.
If too small, large dumps will be split into innumerable tiny
dumpfiles, adding to restoration complexity. A good rule of
thumb, usually, is 1/10 of the size of your tape.
split_diskbuffer string
Default: none. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode
(usually meaning "no holding disk"), buffer the split chunks to
a file in the directory specified by this option.
fallback_splitsize int
Default: 10M. When dumping a split dump in PORT-WRITE mode, if
no split_diskbuffer is specified (or if we somehow fail to use
our split_diskbuffer), we must buffer split chunks in memory.
This specifies the maximum size split chunks can be in this sce‐
nario, and thus the maximum amount of memory consumed for in-
memory splitting. The size of this buffer can be changed from
its (very conservative) default to a value reflecting the amount
of memory that each taper process on the dump server may reason‐
ably consume.
The following dumptype entries are predefined by Amanda:
define dumptype no-compress {
compress none
}
define dumptype compress-fast {
compress client fast
}
define dumptype compress-best {
compress client best
}
define dumptype srvcompress {
compress server fast
}
define dumptype bsd-auth {
auth bsd
}
define dumptype krb4-auth {
auth krb4
}
define dumptype no-record {
record no
}
define dumptype no-hold {
holdingdisk no
}
define dumptype no-full {
skip-full yes
}
In addition to options in a dumptype section, one or more other dump‐
type names may be entered, which make this dumptype inherit options
from other previously defined dumptypes. For instance, two sections
might be the same except for the record option:
define dumptype normal {
comment "Normal backup, no compression, do indexing"
no-compress
index yes
maxdumps 2
}
define dumptype testing {
comment "Test backup, no compression, do indexing, no recording"
normal
record no
}
Amanda provides a dumptype named global in the sample amanda.conf file
that all dumptypes should reference. This provides an easy place to
make changes that will affect every dumptype.
TAPETYPE SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of tape media and
devices. The information is entered in a tapetype section, which looks
like this in the config file:
define tapetype name {
tapetype-option tapetype-value
...
}
Name is the name of this type of tape medium/device. It is referenced
from the tapetype option in the main part of the config file.
The tapetype options and values are:
comment string
Default: none. A comment string describing this set of tape
information.
filemark int
Default: 1000 bytes. How large a file mark (tape mark) is, mea‐
sured in bytes. If the size is only known in some linear mea‐
surement (e.g. inches), convert it to bytes using the device
density.
length int
Default: 2000 kbytes. How much data will fit on a tape.
Note that this value is only used by Amanda to schedule which
backups will be run. Once the backups start, Amanda will con‐
tinue to write to a tape until it gets an error, regardless of
what value is entered for length (but see the section OUTPUT
DRIVERS in the amanda(8) manpage for exceptions).
blocksize int
Default: 32. How much data will be written in each tape record
expressed in KiloBytes. The tape record size (= blocksize) can
not be reduced below the default 32 KBytes. The parameter block‐
size can only be raised if Amanda was compiled with the config‐
ure option --with-maxtapeblocksize=N set with "N" greater than
32 during configure.
file-pad boolean
Default: true. If true, every record, including the last one in
the file, will have the same length. This matches the way Amanda
wrote tapes prior to the availability of this parameter. It may
also be useful on devices that only support a fixed blocksize.
Note that the last record on the tape probably includes trailing
null byte padding, which will be passed back to gzip, compress
or the restore program. Most programs just ignore this (although
possibly with a warning).
If this parameter is false, the last record in a file may be
shorter than the block size. The file will contain the same
amount of data the dump program generated, without trailing null
byte padding. When read, the same amount of data that was writ‐
ten will be returned.
speed int
Default: 200 bps. How fast the drive will accept data, in bytes
per second. This parameter is NOT currently used by Amanda.
lbl-templ string
A PostScript template file used by amreport to generate labels.
Several sample files are provided with the Amanda sources in the
example directory. See the amreport(8) man page for more infor‐
mation.
In addition to options, another tapetype name may be entered, which
makes this tapetype inherit options from another tapetype. For
instance, the only difference between a DLT4000 tape drive using Com‐
pact-III tapes and one using Compact-IV tapes is the length of the
tape. So they could be entered as:
define tapetype DLT4000-III {
comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-III tapes"
length 12500 mbytes # 10 Gig tapes with some compression
filemark 2000 kbytes
speed 1536 kps
}
define tapetype DLT4000-IV {
DLT4000-III
comment "DLT4000 tape drives with Compact-IV tapes"
length 25000 mbytes # 20 Gig tapes with some compression
}
INTERFACE SECTION
The amanda.conf file may define multiple types of network interfaces.
The information is entered in an interface section, which looks like
this:
define interface name {
interface-option interface-value
...
}
name is the name of this type of network interface. It is referenced
from the disklist file.
Note that these sections define network interface characteristics, not
the actual interface that will be used. Nor do they impose limits on
the bandwidth that will actually be taken up by Amanda. Amanda com‐
putes the estimated bandwidth each file system backup will take based
on the estimated size and time, then compares that plus any other run‐
ning backups with the limit as another of the criteria when deciding
whether to start the backup. Once a backup starts, Amanda will use as
much of the network as it can leaving throttling up to the operating
system and network hardware.
The interface options and values are:
comment string
Default: none. A comment string describing this set of network
information.
use int
Default: 300 Kbps. The speed of the interface in Kbytes per sec‐
ond.
In addition to options, another interface name may be entered, which
makes this interface inherit options from another interface. At the
moment, this is of little use.
AUTHOR
James da Silva, <jds@amanda.org>: Original text
Stefan G. Weichinger, <sgw@amanda.org>, maintainer of the Amanda-docu‐
mentation: XML-conversion, major update, splitting
SEE ALSOamanda(8), amcrypt(8), aespipe(1),
AMANDA.CONF(5)
