Subject: Backup netatalk with Amanda

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 12:46:11 +0100

Hi John,

> I read both the Netatalk and Amanda mailing lists, so can provide more
> Amanda information if you want.  We use it heavily here and I happen to
> be one of the developers.
if you will help this will be great.

> Configuration can get confusing.  Make sure you read docs/INSTALL before
> going too far.  Also, there is a chapter about Amanda in a Nutshell book,
> and it's online at:
> 
>   http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html
> 
> And you should look at www.amanda.org.  In particular, there are patches
> to the 2.4.1p1 release specific to Linux.
Definetly I will read everything very close :)

> >... But someone is
> >telling on his site, that AMANDA cannot split a full backup over
> >multiple tapes, on which I am not sure if it's true? We use a Sony AIT
> >with 25GB tape drivew (native size) but our raid array is still 70GB big.
> 
> Amanda cannot split any single dump image across multiple tapes (yet).
> A dump image is usually a file system.
> 
> First, is the raid array 70 GBytes of capacity or in use? 
> Second, is it a single file system or is it split into multiple entries?
It is a RAID-Mirror in a seperate Tower with 8 x 18GB HD. Mounted on a
folder called "/mac"

> Since you're using Linux, you will **not** want to use the dump program
> for backups (it's known to have numerous problems).  So you'll want to
> use GNU tar instead.  That, in turn, leads to the usual solution for file
> systems that are larger than a tape, which is to break them apart and do
> subsets.  For instance, if you have /disk that is too large, you can tell
> Amanda, via GNU tar, to back up /disk/subdir1, /disk/subdir2 and so on.
I thought GNU tar has a problem with these very long path names!? This I
think will be the second major problem. They are using an very deep path
structure!

> However that might be painful depending on how your raid array is
> filled in.  If you'll send me some more information, I'll be glad to
> try and help you set it up.
Thank you,

Uwe