Backup Central

Hi All,

I'm in the process of configuring a new amanda server for a rather
large raid server and I thought I might ask for help or
recommandations.

I'm planning to have on tape (LTO4) 3 or 4 sets of full backups, done
once a week and have the rest of days doing incrementals only, to
virtual tapes on disks. Obviously this will require 2 configs, the
full one running only during the weekends with `strategy noinc' and
another with `strategy nofull', done during the week days.

Anyone has done so and/or have pointers/gotchas?

Eventually when this is in production I will have to start doing
offsite archiving with some sort of D2D2T so with that in mind, what's
the status with amvault?

I'd be more than happy to provide feedbacks while I'm still in testing mode.

thanks,
jf
--
<° >< Jean-François Malouin McConnell Brain Imaging Centre
Systems/Network Administrator Montréal Neurological Institute
3801 Rue University, Suite WB219 Montréal, Québec, H3A 2B4
Phone: 514-398-8924 Fax: 514-398-8948

On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 03:08:22PM -0500, Jean-Francois Malouin wrote:

Quote:

Hi All,

I'm in the process of configuring a new amanda server for a rather
large raid server and I thought I might ask for help or
recommandations.

What we do is slit\htly differrent. We archive to a RAIT consisting of one
LT03 tape, and a dis based tape, each evening. Works well for us.

Lots of luck.

--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

I never like using two configs. Recovery is complex.

Why not use one config? amanda don't allow it, but you can cheat.
Edit amanda.conf every days to change the tpchanger and strategy, if
could be done by a simple script, or more easily, put the difference in
separate file and use 'includefile', that way you just needs a 'cp'
before each run.

The only problem is with autoflush, if some dump are left on holding
after a run, they can be flushed to the wrong tpchanger on the next run.

Jean-Louis

Jean-Francois Malouin wrote:

Quote:

Hi All,

I'm in the process of configuring a new amanda server for a rather
large raid server and I thought I might ask for help or
recommandations.

I'm planning to have on tape (LTO4) 3 or 4 sets of full backups, done
once a week and have the rest of days doing incrementals only, to
virtual tapes on disks. Obviously this will require 2 configs, the
full one running only during the weekends with `strategy noinc' and
another with `strategy nofull', done during the week days.

Anyone has done so and/or have pointers/gotchas?

Eventually when this is in production I will have to start doing
offsite archiving with some sort of D2D2T so with that in mind, what's
the status with amvault?

I'd be more than happy to provide feedbacks while I'm still in testing mode.

thanks,
jf

On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 06:28:08AM -0500, Jean-Louis Martineau wrote:

Quote:

I never like using two configs. Recovery is complex.

Why not use one config? amanda don't allow it, but you can cheat.
Edit amanda.conf every days to change the tpchanger and strategy, if
could be done by a simple script, or more easily, put the difference in
separate file and use 'includefile', that way you just needs a 'cp'
before each run.

The only problem is with autoflush, if some dump are left on holding
after a run, they can be flushed to the wrong tpchanger on the next run.

I'd thought those settings where available as -o options on
the amdump command. Single config with different lines in
cron so nothing is edited or copied ? Maybe an amadmin force
command once per week as well, just before the tape based run ?

Quote:

Jean-Louis

Jean-Francois Malouin wrote:

Quote:

Hi All,

I'm in the process of configuring a new amanda server for a rather
large raid server and I thought I might ask for help or
recommandations.

I'm planning to have on tape (LTO4) 3 or 4 sets of full backups, done
once a week and have the rest of days doing incrementals only, to
virtual tapes on disks. Obviously this will require 2 configs, the
full one running only during the weekends with `strategy noinc' and
another with `strategy nofull', done during the week days.

Anyone has done so and/or have pointers/gotchas?

Eventually when this is in production I will have to start doing
offsite archiving with some sort of D2D2T so with that in mind, what's
the status with amvault?

I'd be more than happy to provide feedbacks while I'm still in testing
mode.

thanks,
jf

---
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Computer Systems Support (v) 518 486-1697
Wadsworth Center (f) 518 473-6384
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Brian Cuttler wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 06:28:08AM -0500, Jean-Louis Martineau wrote:

Quote:

I never like using two configs. Recovery is complex.

Why not use one config? amanda don't allow it, but you can cheat.
Edit amanda.conf every days to change the tpchanger and strategy, if
could be done by a simple script, or more easily, put the difference in
separate file and use 'includefile', that way you just needs a 'cp'
before each run.

The only problem is with autoflush, if some dump are left on holding
after a run, they can be flushed to the wrong tpchanger on the next run.

I'd thought those settings where available as -o options on
the amdump command. Single config with different lines in
cron so nothing is edited or copied ? Maybe an amadmin force
command once per week as well, just before the tape based run ?

You can change the tpchanger with -otpchanger=.... , but changing a
dumptype from command lines doesn't works with dumptype inheritance, it
works only if it is used from the disklist, it is fix in SVN.

Jean-Louis

Jean-Louis Martineau wrote:

Quote:

Brian Cuttler wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 06:28:08AM -0500, Jean-Louis Martineau wrote:

Quote:

I never like using two configs. Recovery is complex.

Why not use one config? amanda don't allow it, but you can cheat.
Edit amanda.conf every days to change the tpchanger and strategy, if
could be done by a simple script, or more easily, put the difference
in separate file and use 'includefile', that way you just needs a
'cp' before each run.

The only problem is with autoflush, if some dump are left on holding
after a run, they can be flushed to the wrong tpchanger on the next
run.

I'd thought those settings where available as -o options on
the amdump command. Single config with different lines in
cron so nothing is edited or copied ? Maybe an amadmin force
command once per week as well, just before the tape based run ?

You can change the tpchanger with -otpchanger=.... , but changing a
dumptype from command lines doesn't works with dumptype inheritance,
it works only if it is used from the disklist, it is fix in SVN.

But you can do the force full; and, if you have a holding disk of
sufficient capacity, you can use -o to specify a non-existent tape
device so that Amanda drops back and does incrementals only to conserve
holding disk space. If you then flushed those out to a device, you could
achieve what is being requested, I think.

One objection to the original idea of having two separate
configurations, is that to be running incrementals only, you have to
have a full to reference. Within the context of that configuration, you
wouldn't.

I use a couple of different arrangements in different departments. In
one department, their budget for tapes (or anything for that matter) is
very limited. They also have less data to back up in the first place. I
use -o on the cron line to define a non-existent tape drive and tape
library during the week. Then, on Saturday evening, the cron let's it go
to the tape library. Everything gets flushed to tape and the Amanda
scheduler catches up on full backups. I'm not sure I even bother with
the force full. The amanda.conf definitions are such that it wants at
least one full every week and ends up doing them when it is finally
given a chance.

In most of my other departments, I run an ordinary backup every night of
the week, and the Amanda scheduler distributes full backups through the
week. Then, on the weekend I use -o in the cron to define a non-existent
tape drive and library. So, on the weekends, I get incrementals only and
they are all saved on the holding disk. On Monday night, those all get
flushed out to tape with the regular backups. With this set up, my
rotation of 35 tapes lasts 7 weeks instead of the 5 weeks I would get if
I let it use a tape every night of the week.

I believe this technique is documented on the wiki.


--
---------------

Chris Hoogendyk

-
O__ ---- Systems Administrator
c/ /'_ --- Biology & Geology Departments
(*) \(*) -- 140 Morrill Science Center
~~~~~~~~~~ - University of Massachusetts, Amherst

<hoogendyk < at > bio.umass.edu>

---------------

Erdös 4

* Jean-Louis Martineau <martineau < at > zmanda.com> [20100304 13:12]:

Quote:

Brian Cuttler wrote:

Quote:

On Thu, Mar 04, 2010 at 06:28:08AM -0500, Jean-Louis Martineau wrote:

Quote:

I never like using two configs. Recovery is complex.

Why not use one config? amanda don't allow it, but you can cheat.
Edit amanda.conf every days to change the tpchanger and strategy, if
could be done by a simple script, or more easily, put the difference
in separate file and use 'includefile', that way you just needs a
'cp' before each run.

The only problem is with autoflush, if some dump are left on holding
after a run, they can be flushed to the wrong tpchanger on the next
run.

I'd thought those settings where available as -o options on
the amdump command. Single config with different lines in
cron so nothing is edited or copied ? Maybe an amadmin force
command once per week as well, just before the tape based run ?

You can change the tpchanger with -otpchanger=.... , but changing a
dumptype from command lines doesn't works with dumptype inheritance, it
works only if it is used from the disklist, it is fix in SVN.

Jean-Louis

Thank you all for the time to comment. Jean-Louis' suggestion looks enticing.

Just one remark: as someone remarked in this thread, what happens the
very first time amdump run with `strategy nofull'? The backup content
is based on what since there is no full?

What about amvault though? Is this still in the works?

thanks!
jf
--
<° >< Jean-François Malouin McConnell Brain Imaging Centre
Systems/Network Administrator Montréal Neurological Institute
3801 Rue University, Suite WB219 Montréal, Québec, H3A 2B4
Phone: 514-398-8924 Fax: 514-398-8948

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 1:12 PM, Jean-Francois Malouin
<malin < at > bic.mni.mcgill.ca> wrote:

Quote:

What about amvault though? Is this still in the works?

Sadly, it doesn't look like I'm going to get to revamp amvault the way
I want to in this release. There's still hope, but release-blocking
bugs are piling up at this point

It really just needs to have pieces of taper glued on to pieces of
amfetchdump. All of the supporting libraries are in place. Maybe
someone else can take a look?

If it's done right, then it will be able to double as an Amanda
version of NDMPCOPY, which should be pretty cool.

Dustin

--
Open Source Storage Engineer
http://www.zmanda.com