Backup Central

Hi there

I've been looking at the state of Amanda in a few distros.

Ubuntu and Centos so far seem to have pretty old versions of Amanda.

Can anyone suggest a distro that tracks Amanda upstream reasonably well? Ie
doesn't include bug-ridden versions in their stable releases...

Not that I'm accusing the Amanda people of releasing bug-ridden software
but hey we all make mistakes. Its the putting right that counts.




--
Please remember that an email is just like a postcard; it is not
confidential nor private nor secure and can be read by many other people
than the intended recipient. A postcard can be read by anyone at the mail
sorting office and expecting what is written on it to be private and secret
is not realistic. Please hold no higher expectation of email.

If you need to send confidential information in an email you need to use
encryption. PGP is Pretty good for this.

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Steve Wray <steve.wray < at > cwa.co.nz> wrote:
Can anyone suggest a distro that tracks Amanda upstream reasonably well? Ie
doesn't include bug-ridden versions in their stable releases...

I'm a Gentoo user, and they're up to date:
http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-backup/amanda
Stefan is one of the maintainers there, which helps.

FreeBSD is also on top of its stuff:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/misc/amanda-server/

Fedora is reasonably up to date:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/amanda

I checked Slackware, but their package browser has been down for as
long as I can remember.

I also checked OpenBSD, and they still have Amanda-2.4.5! *Now* I
know why the OpenBSD guys at the users' group I went to were so
critical of Amanda -- they haven't seen a remotely recent version!

Not that I'm accusing the Amanda people of releasing bug-ridden software but
hey we all make mistakes. Its the putting right that counts.

Actually, if I can toot Jean-Louis' horn for a minute, we do release
some pretty top-notch stuff, and it's mostly because Jean-Louis is
amazingly attentive to details and compatibility.

I think that this may enable distros to keep old versions - if users
never complain about bugs in 2.5.1, then why upgrade?

Dustin

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

On Tuesday 09 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 8:20 PM, Steve Wray <steve.wray < at > cwa.co.nz> wrote:
Can anyone suggest a distro that tracks Amanda upstream reasonably well?
Ie doesn't include bug-ridden versions in their stable releases...

I'm a Gentoo user, and they're up to date:
http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-backup/amanda
Stefan is one of the maintainers there, which helps.

FreeBSD is also on top of its stuff:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/misc/amanda-server/

Fedora is reasonably up to date:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/amanda

I checked Slackware, but their package browser has been down for as
long as I can remember.

I also checked OpenBSD, and they still have Amanda-2.4.5! *Now* I
know why the OpenBSD guys at the users' group I went to were so
critical of Amanda -- they haven't seen a remotely recent version!

Not that I'm accusing the Amanda people of releasing bug-ridden software
but hey we all make mistakes. Its the putting right that counts.

Actually, if I can toot Jean-Louis' horn for a minute, we do release
some pretty top-notch stuff, and it's mostly because Jean-Louis is
amazingly attentive to details and compatibility.

I think that this may enable distros to keep old versions - if users
never complain about bugs in 2.5.1, then why upgrade?

Dustin

Well, TBT Dustin, other than the rather terse ChangeLog, no one seems to be
using much ink bragging about the newest bells and whistles. Some timely
article submissions to the review sites might let them know that the old girl
hasn't turned grey or started to have hot flashes.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?
-- Pink Floyd

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:06 PM, Gene Heskett <gene.heskett < at > verizon.net> wrote:
Well, TBT Dustin, other than the rather terse ChangeLog, no one seems to be
using much ink bragging about the newest bells and whistles.  Some timely
article submissions to the review sites might let them know that the old girl
hasn't turned grey or started to have hot flashes.

That's a good point! A few folks have been working on that sort of
thing, notably Chris Hoogendyk, but we could certainly use more
publicity. As the next release starts coming out (we should have a
beta ready next week, when Jean-Louis is back in town), I'll try to
make some noise.

Any suggestions as to *where* I should do that would be appreciated --
what "review sites" do you think would be useful?

Dustin

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

On Tuesday 09 March 2010, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:06 PM, Gene Heskett <gene.heskett < at > verizon.net>
wrote:
Well, TBT Dustin, other than the rather terse ChangeLog, no one seems to
be using much ink bragging about the newest bells and whistles. Some
timely article submissions to the review sites might let them know that
the old girl hasn't turned grey or started to have hot flashes.

That's a good point! A few folks have been working on that sort of
thing, notably Chris Hoogendyk, but we could certainly use more
publicity. As the next release starts coming out (we should have a
beta ready next week, when Jean-Louis is back in town), I'll try to
make some noise.

Any suggestions as to *where* I should do that would be appreciated --
what "review sites" do you think would be useful?

Dustin

Heck, I don't know. Ars Technica for one, they seem to get a decent amount
of ink out of shlashdot at least. That is my first stop for the news every
night, so any site that gets a mention there would be a good site to pester,
if that is the right term. And of course a std recipe post to freshmeat and
Icewalkers would be good. Kinda hard to fit a 30 second commercial into
either of those formats, but the real trick with either is the embedded link
that should come back to a page on Zmanda with the real spiel on it.

--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.
-- Ambrose Bierce

Hi

I have never done this before so I am taking a guessing game.
Wouldn't it be a good idea to approach the higher ranking (online) magazines, e.g.

1. http://www.linux-magazine.com/
2. http://www.wired.com/
3. http://www.zdnet.com/
4. http://www.linux.org/news/index.html
5. http://www.strangehorizons.com
6. others (hint hint hint)

and then deliver to them an email/link/pdf that contains text and pictures so they can put up some nice fancy report about the latest (and greates) Amanda into their magazines?

Further how about sending some email to the major distro providers, explaining what the new Amanda can do (compared to the old). I am not sure how they go about (and alert them) producing RPMS/DEPS/packages or whether a program provider delivers packages that are then put into a distro, no idea. I am not sure whether the program maintainer provides the RPMS/DEP/etc, anyone knows????

I have been using Amanda for probably 10 years or so and always compiled it (currently using 2.6.0p2) and never thought of  marketing Amanda as I know how good it is ....

I have contributed the odd stuff, but maybe its time I do some big ...  and I just re-wrote "amtoc" and created an "amtoc appender to current tape", havent put that up yet (and again dont know how to).

Jobst




On 10/03/2010 15:40, Dustin J. Mitchell wrote: On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 10:06 PM, Gene Heskett <gene.heskett < at > verizon.net> ([email]gene.heskett < at > verizon.net[/email]) wrote:
Well, TBT Dustin, other than the rather terse ChangeLog, no one seems to be
using much ink bragging about the newest bells and whistles.  Some timely
article submissions to the review sites might let them know that the old girl
hasn't turned grey or started to have hot flashes.

That's a good point! A few folks have been working on that sort of
thing, notably Chris Hoogendyk, but we could certainly use more
publicity. As the next release starts coming out (we should have a
beta ready next week, when Jean-Louis is back in town), I'll try to
make some noise.

Any suggestions as to *where* I should do that would be appreciated --
what "review sites" do you think would be useful?

Dustin


--
Jobst Schmalenbach
General Manager, Webdevelopment and Tech Support P  +61 3 9532 7677
M +61 411 611 855
E  jhs < at > barrett.com.au ([email]jhs < at > barrett.com.au[/email])
W www.barrett.com.au
[/url]
Everybody lives by selling something
Sales Training, Consulting, Coaching, Seminars and Resources [url=http://www.barrett.com.au/blogs/SalesBlog/]Barrett Sales Blog
Subscribe to receive free weekly advice and tips for people who live by selling something

Dustin J. Mitchell wrote:

I checked Slackware, but their package browser has been down for as
long as I can remember.

Slackware doesn't have amanda packages, but www.slackbuilds.org does.
Currently 2.6.1p1 is available. And based on that it's really easy to make a
package using the 2.6.1p2 sources.

Mike

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 1:56 AM, Jobst Schmalenbach <jobst < at > barrett.com.au ([email]jobst < at > barrett.com.au[/email])> wrote:
Further how about sending some email to the major distro providers, explaining what the new Amanda can do (compared to the old). I am not sure how they go about (and alert them) producing RPMS/DEPS/packages or whether a program provider delivers packages that are then put into a distro, no idea. I am not sure whether the program maintainer provides the RPMS/DEP/etc, anyone knows????



In general, Linux distros build their own packages.



We (Zmanda) provide RPMs, Debs, Mac packages, etc. for the latest versions of Amanda.  However these are usually not built the way the distro prefers.  Instead, we build them all with similar configuration (directories, usernames, etc.).
 
I have contributed the odd stuff, but maybe its time I do some big ...  and I just re-wrote "amtoc" and created an "amtoc appender to current tape", havent put that up yet (and again dont know how to).


That would be great!  Any of the following ways to contribute would be great:

* Email a patch to amanda-hackers, or to Jean-Louis or me directly if you prefer
* Fork Amanda on github and send a pull request with your changes
* Edit/extend the wiki.

I'm also happy to answer any questions about the code.


Dustin

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