Backup Central

Hi,
I have very simple needs for an amanda installation :
- backup one server which also contains the tape drive;
- incremental nightly backup - essentially 2 databases ;
- full weekly backup;
- I have a dump disk with 1G free

I find the Amanda documentation (from what I can find of it), quite confusing
- no I am not generally a sys admin, but my admin skills are ok.
If anyone has an example file which I could look at I would really appreciate
it. Otherwise if you think amanda is too powerful for such a simple problem,
can you please recommend another solution :(

For what I am trying to do I find the following confusing :
dumpcycle 4 weeks # the number of days in the normal dump cycle
runspercycle 20 # the number of amdump runs in dumpcycle days
# (4 weeks * 5 amdump runs per week -- just weekdays)
tapecycle 25 tapes # the number of tapes in rotation

Any help appreciated, please CC: me as I am not a subscriber,

CP Hennessy

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 at 4:08pm, CPH wrote

Hi,
I have very simple needs for an amanda installation :
- backup one server which also contains the tape drive;
- incremental nightly backup - essentially 2 databases ;
- full weekly backup;
- I have a dump disk with 1G free

full weekly backup -> dumpcycle 1 week
runspercycle 5 (assuming running only on weeknights)
tapecycle ? (How many tapes do you have -- preferably 10+).

dumpcycle is the maximum amount of time between full dumps. As for
documentation, have you read "the chapter"?

<http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html>

--
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University

Hi Joshua,

On Wednesday 21 July 2004 16:12, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 at 4:08pm, CPH wrote

Hi,
I have very simple needs for an amanda installation :
- backup one server which also contains the tape drive;
- incremental nightly backup - essentially 2 databases ;
- full weekly backup;
- I have a dump disk with 1G free

full weekly backup -> dumpcycle 1 week
runspercycle 5 (assuming running only on weeknights)
tapecycle ? (How many tapes do you have -- preferably 10+).

dumpcycle is the maximum amount of time between full dumps.
Ok, the above is now much clearer!
So :
dumpcycle = duration between complete backups;
runspercycle = no of incremental backups between complete backups;
but tapecycle ?
I have 7 tapes, and I was thinking I would use 5 for the incremental backups
and 2 for the full backups. Does that make sense ?

As for documentation, have you read "the chapter"?
<http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html>
I tried, but it makes much more sense with your explanation.
It's probably me, as I could find almost no other docs on the web to me a an
"amanda for dummies" type of explanation.

CPH

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 at 4:35pm, CPH wrote

On Wednesday 21 July 2004 16:12, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 at 4:08pm, CPH wrote

Hi,
I have very simple needs for an amanda installation :
- backup one server which also contains the tape drive;
- incremental nightly backup - essentially 2 databases ;
- full weekly backup;
- I have a dump disk with 1G free

full weekly backup -> dumpcycle 1 week
runspercycle 5 (assuming running only on weeknights)
tapecycle ? (How many tapes do you have -- preferably 10+).

dumpcycle is the maximum amount of time between full dumps.
Ok, the above is now much clearer!
So :
dumpcycle = duration between complete backups;
runspercycle = no of incremental backups between complete backups;
but tapecycle ?
I have 7 tapes, and I was thinking I would use 5 for the incremental backups
and 2 for the full backups. Does that make sense ?

Amanda works differently from the standard backup scheduling model.
Amanda's goal is to backup approximately the same amount of data each
night. To do this, it spreads the level 0s through the dumpcycle.
dumpcycle specifies the max interval between level 0s, although amanda is
free to do them "early" if it wants.

So no tape is dedicated to fulls or incrementals. You just tell amanda
how often you want level 0s (dumpcycle), how many times in that time
period you'll run amdump (runspercycle), and how many tapes you're going
to let amanda use (tapecycle), and amanda does the actual scheduling.
With a runspercycle of 5, a tapecycle of 7 is OK, but 10 would be much
better.

As for documentation, have you read "the chapter"?
<http://www.backupcentral.com/amanda.html>
I tried, but it makes much more sense with your explanation.
It's probably me, as I could find almost no other docs on the web to me a an
"amanda for dummies" type of explanation.

After the chapter, the best docs are probably docs/INSTALL and the list
archives.

--
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University