Backup Central

Hello,

using Amanda 2.4.4p2, I'd like to do daily full backups, no matter
what happens. I.e.: There are about 20 tapes, and humans (as opposed
to Amanda) are responsible for the correct tape beeing loaded before
each amdump run. If one forgets to change tapes the next run should
overwrite the tape which is still inserted.

To achieve this I set dumpcycle and runspercycle to 0, and tapecycle
and runtapes to 1.

This seems to work so far, except for the planner being discontent:

NOTES:
planner: tapecycle (1) <= runspercycle (1)


Does my setup make sense? I'm quite new to Amanda. Should I just
ignore the planner note?

Hints are appreciated!


TIA, Jukka

--
bashian roulette:
$ ((RANDOM%6)) || rm -rf ~

Jukka Salmi wrote:

To achieve this I set dumpcycle and runspercycle to 0, and tapecycle
and runtapes to 1.

This seems to work so far, except for the planner being discontent:

NOTES:
planner: tapecycle (1) <= runspercycle (1)

If I try this in amanda 2.4.4p3, then planner does not warn.

Have you really set runspercycle=0 and not 1, as the errors message
suggests?



--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/ email: Paul.Bijnens < at > xplanation.com
***********************************************************************
* I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, *
* quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, *
* stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, *
* PF4, F20, ^X^X, :, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, *
* kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... *
* ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out *
***********************************************************************

Paul Bijnens --> amanda-users (2004-06-23 13:14:45 +0200):
Jukka Salmi wrote:

To achieve this I set dumpcycle and runspercycle to 0, and tapecycle
and runtapes to 1.

This seems to work so far, except for the planner being discontent:

NOTES:
planner: tapecycle (1) <= runspercycle (1)

If I try this in amanda 2.4.4p3, then planner does not warn.

Strange. I had a short look at planner.c, seems that part was not changed
between 2.4.4p2 and p3 (see line 336 ff.).


Have you really set runspercycle=0 and not 1, as the errors message
suggests?

Yes. "runspercycle 0" means "same as dumpcycle"; dumpcycle is 0 which
means "full backup each run". At least that's how I understand amanda(.


Cheers, Jukka

--
bashian roulette:
$ ((RANDOM%6)) || rm -rf ~

Jukka Salmi wrote:

Paul Bijnens --> amanda-users (2004-06-23 13:14:45 +0200):

Jukka Salmi wrote:


To achieve this I set dumpcycle and runspercycle to 0, and tapecycle
and runtapes to 1.

This seems to work so far, except for the planner being discontent:

NOTES:
planner: tapecycle (1) <= runspercycle (1)

If I try this in amanda 2.4.4p3, then planner does not warn.


Strange. I had a short look at planner.c, seems that part was not changed
between 2.4.4p2 and p3 (see line 336 ff.).


Oops. I was wrong. The note is there indeed.
(why didn't I see that this morning?)

In that case, yes, just ignore the note.


--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/ email: Paul.Bijnens < at > xplanation.com
***********************************************************************
* I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, *
* quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, *
* stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, *
* PF4, F20, ^X^X, :, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, *
* kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... *
* ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out *
***********************************************************************

Paul Bijnens --> amanda-users (2004-06-23 14:53:04 +0200):
In that case, yes, just ignore the note.

OK, I'll try that... But hmm, why does one get warned if
tapecycle <= runspercycle? How could that be a problem?


Oops. I was wrong. The note is there indeed.
(why didn't I see that this morning?)

You probably tried out the advice you gave me ;-)


Regards, Jukka

--
bashian roulette:
$ ((RANDOM%6)) || rm -rf ~

Jukka Salmi wrote:

OK, I'll try that... But hmm, why does one get warned if
tapecycle <= runspercycle? How could that be a problem?

Because in a sane backup scheme you avoid to overwrite the last
good backup.
Actually, that is what's happening in your case when you don't
change the tape, and instruct amanda to use that tape anyway,
by specifying tapecycle 1.
If anything happens while creating the new backup, you don't have
a good current backup, AND you don't have the previous anymore
either. With 20 tapes, hopefully you do have still some older
backups, but the last good one (usually the most important)
just got trashed.
Amanda warns you about this.
(The above is also true for numbers > 1 ).


(why didn't I see that this morning?)

You probably tried out the advice you gave me ;-)

I had a coffee or two, actually.

--
Paul Bijnens, Xplanation Tel +32 16 397.511
Technologielaan 21 bus 2, B-3001 Leuven, BELGIUM Fax +32 16 397.512
http://www.xplanation.com/ email: Paul.Bijnens < at > xplanation.com
***********************************************************************
* I think I've got the hang of it now: exit, ^D, ^C, ^\, ^Z, ^Q, F6, *
* quit, ZZ, :q, :q!, M-Z, ^X^C, logoff, logout, close, bye, /bye, *
* stop, end, F3, ~., ^]c, +++ ATH, disconnect, halt, abort, hangup, *
* PF4, F20, ^X^X, :, KJOB, F14-f-e, F8-e, kill -1 $$, shutdown, *
* kill -9 1, Alt-F4, Ctrl-Alt-Del, AltGr-NumLock, Stop-A, ... *
* ... "Are you sure?" ... YES ... Phew ... I'm out *
***********************************************************************