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Amanda 2.5 Released

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-ways-to-stash-your-goods dept.

Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that a new release of the popular open source backup tool Amanda is now available fixing many of the limitations of previous versions. From the release: "Overall the focus of the release is on security of the backup process & backed up data, scalability of the backup process and ease of installation & configuration of Amanda."

10 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Great software by jpalit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love and trust Amanda to do all my backup. Thanks for the new release...

    1. Re:Great software by stanbrown · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Indeed, I've been using it at work, and at home for about 5 years now. It has saved me more times than I can count!!

      But why is this listed under Linux?

      --
      nix is very simple, but it takes a genius to understand the simplicity. (Dennis Ritchie) ~
  2. How does it compare to Bacula? by leereyno · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How does this new version compare to Bacula (http://www.bacula.org/)?

    The thing I like about Bacula is that it will allow you to spread a backup job accross multiple tapes, supports backups to disk, has its own scheduling system, and has a native windows client. From what I understand Amanda uses tar and relies upon NFS, SMB, or other network filesystem protocols to work. Bacula on the other hand has a true client/server architecture with a native client running on all of the systems it supports. It also makes use of MySQL to keep track of backup jobs. This made it very easy for me to create a web interface for it (http://raobackup.eas.asu.edu/

    If Amanda has been improved to be competitive with Bacula in some of these areas then I'll definitely have to investigate it.

    Lee

    --
    Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
    1. Re:How does it compare to Bacula? by Noksagt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This version of amanda supports tape spanning. Many used to say use amanda for the scheduler or bacula for the tape spanning. Since amanda spans, this no longer holds.

      Amanda has always allowed backups to a holding disk & the scheduler has been fantasitc. There isn't a native windows client, but the windows client runs fine under cygwin, or one can backup SMB shares.

      Amanda does rely on tar (which is, IMHO, a good thing), but that tar can be different on each client (so that one can backup resource forks on OS X, for example).

      Amanda doesn't rely on NFS or SMB, but can use them. There are excellent web interfaces through, for example, webmin.

    2. Re:How does it compare to Bacula? by Tetard · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nice web interface -- any plans to make it available ?

      Also, check out this: http://www.indpnday.com/bacula_stuff/bacula-web/do wnload.php?file=bacula-web_1.1.tar.gz

  3. I Tried It Once... by Illbay · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ...but had a tough time with the (at least at that time) limited hardware support. While I'm sure they've probably worked that out (at least to a better degree than before), my search for alternatives back then turned up rdiff-backup.

    Not only has it always been versatile as far as the hardware it uses--for my SOHO server, an external USB Harddrive is the ticket, one that I can just snatch and carry with me if natural disaster threatens, e.g.--but the METHOD of backup is superior to anything I've personally ever encountered.

    Backup AND restore are both a breeze.

    I'm sure that AMANDA is more appropriate for many (read "more servers") usage, but I've found rdiff-backup to be perfect for someone like me, with only a single server to worry about (althought that single server contains all my family's business and personal files--so to us, it's not such a trivial thing).

    --
    Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
  4. Bacula doesn't have Amanda's scheduling. by argent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For me, the lack of automatic backup scheduling in other packages is a complete deal-breaker. Amanda, I just tell it how many full backups I want over what period, and it makes it happen. There's no "full backup this friday" crap. You don't have enough tape? It defers the backups it can, and lets you know you need to get more... it's painless.

    For a site with growing storage there's no alternative to Amanda.

  5. Mondo Rescue by gosquad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know that Mondo Rescue supports spanning over discs of any size. It also supports differential backups. I personally use it for nightly backups. Setup is simple via command line switches, and restoring is done via a curses-based tool on the bootable iso. http://mondorescue.org/about.shtml

  6. Re:Works great with older setups & configs by Almost-Retired · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In fact I have about a 7 year history with amanda. Having worn out 4 of those 4 tape seagate changers & a couple of regular DDS2 drives, I've come to the conclusion that disks, having much more development money behind them, have indeed now exceeded the utility of tapes when I can buy a disk that lasts several years, possibly a decade, for 10% or less the cost per gigabyte of an equivalent tape drive and its backup medium. But thats just my opinion, the opinion of an old man these days as I'm now 71. So while I've been there, and done an awfull lot of that, the youngsters tend to discount that experience, prefering to get their own experiences. Oh, well. As has been said many many times, history will repeat itself.

    --
    Cheers, Gene.

  7. Re:How long until DVD spanning? by Noksagt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Some enterprises might be stingy with quota per person, but when you multiply that by the number of people in the company (including the big wigs who rarely have a practical quota), it is quite large. In addition to smaller capacity, optical media scratch and have a shorter shelf life than tape. Yes, there are archival quality discs. No, they're not extremely cheap (which would be the only reason to use DVDs). Also, most CD carousels/robots carry a stiff enough price premium such that you might as well just buy a tape changer.