Slashdot Mirror
Amanda 2.5 Released
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."
In high school, Amanda was always my backup too!
Ahh, fun times.
How we know is more important than what we know.
i've been using amanda at work for the past year now and it's been wonderful. thanks to all the developer's out there who work so hard (the mailing list rocks too).
Well, it should've been, anyhow.
I love and trust Amanda to do all my backup. Thanks for the new release...
I've been running it for 4 nights now, replaceing the previous 2.4.5 version I've been running for quite some time, and its working just like the 2.4.5 version it replaced. So if you are worried about the upgrade breaking something, if it worked with your old configs, it should Just Work(TM) with the new version too. I used the same config/build script I've been useing for years to build and install it.
Newbies, please goto amanda.org or zmanda.org and read the top ten FAQ there, it will save you many headaches in getting it setup. To make it work, and work well, may require a re-thinking of how you think a backup should be done. Once setup its a background process you get nightly emails from, but requires little or no hand-holding on a daily basis other than making sure the tape needed is in the drive for tonights run. vtape users (where the tape images are kept on a humongous hard drive) don't even have to deal with that, the best of both worlds IMO. I've been doing that for about 18 months or more here at the coyote.den, my private domains name.
And I highly recommend subscribing to the amanda-user mailing list, details on amanda.org, where you can ask for help and get it from more knowledgable people than I, although you will find me there too. 10 messages is a busy day so it won't eat your lunch.
--
Cheers, Gene
Nothing against Amanda, but I switched from using Amanda to going to BackupPC. http://backuppc.sf.net/
/bin/ls on five of your linux boxes that all run the same distribution. It will only store one copy of /bin/ls on the backup server and use hardlinks to keep track of all the other copies. Plus it compresses the files.
What I really like about BackupPC is the Disk based backup focus of it. It does NOT support tape drives. But for doing backups to hard drives it is great. And with the way it will only keep one copy of a file, no matter how many systems it is on really helps to minimize disk space usage. Example: You have
Great stuff!
Yes, it supports tape spanning. It also supports compression and encryption of your choice (so you should be able to use star instead of gtar & bzip2 rather than gzip). These are the most frequently requested features, so this is really a good release!
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.
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.
A good piece of software thats getting some attention it deserves. Looking at http://amanda.zmanda.com/amanda-25-released.html and the wiki at http://wiki.amanda.com/ it feel like amanda is getting the recognition it deserves. For newbies I would recommed http://forums.zmanda.com/ and the wiki above.
yeah it is, just not off their site:r veri ent
http://packages.debian.org/stable/utils/amanda-se
http://packages.debian.org/stable/utils/amanda-cl
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.
Amanda definitely gives me more than a feeling.
Registered Linux user #421033
Also we use rsnapshot for hourly/daily/weekly/monthly snapshots of the whole filesystem (rsnapshot is very cool and simple too).
Nope. This is the *real* Amanda release. I checked on Sourceforge as well. Zmanda seems to be a company behind Amanda project. You can see the rainbow'ed Amanda logo on their wiki (http://wiki.zmanda.com/)
Take a look at the Application API (http://wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/Application_API) proposal.
Amanda 2.4.4 is in debian stable. 2.4.5p1 is under test. 2.5.0 will be available from the debian maintainer soon.
It will be also available from http://www.zmanda.com/downloads.html site soon
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
It's a shame that they didn't include backing up to DVD or disk. Yes, you can use the disk holding area and manually clean it out periodically so it doesn't fill up. That's what I do.
But it would be nice if you could specify the equivalent of some number of tape sets in the holding area and have them overwrite themselves without manual intervention.
No this isn't a fork. The post linked to zmanda, but you can find the old logo and a reference to 2.5.0 at http://www.amanda.org/ as usual. (I had no idea anyone actually liked that logo. Ten minutes with an image editor ten years ago, and it's still up there) Amanda, as always, has been developed by whoever was willing to pick up the ball and run with it. Right now Zmanda is taking an active interest and contributing heavily back to the open source program. This is of course A Good Thing.
~~~ A SLASHDOT VIGNETTE ~~~
[telephone rings]
Slashdotter: Hello? Oh hi Mom. How's my laundry coming along?
Mother: It's almost done, dearie. I can't seem to get the stain out of your Starfleet Command t-shirt, though.
Slashdotter: [frustrated] Aww!
Mother: Don't worry, I'll keep trying. [pause] Dear, are you seeing anyone? I'm worried about you.
Slashdotter: Aw come on, mom. Well, um, yeah... sure I'm seeing someone.
Mother: You're not fibbing again, are you?
Slashdotter: What? No!
Mother: If you aren't fibbing, tell me what her name is.
Slashdotter: Uh...her name is... Amanda.
Mother: Really?
Slashdotter: Yeah, Amanda. I'm serious. Amanda is really cool.
Mother: You have a GIRLFRIEND? REALLY? I'm so thrilled! Your father will be so thrilled!
Slashdotter: Yes... Amanda. In fact, she's someone at the office. We really "click".
Mother: Oh! I am ~so~ glad. You do have to be careful with an office relationship, dearie. I hope you are being discrete.
Slashdotter: Don't worry, mom. We keep it very professional when we see each other at work.
Mother: I'm glad! Amanda... that is a nice name. Is she pretty?
Slashdotter: Oh yes, yes she is. Pretty in an intuitive sort of way. And totally low maintenance.
Mother: She sounds wonderful!
Slashdotter: Yeah... um... Yeah, and mom? Amanda would really like to see my Starfleet Command t-shirt this weekend...
Mother: I'll take care of it right away, dear! Your father will be so thrilled!
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
*span, span, span, span, span, span*... oh, wait... err...
Defining Statistics and Social Research
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.