On Sun, Sep 02, 2018 at 04:09:22PM +0900, Mark Fletcher wrote: > I recently messed up some files and decided to resort to the backup to > recover them. I was able to do so, but the process left me wondering if > I would really be in a position to do so in all cases. For example, > Amanda configuration is in /etc/amanda -- what if /etc was what I needed > to restore? Similarly, I gather there are files under /var/lib/amanda -- > what happens if /var is damaged? > > I have not been able to understand from the Amanda documentation really > all that I need to have in place to be able to expect to recover from, > say, a disk replacement after catastrophic failure. I'm imagining, main > disk goes to data heaven, I buy a new one, install Stretch again fresh, > and now I want to re-install packages and restore their backed-up > configuration as well as restore my data in /home etc. I know there are > a few experienced users of Amanda on this list -- can anyone help me, or > perhaps point me to a good resource that explains it, or even if there's > a section in the documentation I've missed that makes it clear? > > I guess a key point is, in my configuration, the same machine is both > Amanda server and Amanda client. I guess I may expand this in the future > to have this machine manage backups for other machines, but at the > moment that is not happening. Of course, the disk that houses the Amanda > virtual tapes is off-machine. > > What I'm looking for is along the lines of "your nightly backup routine > needs to be run amdump, then rsync this, this and this directory > somewhere safe" or whatever it is. Or alternatively "don't be an idiot > you don't need to do any of that, amanda is magic in this, this and this > way".
Amanda is not good for the situation you describe. Amanda expects that the server is doing backups for a number of clients, and that the server itself is backed up from either a different Amanda server or via a different method. If you say what your actual configuration is, we can recommend more appropriate systems. For example: Let's say you have a standalone system with a 4TB hard disk for /home and a 250GB SSD which is root and /var. Right now df -h says you have used 27GB in /, 8GB in /var, and 1.2TB in /home. You don't expect a single massive data usage change, so much as slow growth over the course of the next few years. In that scenario, I would first suggest buying a 3-5TB disk and putting it in an external case - eSATA is excellent, USB3 is pretty good. Mount it as /backup and use rsnapshot to make ongoing backups via the standard cron job it will set up. An rsnapshot backup is entirely filesystem-visible, so when you try to recover a few files (because you accidentally deleted or overwrote them) you can just copy them back in to place; when you need to restore to new disks, you can install a minimal system then copy over on top of it. Tell us your scenario, and we can offer better advice. -dsr-
