Amanda (www.amanda.org) is freeware that is quite flexable. It allows you to use tar, gtar, or dump (or any version thereof, i.e. xfsdump). It's in the config files that determines which to use. I've worked with it a lot at the last place I worked, and it's very nice. My only complaint I have is you can't append to dump tapes, but that's a minor point. The forte' about amanda is it's designed to be a network backup program, so it's works great at pulling things over from multiple systems (we had 30+ systems being backed up). For help go to their web page, they have a searchable mail list archive, and the discussion group is quite helpful.
As to your question, the norewind device is setup by the O/S. In amanda's config file you define the device it uses (i.e. /dev/tape), so my guess is to check to see if you can tar to the device directly and proceed from there.
As to other questions, Amanda keeps a searchable database of your backups (incremental and full), and at last time I looked at it you can use the search engine from any remote system to do recovery. Amanda keeps track of used tapes, so you can't overwrite old dumps. Incremental backup would just backup the files that had changed from the previous backup, and would have the same path.
Are you asking about having the same path but residing on differing machines? (i.e. one:/usr/sbin/duh and two:/usr/sbin/duh). Amanda dumps per machine, so recoveries would be by machine, not filename (or if you search for filename it would ask you which machine). Amanda won't backup NFS paths unless you tell it to, so you don't get duplication in your backups.
On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Jim Sanford wrote:
I've just downloaded amanda in an effort to help me with a problem on an HP. First off, I'm impressed with the product. However, my particular problem is that HPUX wont recognize the norewind tape device for fbackup (it's local backup utility) altho tar likes it just fine.
My question then is, how does amanda use the HP norewind device? Am I correct in presuming it just dumps tars/gtar to the device? How does it handle incrementals? If I did a find . -mtime -1 | tar ..... I'd pick up all the files created/modified within the last day but some of these files would have the same names (eg .dt/... files) altho they'd reside in different directories. Unless the path was hardcoded to each, they'd overwrite each other on the tape, right? And if they path is hardcoded, how could tey be restored to different directories?
So is amanda just a client/server package layered onto gtar?
Thanks
Jim Sanford IS Department Research Systems, Inc.
----------- Fujitsu - Nexion, St. Louis, MO Jay Orr (314) 579-6517