[TriLUG] [Trilug-announce] Meeting on Backup Strategies, some comments on moving to Amanda from Retrospect

[Mark W4CHL]

Triluggers,

This is an area that piques my interest almost as much as the linux-ham list: Backup/Recovery strategies. 

For the real SOHO type environment, our church is moving from single machine sporadic backup of each PC to a central backup onto an AIT autoloader (SkyData). 

Started with Retrospect, and after getting setup with an older version and prototyping all setup, found in discussions with the marketing folks that incomplete, misleading, and erroneous data is maintained on the Dantz site. So, we are now moving to Amanda as well as getting a major refund on our license payments to Dantz.

The setup and major issues worked so far are crammed into this page:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX/~c3h/IT/Docs/C3HPCnetLayout2Q2004.PDF

Now the lone Linux server I had running a month ago other than dual-boot laptops was on RedHat 6.1. There were some issues getting the second LUN on the autoloader recognized on RH 6.1, and so I put this off until the support with Dantz went West (hey, I grew up in the South, things that go awry go West :-)

With the recent promise of 2.6 support on the single CD Debian based Knoppix 3.4 CD, I have now setup a test image on Knoppix for Amanda.  Once this matures, I'll may either migrate to disk bootable  Knoppix on the backup server or to a full distro, we'll see. 

At any rate, it is wonderful to get going with Amanda, and the Amanda community on the amanda-users list (see   amanda.org) is very supportive. 

Would you agree that an Amanda oriented supplement to "The Backup Book" by Dorian Cougias would be a wonderful base for systems administrators ? !

Negotiating with my "better half" on attending Thursday. If so, will bring along the Cougias book for comment from interested parties.

Cheers de Mark Smith, W4CHL
C3H-w4chl at sneakemail-dot-com