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  From: David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
  To  : Dan Shearer <dan@tellurian.com.au>
  Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 06:23:28 +0930

Re: Amanda problem

Dan

> I'm afraid I can't help, but what I would like to learn more about is
> where comp-user should be used.

The backup strategy or type (comp-user) is simply a setting in the local
amanda configuration. If I recall correctly comp-user is a medium
priority backup which uses dump.

> So far I've only found a few reasons
> (funny platform without gtar, academic interest or really slow hardware)
> where dump/comp-user makes sense?

Older versions of GNU-TAR (most notably those shipping with RedHat 6.X)
would report the most strange estimates to amanda thereby totally
confusing amanda and causing all sorts of unexpected errors. On the
other hand, the dump that is shipped with RedHat 7.1 has a tendency to
fall over on bigger file systems.

I probably should note that restore -i is much nicer than attempting to
restore a tar archive without the amanda index server working but that's
only a personal preference.

> I haven't much experience with Amanda at
> all, but the bit I have done taught me not to rely on any form of dump
> except for ext2fs (there is xfsdump, but you have to jiggle things,
> nothing for reiserfs.)

The amanda user's mailing list appears to agree that xfsdump works
reasonably well with amanda.

> Can anyone enlighten me about when to use which?

I have a sneaking suspicion that's actually a religious war, although it
should be reasonably clear that a tar archive is probably more portable
than a dump archive. That is to say, you're more likely to see GNU-TAR
about the place than dump.

[eg: RedHat has a nasty tendency not to install dump on a default
install which is a total pain in the bum.]

I seem to recall that Linus doesn't like dump but I can't quite remember
where I heard that.

DSL
-- 
And Ptah begat the thought and the word
 And by these thoughts and words
 Atum, mighty God, created the world from the void!
 [An interpretation of the Memphite Creation myphs]

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