NOWS SBE 2.5 Things to look at when troubleshooting Amanda backup

  • 7005230
  • 26-Jan-2010
  • 27-Apr-2012

Environment

NOWS SBE 2.5
Amanda backup component installed

Situation

I'm having problems with amanda backup.  What files can I look at to find out what is going wrong?  Are there any commands that I can use to check the setup?

Resolution

As with any linux type issue, the first step is to get a supportconfig.  With NOWS SBE specific supportconfig's, it is extremely helpful to download the SC plugins so that the optimal NOWS SBE configuration details with be included with the supportconfig.  These plugins can be downloaded from http://en.opensuse.org/SC-Plugins

Configuration files for Amanda are located at:


 /etc/amanda/DailySet1

Log files for Amanda backup are located at:

/tmp/amanda/server/DailySet1/ 
/var/log/amanda/

For troubleshooting Amanda:

amcheck - tests the amanda configuration. 
amdump -  begins a backup and is triggered automatically by a cron script. 
All of the amanda commands need to be run as the user "amandabackup".

If the user needs to back up files to something like a USB hard drive, the drive will need to be set up and the file system mounted manually prior to Amanda component installation.

Steps for recovering files:

Can be found at the Amanda website:

Amanda basically just writes out giant tar files of the filesystem to the backup dir, but if they are using tapes it will be easier to use one of the restore commands

In order for tape drive backups to work, the users must insert the tapes one by one into the tape drive and run the command `amlabel` command exactly how it is described in the documentation.  This will probably be the first thing to verify for tape drive troubleshooting.