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diff --git a/sysutils/amanda-server/DESCR b/sysutils/amanda-server/DESCR new file mode 100644 index 00000000000..4b14085e122 --- /dev/null +++ b/sysutils/amanda-server/DESCR @@ -0,0 +1,181 @@ +Amanda, The Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver +Copyright (c) 1991-1998 University of Maryland at College Park +All Rights Reserved. + +See the files COPYRIGHT, COPYRIGHT-REGEX and COPYRIGHT-APACHE for +distribution conditions and official warranty disclaimer. + +PLEASE NOTE: THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING MADE AVAILABLE ``AS-IS''. UMD is making +this work available so that other people can use it. This software is in +production use at our home site - the UMCP Department of Computer Science - +but we make no warranties that it will work for you. Amanda development is +unfunded - the development team maintains the code in their spare time. As a +result, there is no support available other than users helping each other on +the Amanda mailing lists. See below for information on the mailing lists. + + +WHAT IS AMANDA? +--------------- + +This is a release of Amanda, the Advanced Maryland Automatic +Network Disk Archiver. Amanda is a backup system designed to archive many +computers on a network to a single large-capacity tape drive. + +Here are some features of Amanda: + + * written in C, freely distributable. + * built on top of standard backup software: Unix dump/restore, GNU Tar + and others. + * will back up multiple machines in parallel to a holding disk, blasting + finished dumps one by one to tape as fast as we can write files to + tape. For example, a ~2 Gb 8mm tape on a ~240K/s interface to a host + with a large holding disk can be filled by Amanda in under 4 hours. + * does simple tape management: will not overwrite the wrong tape. + * supports tape changers via a generic interface. Easily customizable to + any type of tape carousel, robot, or stacker that can be controlled via + the unix command line. + * supports Kerberos 4 security, including encrypted dumps. The Kerberos + support is available as a separate add-on package, see the file + KERBEROS.HOW-TO-GET on the ftp site, and the file docs/KERBEROS in this + package, for more details. + * for a restore, tells you what tapes you need, and finds the proper + backup image on the tape for you. + * recovers gracefully from errors, including down or hung machines. + * reports results, including all errors in detail, in email. + * will dynamically adjust backup schedule to keep within constraints: no + more juggling by hand when adding disks and computers to network. + * includes a pre-run checker program, that conducts sanity checks on both + the tape server host and all the client hosts (in parallel), and will + send an e-mail report of any problems that could cause the backups to + fail. + * can compress dumps before sending or after sending over the net, with + either compress or gzip. + * can optionally synchronize with external backups, for those large + timesharing computers where you want to do full dumps when the system + is down in single-user mode (since BSD dump is not reliable on active + filesystems): Amanda will still do your daily dumps. + * lots of other options; Amanda is very configurable. + + +WHAT ARE THE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR AMANDA? +-------------------------------------------- + +Amanda requires a host that is mostly idle during the time backups are +done, with a large capacity tape drive (e.g. an EXABYTE, DAT or DLT tape). +This becomes the "tape server host". All the computers you are going to dump +are the "backup client hosts". The server host can also be a client host. + +Amanda works best with one or more large "holding disk" partitions on the +server host available to it for buffering dumps before writing to tape. +The holding disk allows Amanda to run backups in parallel to the disk, only +writing them to tape when the backup is finished. Note that the holding +disk is not required: without it Amanda will run backups sequentially to +the tape drive. Running it this way kills the great performance, but still +allows you to take advantage of Amanda's other features. + +As a rule of thumb, for best performance the holding disk should be larger +than the dump output from your largest disk partitions. For example, if +you are backing up some full gigabyte disks that compress down to 500 MB, +then you'll want 500 MB on your holding disk. On the other hand, if those +gigabyte drives are partitioned into 500 MB filesystems, they'll probably +compress down to 250 MB and you'll only need that much on your holding +disk. Amanda will perform better with larger holding disks. + +Actually, Amanda will still work if you have full dumps that are larger +than the holding disk: Amanda will send those dumps directly to tape one at +a time. If you have many such dumps you will be limited by the dump speed +of those machines. + +Amanda does not yet support single backup images larger than a tape. + + +WHAT SYSTEMS DOES AMANDA RUN ON? +-------------------------------- + +Amanda should run on any modern Unix system that supports dump or GNU +tar, has sockets and inetd, and either system V shared memory, or BSD +mmap implemented. + +In particular, Amanda 2.4.1p1 has been compiled, and the client side tested +on the following systems: + AIX 3.2 and 4.1 + BSDI BSD/OS 2.1 and 3.1 + DEC OSF/1 3.2 and 4.0 + FreeBSD 2.2.5 + IRIX 5.2 and 6.3 + GNU/Linux on x86, alpha, sparc, arm and powerpc + NetBSD 1.0 + Nextstep 3 (*) + OpenBSD 2.5 x86, sparc, etc (ports available) + SunOS 4.1.x (x >= 1) and 5.[567] + Ultrix 4.2 + HP-UX 9.x and 10.x (x >= 01) + +The Amanda 2.4.1p1 server side is known to run on all of the other +machines except on those marked with an asterisk. + +If you know of any system that is not listed here on which amanda +builds successfully, either client&server or client-only, please +report to amanda-hackers@amanda.org. + + +WHERE DO I GET AMANDA? +---------------------- + +There are several versions of Amanda. The latest version at the time +of this writing is available at: + + ftp://ftp.amanda.org/pub/amanda + + +HOW DO I GET AMANDA UP AND RUNNING? +----------------------------------- + +Read the file docs/INSTALL. There are a variety of steps, from compiling +Amanda to installing it on the tape server host and the client machines. + docs/INSTALL contains general installation instructions. + docs/SYSTEM.NOTES contains system-specific information. + docs/FAQ contains answers to frequently asked questions. + docs/KERBEROS explains installation under Kerberos 4. + docs/TAPE.CHANGERS explains how to customize the changer interface. + docs/WHATS.NEW details new features. + + +WHO DO I TALK TO IF I HAVE A PROBLEM? +------------------------------------- + +Amanda is completely unsupported and made available as-is. However, +you may be able to get useful information in the Amanda mailing lists: + +==> To join a mailing list, DO NOT, EVER, send mail to that list. Send + mail to <listname>-request@amanda.org, or amanda-lists@amanda.org, + with the following line in the body of the message: + subscribe <listname> <your-email-address> + + + amanda-announce + The amanda-announce mailing list is for important announcements + related to the Amanda Network Backup Manager package, including new + versions, contributions, and fixes. NOTE: the amanda-users list is + itself on the amanda-announce distribution, so you only need to + subscribe to one of the two lists, not both. + To subscribe, send a message to amanda-announce-request@amanda.org. + + amanda-users + The amanda-users mailing list is for questions and general discussion + about the Amanda Network Backup Manager. This package and related + files are available via anonymous FTP from ftp.amanda.org in the + pub/amanda directory. NOTE: the amanda-users list is itself on the + amanda-announce distribution, so you only need to subscribe to one of + the two lists, not both. + To subscribe, send a message to amanda-users-request@amanda.org. + + amanda-hackers + The amanda-hackers mailing list is for discussion of the + technical details of the Amanda package, including extensions, + ports, bugs, fixes, and alpha testing of new versions. + To subscribe, send a message to amanda-hackers-request@amanda.org. + + +Share and Enjoy, +The Amanda Development Team |