Linux System Administration

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Chapter 11: Backing Up Data

Reporting the full details of all of Amanda’s options would take sev-

eral pages, so we’ll leave their exploration up to you. Sample files with

useful comments are provided in the /etc/amanda/DailySet1 directory

when you install the Debian amanda-server package. For details on

these configuration files, see the Amanda manpage or http://wiki.

zmanda.com.

Amanda produces a report for each backup run. These detailed reports are sent by

email to the user specified in the

mailto option in the amanda.conf configuration file.

You should review the reports regularly, particularly checking for errors and review-

ing runtimes.

Restoring Files Backed Up by Amanda

Amanda uses standard Unix backup formats (tar or dump), which you specify in the

configuration file. This allows backup tapes to be used to restore system files even if

the Amanda system is not present. This can be crucial when restoring files after a

complete disk failure.

Amanda also provides indexed recovery tools to allow restoring of selected files. Be

sure to configure

index yes to have Amanda create the needed index files. The

amrecover manpage provides full details.

Backing Up MySQL Data

Until now, we’ve been backing up files and directories. Databases have some special

quirks that we need to address. Our examples use MySQL, but the same principles

apply to PostgreSQL and other relational databases.

If your MySQL ...