Chapter 2. Amanda Installation Notes
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Chapter 2. Amanda Installation Notes


James da Silva

Original text
AMANDA Core Team
<jds@amanda.org>

Stefan G. Weichinger

XML-conversion, Updates
AMANDA Core Team
<sgw@amanda.org>
Table of Contents


  Before_doing_anything

  Compiling_the_Amanda_sources

  Setting_up_your_Amanda_Configuration


        Setting_up_the_Tape_Server_Host

        Set_up_the_Backup_Client_Hosts


This document covers the compilation, installation, and runtime setup of Amanda
2.4.2 and higher.

 Before doing anything


* Read this document all the way through.
* Consult Amanda_2.4.x_-_System-Specific_Installation_Notes for installation
  notes specific to particular operating systems. There is often important
  information there, so don't forget this step.
* Read Upgrade_Issues if you are upgrading from a previous Amanda version.
  There are some issues that you will need to be aware of.
* If you are using KERBEROS authentication, read Kerberos for details on
  installing and running the kerberized version of Amanda.
* Check the Amanda Patches Page, http://www.amanda.org/patches/.


 Compiling the Amanda sources

If you have multiple architectures, you only need to install the whole Amanda
package on the tape server host (the one with tape drive). On the backup client
hosts (the ones you are going to dump), you only need to compile some of the
Amanda programs (see section Set_up_the_Backup_Client_Hosts below).

 Source configuration


* Amanda can optionally make use of the following packages to back up different
  types of clients or clients with different filesystem dumping programs.

  o GNU-tar:
    If you wish to use GNU-tar to back up filesystems, it is recommended to use
    GNU-tar 1.13.25. Plain GNU-tar 1.12 needs to be patched to handle large
    files (> 2GB). Plain GNU-tar 1.13 creates bad index-lists which amrecover
    cannot handle, as does the rarely used GNU-tar 1.13.9x, which changed the
    index-format again in an incompatible way.
    Refer to the Amanda_FAQ for more information about issues with the various
    releases of GNU-tar.
    If you need to use GNU-tar 1.12, get it at
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/tar/tar-1.12.tar.gz
    and apply the patch from patches/tar-1.12.patch. The first hunk may be
    enough, unless it's a SunOS4 host. Read more about the patches in the patch
    file itself.
    GNU-tar 1.13.25 can be found at:
    ftp://alpha.gnu.org/pub/gnu/tar/tar-1.13.25.tar.gz
  o Samba:
    Samba allows Unix systems to talk to PC clients. Amanda can back up
    Microsoft Windows clients using Samba:
    http://www.samba.org
    Read Backup_PC_hosts_using_Samba for configuration tips and known
    limitations.
    Look at http://www.amanda.org/patches/ for up to date information on
    patches.
  o Perl:
    If you wish to make use of some of the scripts that come with Amanda, you
    will need to install Perl. You can get Perl from any CPAN site.
    ftp://ftp.cpan.org/pub/CPAN/src/perl-5.6.1.tar.gz
  o Awk:
    One of the programs included in this package is amplot, which reads a data
    file that Amanda generates for each dump and translates that information in
    it into a nice picture that can be used to determine how your installation
    is doing and if any parameters need to be changed. To use amplot, you need
    a version of awk that understands command line variable substitutions, such
    as nawk or gawk, which is available from
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gawk/gawk-3.1.1.tar.gz
  o GNUplot:
    Amplot also required that gnuplot be installed on your system. Gnuplot is
    available at
    http://www.gnuplot.org/ ftp://ftp.gnuplot.org/pub/gnuplot
  o Other packages:
    The process of building Amanda requires that some other packages be
    installed on your system. The following packages are used:
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/readline/readline-5.0.tar.gz
    amrecover optionally uses the readline library for its command-line edition
    mechanisms. (If you use a package-based distribution, check for the package
    readline-devel-X.Y.rpm.) This library itself requires either termcap,
    curses or ncurses. termcap is preferred, and it may be obtained from:
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/termcap/termcap-1.3.1.tar.gz.
    If you wish to edit and enhance Amanda, you may need to install the
    following tools. Autoconf and automake are required if you are going to
    rebuild the Makefiles and auto configuration scripts. Bison is only needed
    if you are going to work on the index server and client code.
    ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/autoconf/autoconf-2.53.tar.gz ftp://ftp.gnu.org/
    pub/gnu/automake/automake-1.6.3.tar.gz ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bison/
    bison-1.27.tar.gz ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/flex/flex-2.5.4a.tar.gz

* Read about the different configuration options available for building and
  running Amanda. To see the options, do both:

  o Run ./configure --help to see the available options that configure takes.
  o Read the file example/config.site which gives longer descriptions to the
    same options.

* Choose which user and group you will run the dumps under. Common choices for
  user are `bin' or another user specifically created for Amanda, such as
  `amanda'; common choices for group are `operator' or `disk'. If you do not
  specify --with-user=<username> and --with-group=<groupname>, configure will
  abort. Also choose the default name for your configuration, such as `csd' or
  `DailySet1'). This name is used by the Amanda commands to choose one of
  multiple possible configurations. You may specify it using the --with-
  config=<confgname>.
* Decide where Amanda will live. You need to choose a root directory for
  Amanda. Let this root directory be called $prefix. Unless you change the
  default behavior with the appropriate command line options, Amanda will
  install itself as. Listed below you find the appropriate configure-option for
  each directory to change the location of this part of Amanda.

    --sbindir=$prefix/sbin					Amanda server side programs
    --libexecdir=$prefix/libexec				Amanda backup client programs
    --libdir=$prefix/lib					Amanda dynamic libraries
    --with-configdir=$prefix/etc/amanda			Runtime configuration files
    --with-gnutar-listdir=$prefix/var/amanda/gnutar-lists	Directory for GNU-tar
    lists (client)
    --mandir=$prefix/man					Directory for manual pages

  Note that the GNU-tar listdir should be a local filesystem on each client
  that is going to be backed up with GNU-tar. If it really must be NFS-mounted,
  make sure the filesystem is exported so that the client has root access to
  it.
* Decide if you are compiling Amanda on a server only or a client only
  platform. If you have a particular operating system that will only be a
  Amanda client and will never run as the master tape host, then add the --
  without-server option to configure. In the unlikely case that you have a
  particular operating system that will serve as the tape host and you do not
  wish to back up any machines that run this operating system, add the --
  without-client option to the configure options. There are many other
  configuration switches for Amanda. You may learn more about them by running
  configure --help and by reading examples/config.site.
* Now configure Amanda. There are two ways of doing this. If you are running
  Amanda on a single OS, then probably the first method works better for you.
  If you need to support multiple platforms, then the second method will work
  better.

  o Run configure as non-root-user with the appropriate command line options.
    You will probably want to remember the command line options for future
    builds of Amanda.
  o Edit examples/config.site and install it in the directory $prefix/etc or
    $prefix/share. When configure runs the next time it will look for this file
    and use it to configure Amanda.



 Building and installing the binaries


* Back at the top-level source directory, build the sources:

    make
    su root; make install

  Make sure that you don't build the software as root, you may run the first
  make-command as the Amanda-user, for example. On the other hand you have to
  run make install as root to get the binaries installed with the proper
  permissions. If you want to change the compiler flags, you can do so like
  this:

    make CFLAGS="-O3 -Wall"

* If you have built with USE_VERSION_SUFFIXES, you will want to create symlinks
  to the version you wish to use, eg: ln -s amdump-x.y.z amdump This is not
  done automatically by the install process, so that you can have multiple
  Amanda versions co-existing, and choose yourself which to make the default
  version. The script contrib/set_prod_link.pl may save you some keystrokes.
* Run ldconfig as root to update the paths to the recently installed shared
  libraries.


 Setting up your Amanda Configuration


 Setting up the Tape Server Host


* Create the config directory (eg. /usr/local/etc/amanda/confname) and copy the
  example/ files into that directory. Edit these files to be correct for your
  site, consulting the amanda(8) man page if necessary. You can also send mail
  to mailto://amanda-users@amanda.org if you are having trouble deciding how to
  set things up. You will also need to create the directory for the log and
  database files for the configuration to use (eg /usr/local/var/amanda/
  confname), and the work directory on the holding disk. These directories need
  to agree with the parameters in amanda.conf. Don't forget to make all these
  directories writable by the dump user!
  Make sure that you specify the *no-rewind* version of the tape device in your
  amanda.conf file. This is a frequently encountered problem for new sites.
  Note that you might want to temporarily set the option "no-record" in all
  your dumptypes when first installing Amanda if you'd like to run tests of
  Amanda in parallel with your existing dump scheme. Amanda will then run but
  will not interfere with your current dumpdates. However, you don't want to
  run with "no-record" under normal operations.
* Put Amanda into your crontab. Here's a sample:
  Example 2.1. /etc/crontab

    0 16 * * 1-5 /usr/local/sbin/amcheck -m confname
    45 0 * * 2-6 /usr/local/sbin/amdump confname


  This is for SunOS 4.x, which has a per-user crontab; most other systems also
  require a userid on each cron line. See your cron(8) for details. With these
  cron lines, Amanda will check that the correct tape is in the drive every
  weekday afternoon at 4pm (if it isn't, all the operators will get mail). At
  12:45am that night the dumps will be run.
* Put the Amanda services into your /etc/services file. Add entries like:
  Example 2.2. /etc/services

    amanda		10080/udp
    amandaidx	10082/tcp
    amidxtape	10083/tcp


  You may choose a different port number if you like, but it must match that in
  the services file on the client hosts too.
  If you are running NIS (aka YP), you have to enter the Amanda service into
  your NIS services database. Consult your NIS documentation for details.
  You may use the `patch-system' script, from client-src, in order to modify
  this file. Run it with a `-h' argument for usage.
* If you are going to use the indexing capabilities of Amanda, follow one of
  the following steps:

  o If your server uses inetd, then add these lines to your inetd.conf on the
    tape server host:
    Example 2.3. /etc/inetd.conf

      	amandaidx stream tcp nowait $USER $AMINDEXD_PATH amindexd
      	amidxtape stream tcp nowait $USER $AMIDXTAPED_PATH amidxtaped


    where $AMINDEXD_PATH and $AMIDXTAPED_PATH are the complete paths to where
    the amindexd and amidxtaped executables (usually libexec_dir/amindexd and
    libexec_dir/amidxtaped), and USER is the Amanda user.
    You may use the `patch-system' script, from client-src, in order to modify
    this file. Run it with a `-h' argument for usage.
  o If your tape server uses xinetd instead of inetd, then you have to add the
    following two files to your xinetd-configuration (usually /etc/xinetd.d)
    and edit the paths:
    Example 2.4. /etc/xinetd.d/amandaidx

      	service amandaidx
      {
      	socket_type		= stream
      		protocol		= tcp
      		wait			= no
      		user			= $USER
      		group			= $GROUP
      		groups 			= yes
      		server			= $AMINDEXD_PATH/amindexd }


    Example 2.5. /etc/xinetd.d/amidxtape

      service amidxtape
      {
      	socket_type		= stream
      		protocol		= tcp
      		wait			= no
      		user			= $USER
      		group			= $GROUP
      		groups 			= yes
      		server			= $AMIDXTAPED_PATH/amidxtaped }


  o If your tape server uses Dan Bernstein's daemontools http://cr.yp.to/
    daemontools.html) instead of (x)inetd, you have to create amandaidx and
    amidxtape services by hand.

    # Create service directories:

        mkdir -p $prefix/etc/amanda/supervise/amandaidx
        mkdir -p $prefix/etc/amanda/supervise/amidxtape

    # Create service startup files and make them executable:
      Example 2.6. /etc/amanda/supervise/amandaidx/run

        #!/bin/sh
        exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid amanda \
        /usr/local/bin/tcpserver -DHRl0 0 10082 \
        /usr/local/libexec/amindexd >/dev/null 2>/dev/null


      Example 2.7. /etc/amanda/supervise/amidxtape/run

        #!/bin/sh
        exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid amanda \
        /usr/local/bin/tcpserver -DHRl0 0 10083 \
        /usr/local/libexec/amidxtaped >/dev/null 2>/dev/null


    # Link service directories into your svscan directory:

        cd /service
        ln -s $prefix/etc/amanda/supervise/amandaidx .
        ln -s $prefix/etc/amanda/supervise/amidxtape .



* If the tape server host is itself going to be backed up (as is usually the
  case), you must also follow the client-side install instructions below on the
  server host, INCLUDING setting up the file .amandahosts so that the server
  host lets itself in. This is a frequently encountered problem for new sites.


 Set up the Backup Client Hosts


* When using BSD-style security (enabled by default), set up your
  ~dumpuser/.amandahosts (or ~dumpuser/.rhosts and/or /etc/hosts.equiv, if you
  have configured --without-amandahosts) so that the dumpuser is allowed in
  from the server host. Only canonical host names will be accepted in
  .amandahosts, and usernames must be present in every line, because this is
  safer.
* Set up your raw disk devices so that the dumpuser can read them, and /etc/
  dumpdates so that the dumpuser can write to it. Normally this is done by
  making the disk devices readable by (and dumpdates read/writable by) group
  `operator', and putting the dumpuser into that group.
* Put the Amanda service into your /etc/services file. Add entry like:
  Example 2.8. /etc/services

    amanda		10080/udp
    amandaidx	10082/tcp
    amidxtape	10083/tcp


  You may choose a different port number if you like, but it must match that in
  the services file on the tape server host too.
  If you are running NIS (aka YP), you have to enter the Amanda service into
  your NIS services database. Consult your NIS documentation for details.
  You may use the `patch-system' script, from client-src, in order to modify
  this file. Run it with a `-h' argument for usage.
* Follow one of the following steps to set up the Amanda client service:

  o If your Amanda client uses inetd, put the Amanda client service into
    inetd's config file. This file is usually found in /etc/inetd.conf, but on
    older systems it is /etc/servers. The format is different on different
    OSes, so you must consult the inetd man page for your site. Here is an
    example from our site, again from SunOS 4.x:
    Example 2.9. /etc/inetd.conf

      amanda dgram udp wait USER AMANDAD_PATH amandad


    You may use the `patch-system' script, from client-src, in order to modify
    this file. Run it with a `-h' argument for usage.
  o If your Amanda client uses xinetd, you have to add the following file to
    your xinetd-configuration (usually /etc/xinetd.d) and edit it to reflect
    your settings and paths:
    Example 2.10. /etc/xinetd.d/amanda

      service amanda
      {
      socket_type		= dgram
      protocol		= udp
      wait			= yes
      user			= $USER
      group			= $GROUP
      groups 			= yes
      server			= $AMANDAD_PATH/amandad
      }


  o If your Amanda client uses Dan Bernstein's daemontools (http://cr.yp.to/
    daemontools.html) instead of (x)inetd, you have to create the amanda
    service by hand. You will need also an UDP super-server (netcat in this
    example).

    # Create service directory:

        mkdir -p /etc/amanda/supervise/amanda

    # Create service startup file and make it executable:
      Example 2.11. /etc/amanda/supervise/amanda/run

        #!/bin/sh
        exec /usr/local/bin/setuidgid amanda \
          /usr/bin/netcat -l -u -p 10080 -q 0 \
          -e /usr/local/libexec/amandad >/dev/null 2>/dev/null



      Note

      The netcat-binary used in this run-file might also be called /usr/bin/nc
      on your system, depending on the OS-distribution you use. Refer to http:/
      /netcat.sourceforge.net for details of netcat.
    # Link service directory into your svscan directory:

        cd /service
        ln -s /etc/amanda/supervise/amanda .



* If you are using (x)inetd, kick inetd/xinetd to make it read its config file.
  On most systems you can just execute kill -HUP inetd (or xinetd). On older
  systems you may have to kill it completely and restart it. Note that killing/
  restarting (x)inetd is not safe to do unless you are sure that no (x)inetd
  services (like rlogin) are currently in use, otherwise (x)inetd will not be
  able to bind that port and that service will be unavailable.
  If you are using the daemontools, svscan should detect and start your new
  services automatically.
* If you intend to back up xfs filesystems on hosts running IRIX, you must
  create the directory /var/xfsdump/inventory, otherwise xfsdump will not work.

THAT'S IT! YOU ARE READY TO RUN, UNLESS WE FORGOT SOMETHING.
Please send mail to mailto://amanda-users@amanda.org if you have any comments
or questions. We're not afraid of negative reviews, so let us have it!
Before writing questions, you may prefer to take a look at the Amanda_FAQ and
at the Amanda home page, at http://www.amanda.org. Browsable archives of Amanda
mailing-lists are available at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=amanda-users and
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=amanda-hackers.

Note

Refer to http://www.amanda.org/docs/install.html for the current version of
this document.
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