disklist (5) Linux Manual Page

disklist – List of partitions to back up for Amanda

Description

The disklist file determines which disks will be backed up by Amanda. The file contains includefile directive or disklist entry (DLE).

includefile string

Default: no default. The name of a disklist file to include within the current file. Useful for sharing disklist among several configurations. Relative pathnames are relative to the configuration directory.

A DLE usually contains one line per disk:

hostname diskname [diskdevice] dumptype [spindle [interface] ]

All pairs [ hostname diskname ] must be unique.

Lines starting with # are ignored, as are blank lines. The fields have the following meanings:

hostname

The name of the host to be backed up. If diskdevice refers to a PC share, this is the host Amanda will run the Samba smbclient program on to back up the share.

diskname

The name of the disk (a label). In most case, you set your diskname to the diskdevice and you don’t set the diskdevice. If you want multiple entries with the same diskdevice, you must set a different diskname for each entry. It’s the diskname that you use on the commandline for any Amanda command. Look at the example/disklist file for example.

diskdevice

Default: same as diskname. The name of the disk device to be backed up. It may be a full device name, a device name without the /dev/ prefix, e.g. sd0a, or a mount point such as /usr.

It may also refer to a PC share by starting the name with two (forward) slashes, e.g. //some-pc/home. In this case, the program option in the associated dumptype must be entered as GNUTAR. It is the combination of the double slash disk name and program GNUTAR in the dumptype that triggers the use of Samba.

dumptype

Refers to a dumptype defined in the amanda.conf file. Dumptypes specify backup related parameters, such as whether to compress the backups, whether to record backup results in /etc/dumpdates, the disk’s relative priority, etc.

spindle

Default: -1. A number used to balance backup load on a host. Amanda will not run multiple backups at the same time on the same spindle, unless the spindle number is -1, which means there is no spindle restriction.

interface

Default: local. The name of a network interface definition in the amanda.conf file, used to balance network load.

Instead of naming a dumptype, it is possible to define one in-line, enclosing dumptype options within curly braces, one per line, just like a dumptype definition in amanda.conf. Since pre-existing dumptypes are valid option names, this syntax may be used to customize dumptypes for particular disks.

A line break must follow the left curly bracket.

For instance, if a dumptype named normal is used for most disks, but use of the holding disk needs to be disabled for the file system that holds it, this would work instead of defining a new dumptype:

hostname diskname [ diskdevice ] {
 normal
 holdingdisk never
} [ spindle [ interface ] ]

The { must appear at the end of a line, and the } on its own line possibly followed by the spindle and interface.

See Also

amanda(8), amanda.conf(5)

The Amanda Wiki: : http://wiki.zmanda.com/

Authors

James da Silva <jds [at] amanda.org>

Stefan G. Weichinger <sgw [at] amanda.org>

Dustin J. Mitchell <dustin [at] zmanda.com>

Zmanda, Inc. (http://www.zmanda.com)