Amanda Enterprise 3.0 provides new functionality and fixes the issues reported by Amanda Enterprise customers (see the list below).
Compatibility with previous versions of Amanda Enterprise
Important Note: Before you run the 3.0 installation program to upgrade a 2.6.4 server, read these notes, and, if there are any pending changes you want to migrate to 3.0, be sure to go to the version 2.6.4 ZMC Backup What page and click Apply Changes to Server before running the installation script.
- Amanda Enterprise 3.0 Rapid Installer detects the existing installation of Amanda Enterprise 2.6.4. Amanda Enterprise 2.6.4 should be uninstalled saving Amanda configuration files and data before upgrading to Amanda Enterprise 3.0. Users can upgrade only from Amanda Enterprise 2.6.4. Uninstalling the old release while saving the configuration files is the only way to preserve the backup sets you created in the old release; Amanda Enterprise 3.0 cannot directly process backup sets created in older versions of the product. This upgrade procedure only converts backup set configurations created with the Zmanda Management Console. If you have manually created disk list entries that need to be preserved, please contact the Zmanda Support Team for assistance.
- Amanda Enterprise 3.0 can report on and restore from backup images created using older versions of Amanda Enterprise (2.5 and later).
- Amanda Enterprise 3.0 reads amanda.conf and disklist configuration files from older versions of Amanda converts them to be compatible with version 3.0. The newly-written amanda.conf and disklist configuration files will conform to the standard Amanda syntax as documented in the man pages, however all comments will be reformatted, and the order of some parameters may be changed. For example:
runtapes 3 # use up to 3 tapes
becomes:
# use up to 3 tapes runtapes 3
In addition, some legacy option syntax may be updated, which results in messages such as the following in the log file(s):
- These messages can be safely ignored.
If you have customized scripts that depend on the location of configuration files, note that the 2.6.4 disklist file is called disklist.conf in 3.0, and that parameters formerly specified in advanced.conf are now part of amanda.conf. Amanda Enterprise 3.0 also introduces the device binding configuration file device-type-2-device_name.yml file.
- After performing any Zmanda Management Console (ZMC) version upgrades, you should clear the cache on your browser. If it is not cleared, the cache may contain older pages that are incompatible with the new release.
- Customers backing up Oracle on Linux/Solaris (not Windows) please note: The key names have been changed for Amanda Enterprise 3.0, so you must edit the /etc/amanda/amanda-client.conf as described in the Application Guide for Oracle on Linux/Solaris.
- Version 2.6.4 and older displayed all tape changers configured in /etc/amanda/template.d/tapetypes, requiring you to choose the tape changer from the drop down in ZMC, or to manually add a tape type. In Amanda 3.0 release, this choice is not required. In 3.0, you can simply specify the length/size of the tape in the Zmanda Management Console.
- Amanda 3.0 uses a different mechanism for S3 authorization. S3 backup images created with Amanda Enterprise 2.6.4 are only accessible using the Zmanda S3 certificate that is available from the Zmanda Network. If migrating from 2.6.4, you can continue to use this certificate; be aware that backups created using this will require the same certificate for restores.
It is not possible to move from a 2.6.4 Zmanda S3 certificate to version 3.0 S3 access by simply omitting the User Token. Please follow the instructions in Setting up an Amazon S3 Account for Use with Amanda to set up obtain the authorization credentials required for version 3.0 access to Amazon S3.
Compatability with Zmanda Recovery Manager for MySQL
The Amanda backup server may reside on the same machine as an existing ZRM server, as long as you restart the ZRM processes after you install Amanda Enterprise. This procedure is described here.
New Features
- The multi-page ZMC manual is available in PDF format, and all individual pages from the remaining manuals (command line and client guides) can be saved as PDF.
- Support for ZMC on Debian/Ubuntu platforms; support for Ubuntu Intrepid (8.10), SLES 11 and Fedora Core 9. Note that support for Fedora Core 3 has been dropped.
- Window clients now support strong (1024-bit key) encryption. Keys are read from the certificates configured; no additional configuration is required.
You can select AES, DES, or 3DES encryption algorithms; all are implemented in a standard fashion that is understood by PKZIP. Windows compressed folders cannot be encrypted for backup. - New application module to run full and incremental backups of Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007 servers, including compressed shares (application module license required).
- New application module (license required) to run full and incremental backups of PostgreSQL 8.0.19, 8.1.15, 8.2.11 and 8.3.5 servers on both Linux and Solaris. Compression and Encryption are supported. Online backup using Write Ahead Logs (WAL) is supported; logical backup using pg_dump is not.
- Amanda Enterprise's Oracle module can now leverages the RMAN media management interface to send Oracle data directly to backup media, thus giving better control of the backup process, and eliminating the need for disk space to store the backup on the Oracle server. Requires no additional licensing beyond the Amanda/Oracle license.
- Support for ZFS file system backup using any of a number of mechanisms:
- amgtar (Amanda tar; the default) works with sparse files
- amstar (Amanda schilly tar) backs up POSIX ACLs (which are a subset of ZFS ACLs)
- Solaris tar backup backs up ZFS ACLs (extended attributes in ZMC)?
- ZFS send/recv, which is ZFS equivalent of the standard dump command. This is the fastest backup method.
- ZFS snapshot
- Numerous S3 improvements, including support for selecting a location for storage to take advantage of pricing, and the ability to add a mnemonic prefix to your S3 bucket names.
- Support for D2D2T and D2D2Cloud data vaulting. Support for recovery from the disk, or from the Tape/Cloud (i.e. tertiary) layer.
- Support for Data Domain Restorer using NFS and CIFS protocols. This allows you to target backups to any NAS appliance that supports NFS and CIFS protocols.
- Support for FalconStor VTL using iSCSI protocol, This allows you to target backups to any disk storage device accessable to the backup server via iSCSI.
- The user interfaces for media management and device management have been simplified and made easier to use.
Customer-reported bugs fixed in Amanda Enterprise Release 3.0
- All version 2.6.4, 2.6.4p1, and 2.6.4p2 patches are included in Amanda Enterprise 3.0.
- Restoring Windows filesystems specified as c:/ in 2.6.4 ZMC Restore What would cause an error; this has been fixed [6263].
- A problem with executing pre- and post-backup scripts under Linux has been resolved. [6748, 6874]
- Starting a 2.6.4 backup while reports were in progress could cause the ZMC to overconsume CPU resources. This problem has been fixed. [6443, 5502]
- Renaming a 2.6.4 backup set could cause the ZMC to overconsume CPU resources [5514]
- A sporadic problem with Windows client connections could cause Windows backups to fail. This has been fixed [5723]
- The version 2.6.4 ZMC would report successful restores of encrypted Windows backups when the passphrase file had been removed (even though the restore did not actually succeed). The 3.0 ZMC reports this case correctly. [6897]
- Problems with restoring permissions after file moves have been fixed. [6032, 6040]
- A problem with installing Zmanda server software on a machine where a Zmanda client was previously installed has been fixed. [6344]
- A problem with passing spurious error message from the native archive tool (gnutar) under Linux has been fixed. [5601]
- If you moved the log file location in version 3.0, it would cause reports to stop functioning. This has been fixed. [5514]
Known Problems with Amanda Enterprise Release 3.0
Here is a list of known problems (and their work-arounds) for Amanda Enterprise 3.0:
Documentation
For a full list of supported platforms please review the compatibility guide here.
Amanda Enterprise 3.0 documentation provides detailed information on how to install and configure Amanda server and client on these platforms.