April 2006 Archives

After thinking the game was over when I got Amanda to install and run on my Xserve, I came to the brutal realization that I was way off. Once again Apple has changed the way things start up (or may start up, or may be configured to start up...) in OS X and has moved to launchd - this specifically hits those of us used to crontab. Great... yet another scheduler to learn. Anyway, in order to get OS X (10.4.6 as of this writing) to check disks and then run amdump, I spent the whole morning building the following plist files:

(This one runs amcheck and always mails the results to me - net.amanda.amcheck.plist)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>net.amanda.amcheck</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/local/sbin/amcheck</string>
<string>-a</string>
<string>anywheretechnology</string>
</array>
<key>ServiceDescription</key>
<string>run amcheck to make sure that dumps are properly made</string>
<key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
<dict>
<key>Hour</key>
<integer>13</integer>
<key>Minute</key>
<integer>22</integer>
</dict>
<key>UserName</key>
<string>amanda</string>
</dict>
</plist>

After reading some more at afp548.com, I'm not sure I have the ProgramArguments set up correctly in that it may be more correct to have a Program key above it, but this works and I've verified that a dozen times. The only question is whether or not it will work every day...

(this is the script that actually runs amdump every night at 2 am - net.amanda.amdump.plist)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>net.amanda.amdump</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/usr/local/sbin/amdump</string>
<string>anywheretechnology</string>
</array>
<key>ServiceDescription</key>
<string>run amdump every day at 2 am</string>
<key>StartCalendarInterval</key>
<dict>
<key>Hour</key>
<integer>2</integer>
</dict>
<key>UserName</key>
<string>amanda</string>
</dict>
</plist>

So there you have it. Amanda runs happily - still not backing up OS X machines, but at least the others so I can finally put some of that 5TB to use.

I like these little ironies: I finished setting up my 5TB XRaid finally and decided that disk-to-disk backups should move to the server sharing that data - i.e. my G5 Xserve. I decided to slowly decommission my current Amanda server so that I could consolidate a bit. The irony of having Amanda run on OS X is that it really isn't the best server to use to backup other OS X systems because (as I wrote yesterday) OS X (as of 10.4.6) still doesn't have a working version of dump. So, while Amanda is humming away doing the job I wanted, it isn't helping any in the Mac department... I consider that an irony.

One for the archives:
As of OS X 10.4.6 the unix command dump still doesn't work. This is nothing more than pure bullshit. dump is arguably one of the most important utilities known to unix. Why doesn't it work? Because it doesn't understand HFS/HFS+. Why it is still part of the system is beyond me. Take crap out that doesn't work on your native file system. Wonderful... it will work if you have everything formatted UFS, but who cares since running a sys off a disk formatted in UFS creates a load of other problems. Shame on Apple - they don't deserve to make the following claim, "Command-line Environment UNIX users will feel at home in Darwin, the robust BSD environment that underlies Mac OS X..." (apple.com/macosx/features/unix/) This is so damn simple... yet still not fixed six years later...

Key Words: OS X, Mac, dump, cannot, can't, work, Apple, doesn't, broken, does not, can not, sucks

(Why am I making such a big deal? When you rely on dump to do backups in a mixed unix environment, you would think that your most expensive and valuable unix system, OS X, would have a functioning version of a unix tool recommended by most people who are serious about backing up their systems. After days of not understanding why I couldn't get it to work, I finally found mention of why on some website. And, frankly, I don't get it.)