Amanda Enterprise Edition 3.0 Release Notes

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 status of migration is displayed in Admin|Backup Sets page. The configurations that could not be migrated to 3.0 will not seen in the BackupSet switcher.  Migration can be performed for each backup set independently. A migrate action is available to retry migration of a backup set. If there is difficulty in migration of 2.6.4 configuration files, please contact Zmanda Support. Migration of disklist configuration file will require manual editing.
• 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.
• All Amanda clients can be upgraded to 3.0 independently. All Amanda 2.6.4 clients (with latest patches) are supported with Amanda 3.0 server.
• When upgrading from 2.6.4p1 version of Windows Client to 3.0 version, it is recommended to preserve data (answer "YES") during upgrade. If preservation of data is not required, recommendation is to uninstall 2.6.4p1 using Add/Remove programs and then install Zmanda Windows Client 3.0

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 and 10. 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.
• Reports now display flushed file systems correctly (i.e., the status shows as "flushed" rather than "N/A").
• A problem with processing exclude list pathnames longer than 255 characters has been fixed.
• Version 2.6.4 would fail to prompt for tapes during restore or verification when a required tape had been removed. This has been fixed.
• Filenames identical except for character case could be processed as duplicate filenames in 2.6.4. This has been fixed.
• Error handling for RAIT configurations had some problems in 2.6.4 which have been fixed.

Known Issues and Workarounds

• If you are upgrading from Amanda Enterprise 2.6.4, configuration files will need to be migrated manually.  The Admin|Backup Sets in Zmanda Management Console will show the configuration files as "2.6.4" and the 2.6.4 backup sets will not appear in Backup Set switcher.
  Please contact Zmanda Support & Services for help with migration.
• Backup set names in Zmanda Management Console cannot be more than 30 characters.
• Files containing characters "[" and "]" are not restored. Zmanda Management Console restoration will fail with "Certain files could not be found in the archive" error. These files are in the backup image and can be restored using Amanda command amfetchdump.
• Files containing German umlauts are not restored. Zmanda Management Console restoration will fail with error. These files can be restored using command line tools.
• Windows sub directories containing ' (single quote) are not restored. These files can be restored to Linux or Solaris Amanda server and then moved to Windows client.
• If you are backing up to Amazon S3, S3 bucket naming convention has changed.  Zmanda Management Console in 3.0 does not support restoration from Amanda 2.6.4 buckets.  Command line tools can be used for restoration from older buckets. Use newer naming convention supported by 3.0 for backups.
• Zmanda Windows Client backs up data under the Junction Point directory if the source of Junction point is not included in the backup set. If Junction Point is recursive (i.e, source of Junction Point is point to Junction Point itself), Zmanda Windows Client might hang during backup run. If the Junction Point source is in another volume (different from Junction Point), the backup will fail. 
• Zmanda Windows Client backs up data under the Junction Point directory if the source of Junction point is not included in the same DLE (disk list entry) in the backup set.  However, if the source of the Junction Point is included in the same DLE, following issues can occur:
  
  • If Junction Point is recursive (i.e, source of Junction Point is point to Junction Point itself), Zmanda Windows Client will hang during backup run.
  •  If the Junction Point source is in another volume (different from Junction Point), backup of open files (residing in the source) will fail.

So, please avoid including the source of Junction Point in the same DLE in the backup set.

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.