AMDUMP(8)

📦
version 3.5.4 · 8 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💖 AMDUMP — the one that backs up all your disks 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because amdump is the main character of the Amanda backup cinematic universe ✨ it lives in section 8 of the system administration commands manual, and it is genuinely the moment everything else has been waiting for 👑

🌸 NAME 🌸

amdump — back up all disks in an Amanda configuration 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

amdump [--no-taper] [--no-dump] [--no-flush] [--no-vault]
       [--exact-match] [-o configoption...] config [host [disk...]...]

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

So Amdump is, like, the main interface to the Amanda backup process. no cap. It loads the config you point it at and then attempts to back up every single disk that the disklist(5) says to back up. And yeah, Amdump is normally run by cron, because it's that friend who just shows up at 1am and handles business 💅

The command optionally takes a set of DLE specifications (peep amanda-match(7) for the whole lore) to narrow down which DLEs actually get dumped. If you give it no expressions at all? Every disk gets dumped. all of them. periodt 💖

Now here's a cute detail — if a file named hold exists in the configuration directory, amdump will wait until it gets removed before starting the backups ✋ This is so scheduled backups can be delayed when circumstances warrant it, for example if the tape device is being used for some other purpose. While it's waiting, amdump checks for the hold file every minute (very patient, very demure 🧚).

In some cases it's desirable to dump all Amanda clients to holding disk without writing anything to storage media. The --no-taper option tells Amanda to not start the taper, which means it enters degraded mode immediately. it's giving intentional chaos 🌈

See the amanda(8) man page for way more details about Amanda, bestie.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --no-taper — Disable writting to tape, including flush and vault. (yes girl, we're keeping the typo, it's iconic, do not come for me 😭)
  • --no-dump — Disable dump operations. that's it. no dumping today 🙈
  • --no-flush — Disable flush, like setting autoflush to NO for all storages. But heads up bestie: Dump done in this run will be flushed. 🔥
  • --no-vault — Disable all vault.
  • --exact-match — The host and disk are parsed as exact values.
  • -o configoption — See the "CONFIGURATION OVERRIDE" section in amanda(8).
  • host [disk]* — Specify the host and disk on which the command will work — see the description of DLE specifications in amanda-match(7).

🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

Here is a typical crontab entry. It runs amdump every weeknight at 1 a.m. as user bin:

0 1 * * 1-5 bin /usr/local/sbin/amdump daily

Please see the crontab(5) or crontab(1) manual page for the correct crontab format for your system. (every system is a little different, she contains multitudes 💜)

😭 MESSAGES 😭

  • amdump: waiting for hold file to be removed The "hold" file exists and amdump is waiting for it to be removed before starting backups. she's just standing there. politely. ⏳
  • amdump: amdump or amflush is already running, or you must run amcleanup Amdump detected another amdump or amflush running, or the remains of a previous incomplete amdump or amflush run. This run is terminated. 💀 If the problem is caused by the remains of a previous run, you must execute amcleanup(8) and then rerun amdump.

👑 EXIT CODE 👑

The exit code of amdump is the ORed value of:

 0  = success
 1  = error
 2  = a dle give strange message
 4  = a dle failed
 8  = Don't know the status of a dle (RESULT_MISSING in the report)
16 = tape error or no more tape

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

amanda(8), amcheck(8), amcleanup(8), amrestore(8), amflush(8), cron(8), amanda-match(7)

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

🫶 AUTHORS 🫶

  • James da Silva <jds@amanda.org>
  • Stefan G. Weichinger <sgw@amanda.org>

and that's the whole vibe check, bestie 🎀 this page is from Amanda 3.5.4, dated 08/26/2026 — go forth and back up your disks, you absolute icon 👑💖

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