AMZFS-SENDRECV(8)

AMZFS-SENDRECV — amzfs-sendrecv(8) 💅✨

okay bestie, gather round, because this is the Amanda script that makes zfs sendrecv happen and it's honestly giving backup icon energy 🎀

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NAME 🌸

amzfs-sendrecv — bestie, it's the Amanda script to create zfs sendrecv, no cap ✨

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DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so amzfs-sendrecv is an Amanda application implementing the Application API. real talk: it should not be run by users directly 🙈 like, this is not a "just try it in your terminal" situation, it's a "let Amanda handle it" situation.

what it does: it creates a zfs snapshot of the filesystem and backs up that snapshot with zfs send. and here's the thing — snapshots are kept after the backup is done. this increases the disk space use on the client, but it's necessary so you can do incremental backup. it's the price of admission, bestie 💀

if you want only full backup, you can disable this feature by setting the KEEP-SNAPSHOT property to 'NO'. but heads up: only the restoration of the complete backup is allowed — it is impossible to restore a single file. so like, don't come for this tool when you can't grab one lil file, okay? it's not that kind of party 😭

the application is run as the amanda user, and it must have many zfs privilege:

zfs allow -ldu AMANDA_USER mount,create,rename,snapshot,destroy,send,receive FILESYSTEM

some systems don't have "zfs allow", but you can give the Amanda backup user the rights to manipulate ZFS filesystems by using the following command:

usermod -P "ZFS File System Management,ZFS Storage Management" AMANDA_USER

this will require that you run zfs under pfexec, set the PFEXEC property to YES.

the format of the diskdevice in the disklist (DLE) must be one of:

Desciption              Example
----------              -------
Mountpoint              /data
ZFS pool name           datapool
ZFS filesystem          datapool/database
ZFS logical volume      datapool/dbvol

and the filesystem doesn't need to be mounted. lowkey convenient, highkey slay 🦋

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PROPERTIES ✨

this section lists the properties that control amzfs-sendrecv's functionality. see amanda-applications(7) for information on the Application API, application configuration — iykyk 📖

• DF-PATH — path to the df binary, search in $PATH by default. 🍓
• KEEP-SNAPSHOT — if "YES" (the default), snapshots are kept after the backup. if set to "NO" then snapshots are not kept and incremental backup will fail. so like, choose wisely bestie 💀
• ZFS-PATH — path to the zfs binary, search in $PATH by default. 🌈
• PFEXEC-PATH — path to the pfexec binary, search in $PATH by default. 💜
• PFEXEC — if "NO" (the default), pfexec is not used. if set to "YES" then pfexec is used. simple as that ✨

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EXAMPLE 🎀

in this example, a dumptype is defined to use amzfs-sendrecv application to backup a zfs filesystem. look at this configuration serving looks 👑

 define application-tool amzfs_sendrecv {
   comment "amzfs-sendrecv"
   plugin "amzfs-sendrecv"
   #property "DF-PATH"  "/usr/sbin/df"
   #property "KEEP-SNAPSHOT" "YES"
   #property "ZFS-PATH" "/usr/sbin/zfs"
   #property "PFEXEC-PATH" "/usr/sbin/pfexec"
   #property "PFEXEC" "NO"
 }

 define dumptype user-zfs-sendrecv {
   program "APPLICATION"
   application "amzfs_sendrecv"
 }

periodt. that's the whole setup 💅

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SEE ALSO 🔥

amanda(8), amanda.conf(5), amanda-client.conf(5), amanda-applications(7)

the Amanda Wiki: http://wiki.zmanda.com/ — go read it, it's giving knowledge 💖

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AUTHOR 👑

Jean-Louis Martineau <martineau@zmanda.com> Zmanda, Inc. (http://www.zmanda.com)

absolute legend behavior, fr fr 🫶

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Amanda 3.5.4 — 07/23/2025 — yeah that's the version and the date bestie, we out here 🌟💖✨