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      "Can't do degraded dump without holding disk" for amdump with multiple DLE in disklist

      This article addresses and provides solution for backup failures with multiple disklist entries in Amanda Community 3.5.3 using the amdump command.

      Issue

      When attempting to back up multiple disklist entries using the amdump command in Amanda Community 3.5.3, the backup process may fail with the error message "can't do degraded dump without holding disk" if the holding disk configuration is not specified in the amanda.conf file.

      Root Cause Analysis

      When backups are initiated from the command line using amdump command and holding disk is not specified in the amanda.conf configuration file, the backup process fails for all the disklist entries except the first disklist entry with the error “can't do degraded dump without holding disk.”

      Untitled

      • Degraded dumps require a holding space, which is not defined without a holding disk.

      • The issue can be verified by examining both the amanda.conf and disklist files.

      • If multiple entries are present in the disklist file and no holding disk is defined in the amanda.conf file, the error occurs.

      • The solution involves adding a holding disk configuration to the amanda.conf file to resolve the issue and enable successful backups with multiple disklist entries.

      Solution

      To address the error, follow these steps:

      1. Navigate to the file location /etc/amanda/backupset_name/.
      2. Edit the amanda.conf file by adding holding disk configuration. You can do this by including the following configuration block:

      holdingdisk hd1 { 
          directory "/amanda/holding"
          use 50 mbytes 
          chunksize 1 mbyte 
      }

      3. Save the changes made to the amanda.conf file.

      4. Trigger the backup process again.

      With the holding disk configuration in place, the backup operation should now run successfully, even when dealing with multiple Data List Entries (DLE) in the disklist.