Dump returned 1
This article is a part of the Troubleshooting collection.
Problem
The amdump command fails with an error message such as:
FAIL dumper backupclient /home 20051119 0 [/sbin/dump returned 1] sendbackup: start [localhost:/home level 0] sendbackup: info BACKUP=/sbin/dump sendbackup: info RECOVER_CMD=/usr/bin/gzip -dc |/sbin/restore -f... - sendbackup: info COMPRESS_SUFFIX=.gz sendbackup: info end | DUMP: You can't update the dumpdates file when dumping a subdirectory | DUMP: The ENTIRE dump is aborted. sendbackup: error [/sbin/dump returned 1]
The key features to note are the sendbackup error (/sbin/dump returned 1) and the disk being backed up (/home).
Solution
The dump application can only handle entire filesystems. It cannot dump subdirectories. Use GNU Tar as the backup/restore method for DLEs that are subdirectories inside of a mounted filesystem.
Choose the dump-program by setting the parameter "program" in the dumptype
program DUMP
or
program GNUTAR
Using the default amanda.conf dumptypes, if you use GNU Tar you may define a DLE like
backupclient /home comp-root-tar
and if you use DUMP you may define your DLE like
backupclient hda4 comp-root
Also refer to the manpage of amanda.conf and the commented template-file inside of the Amanda distribution tarball.