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(5) 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(5) and the commented template-file inside of the Amanda distribution tarball.