NDMP Backup Configuration

This article will explain to you the NDMP backup configuration.

This article is for Amanda Enterprise (AE).

• If there is a firewall on the Amanda Server, a rule should be added to trust each NDMP device being backed up.
• NDMP service must be enabled on the NDMP appliance.
• NDMP License must be a part of the Licenses page in ZMC

Configuring NDMP volumes/directories for Backup

We recommend the creation of separate backup sets for NDMP backup.

1. Add NDMP entries to the backup set using Sources page:

1. 1. Select NDMP from Filesystem:
      1. Filer Host Name: IP of NDMP Filer
      2. Volume Name: Name of NDMP volume
      3. Directory: Directory of NDMP volume being backed up
      4. Vendor: NDMP vendor
      5. Username: Username for NDMP filer with NDMP backup and restore permissions
      6. Password: Password to match above username
      7. Auth Type: Type of authentication used to connect to NDMP appliance
      8. Data Path:

         DirectTCP – Backups are sent from appliance direct to changer, both accessible by the NDMP Filer

         Amanda – Allows user to backup to media accessible from the Amanda Server

      9. Compression & Encryption: Only allowed if using Amanda Data Path
      10. Click Add

For Direct NDMP and 3-Way NDMP configurations, no backup device is required to be setup.

For Remote NDMP configurations a Disk, Tape, or Cloud device is required.

In /etc/amanda/ <backup set> (where <backup set> is replaced by the actual name of your backup set), verify if there is a file ndmp_filer_shares. If there is not, create the file with the following content:

“IP of Filer” “/vol/backupvol” “root” “root_password” md5

Note: “/vol/backupvol” can be substituted with “/vol/restorevol” or a wildcard (*) can be used to include all.

Replace “IP of Filer” and “/vol/backupvol” with the filer’s IP address and the path to the backup volume, respectively.

This file will need to be readable only by the amandabackup user, which can be done with the following command:

chown amandabackup /etc/amanda/ <backup set>/ndmp_filer_shares 
chmod 600 /etc/amanda/ <backup set>/ndmp_filer_shares

Improving Backup Performance

• Netapp filers support up to 16 backup and restore operations at a time. This means we can split the backup into multiple sets and do them in parallel.
• 3-Way NDMP works well for this as the Amanda Server does not create a bottleneck.
• NDMP jobs have the lowest priority compared to all other tasks on Netapp Filers. Schedule jobs at a time when the filer is not in use or under heavy load.
• Check whether DAR is disabled on the filer. If DAR is enabled this will greatly impact backup performance.
• Faulty disks on the Filer that are part of the backup can greatly impact the performance as well.