Three interface programs are included with AmControl and are the reason that AmControl was written in the first place:

AmGui2^?

AmGui2^? is a completely new implementation of a GUI around AmControl, based on WxWidgets^?, incorporating icons, menus, and other niceties. If you have access to Python's "wx" class, then this is the clear choice for everyday use.

• The programs were written with Python 2.3, but may run with Python 1.5 and above.
• AmGui^? uses the TkInter^? widget set for a simple cross-platform compatibility.
• AmGui2^? uses WxWidgets^? for a much more pleasant cross-platform GUI.

• 2004-08-27 - 1.1:
  • Second public release featuring AmGui2^? and persistent shells
• 2003-02-14 - 1.0: *Initial public release

Upgrading

From 1.0 to 1.1

In this release, configuration files are now required to be in a format readable by Python's ConfigParser^? module. You must convert your configuration files before you can use the new version, as I've made no attempt to provide backward compatibility with the old format. I apologize for the inconvenience, but the parser I wrote was very limited and possibly fragile. See the included "amcontrol.conf.sample" file for an example setup.

Also, amcommand.py and amgui2.py now accept the name of a configuration to use in their command line arguments. This means that you can write multiple setups and switch between them at will without editing any config files.

• Only FreeBSD tape commands are implemented (although adding a command set for other OperatingSystems would be trivial - contact me if you need something else).

The graphics contained in icons.py are redistributable under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. This seemed like a reasonable choice, but if this causes a problem with your intended use then please contact me and we can arrange other Free terms.

AmControl

AmControl is a simple PythonLanguage^? class for controlling an AmandaBackup^? server. At present, it can:

• Launch a backup
• Flush the remnants of a previous backup to tape
• Get the status of a currently-running backup
• Get the name of the next tape to use
• Eject a tape
• Retension a tape
• Rewind a tape

I built AmControl for my own purposes (but with an eye toward flexibility). It was designed with a few assumptions:

• AmandaBackup^? runs on a FreeBSD server
  • Affects the syntax of the tape control commands
• The SystemAdministrators^? have configured SuDo^? to allow users to run certain commands with the appropriate privileges:
  • amdump, amflush, amstatus, and amadmin as the user with backup access
  • mt as the user with tape control access

Two interface programs are included with AmControl and are the reason that AmControl was written in the first place:

AmCommand^?

This is a command-line interface to AmControl. Use this for scripting backup jobs.

AmGui^?

This is a GUI interface to AmControl. It gives a BackupAdministrator^? the ability to launch and monitor backups from the convenience of an X desktop.

Requirements

• The programs were written with Python 2.2, but should run with Python 1.5 and above.
• AmGui^? uses the TkInter^? widget set for cross-platform compatibility.
• SSH for running remote commands.
• SuDo^? for running commands as other users.

History

• 2003-02-14 - 1.0: Initial public release

Bugs and Limitations

• AmControl does not currently read its configuration from an external file. You have to edit AmControl itself to alter default settings.
• Only FreeBSD tape commands are implemented.
• Commands can only be executed on remote machines via SSH.
• The various programs are essentially undocumented at the current time, although I hope that they're fairly easy to understand.

License

AmControl, AmCommand^?, and AmGui^? are released under the terms of the BSD license. This is the same license used by AmandaBackup^? itself, so they can be used, modified, and distributed in exactly the same ways.

-- KirkStrauser - 14 Feb 2003