NAME

       amanda-match - Common Amanda Match Expression

DESCRIPTION

       Several Amanda commands allow the user to specify dumps using "match expressions". This
       manual page describes the syntax of these expressions.

       In some places, only certain match expressions are allowed. However, several commands take
       a dump specification ("dumpspec") consisting of a sequence of several expressions intended
       to match particular dumps in the catalog. Other applications take a DLE specification
       which indicates a set of DLEs to be operated on. These formats are described below.

       An expression can be disabled be preceding it with the '=' character, in that case, an
       exact match is used.

       Many program have an '--exact-match' argument that disable expression and exact match are
       used.

HOST & DISK EXPRESSIONS

       The hosts and disks match by word. Each word is a glob expression, and words are separated
       by the character '.' for host expressions and '/' for disk expressions. You can anchor the
       expression on the left with a '^' or on the right with a '$'. The matcher is case
       insensitive for hosts but case sensitive for disks. A match succeeds if all words in the
       expression match contiguous words in the host or disk.

       If the disk is a UNC ("\\windows\share") then all '\' are converted to '/' before the
       match. Using '\' is complicated because of the extra quoting required by the shell and
       amanda. It's easier to use '/' because it requires less quoting ("//windows/share")

       The special characters follow. Note that the shell interprets some of these characters, so
       when used on the command line, they must be escaped appropriately for the shell.

       dot (.)
           word separator for a host

       /
           word separator for a disk

       \
           word separator for a UNC disk

       ^
           anchor at left of word

       $
           anchor at right of word

       ?
           match exactly one character except the separator

       *
           match zero or more characters except the separator

       **
           match zero or more characters including the separator

       [...]
           match exactly one of the characters enclosed by the brackets.

       [!...]
           match exactly one character that is not enclosed by the brackets.

   Examples
       hosta
           Will match hosta, foo.hosta.org, and hoSTA.dOMAIna.ORG but not hostb.

       host
           Will match host but not hosta.

       host?
           Will match hosta and hostb, but not host or hostabc.

       ho*na
           Will match hoina but not ho.aina.org.

       ho**na
           Will match hoina and ho.aina.org.

       ^hosta
           Will match hosta but not foo.hosta.org.

       sda*
           Will match /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda12.

       /opt
           Will match the disk opt but not the host opt.

       (note dots:) .opt.
           Will match the host opt but not the disk opt.

       /
           Will match the disk / but no other disk.

       /usr
           Will match the disks /usr and /usr/local.

       /usr$
           Will match the disks /usr but not /usr/local.

       share
           Will match the disks \\windows1\share and \\windows2\share.

       share*
           Will match the disks \\windows\share1 and \\windows\share2.

       //windows/share
           Will match the disk \\windows\share.

DATESTAMP EXPRESSIONS

       A datestamp expression is either a prefix of the datestamp, or a range expression
       (separated by '-') matching several prefixes. A leading ^ is removed, while arailing $
       will force an exact match.

   Examples
       20001212-14
           match all dates beginning with 20001212, 20001213 or 20001214

       20001212-4
           same as previous

       20001212-24
           match all dates between 20001212 and 20001224

       2000121
           match all dates that start with 2000121 (20001210-20001219)

       2
           match all dates that start with 2 (20000101-29991231)

       2000-10
           match all dates between 20000101-20101231

       200010$
           match only 200010

LEVEL EXPRESSIONS

       Level expressions are either prefix matches e.g., "1", which matches "1", "10", and "123",
       absolute matches e.g., "3$" which only matches "3", or a range e.g., "3-5" which only
       matches levels 3, 4, and 5.

DUMP SPECIFICATIONS

       A dump specification is used to select one or more dumps from the catalog. It consists of
       a sequence of match expressions in the order host, disk, datestamp, and level. Note that
       some commands do not take a level argument, out of historical accident. Note, too, that
       the datestamp expression matches the time that the dump was made on the Amanda client,
       rather than the date it was moved to tape.

   Examples
       amtool MyConfig ^vpdesktop$
           all dumps of host "vpdesktop"

       amtool MyConfig '*' /var/stage
           All dumps of /var/stage on any host

       amtool MyConfig www1 /var/www '*' www2 /var/www '*'
           All dumps of /var/www on www1 and www2 (assuming amtool does not require a level
           argument)

DLE SPECIFICATIONS

       A DLE specification is used to select one or more DLEs. It consists of a sequence of match
       expressions. The first must be a host, and subsequent expressions will be experimentally
       matched against both hosts and disks in the disklist(5), preferring hosts. This dynamic
       matching process can lead to odd behavior in extreme cases (e.g., where a disk and a host
       have the same name), but for most uses does exactly what is expected.

   Examples
       amtool MyConfig vpdesktop /home/anderson
           /home/anderson on host vpdesktop

       amtool MyConfig '*' ^/etc '*' ^/var
           All DLEs matching ^/var or ^/etc on any host

       amtool MyConfig web1 www web2 www
           If no host matches "www", all DLEs matching www on hosts web1 and web2. If a host
           matches "www", then all DLEs on hosts www, web1, and web2.

SEE ALSO

       amanda(8), amanda(8), amfetchdump(8), amrestore(8), amadmin(8), amvault(8), amflush(8),
       amdump(8)

       The Amanda Wiki: : http://wiki.zmanda.com/

AUTHOR

       Dustin J. Mitchell <dustin@zmanda.com>
           Zmanda, Inc. (http://www.zmanda.com)