Question

tar command

Asked by: terrywong

Hi All,

Our system is AIX 5.1.

1. I wrote a srcipt to tar FOUR directories:
 
tar -cvf /dev/rmt0.1 / >> /logs/coldbackup
tar -cvf /dev/rmt0.1 /usr >> /logs/coldbackup
tar -cvf /dev/rmt0.1 /var>> /logs/coldbackup
tar -cvf /dev/rmt0.1 /opt >> /logs/coldbackup

However at the end I found it tar ALL the directories in my system, such as /tmp, /abc, /def, ....etc. So what's the problem? I shouldn't put tar / (root) in the script? if there is alternative method to backup / ?

2. I saw there is some limitation on using tar to backup the file size which is bigger than 2 G, so how to solve?

Thanks

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Asked On
2004-04-19 at 02:29:53ID20958775
Tags

tar

,

command

Topic

Sun Solaris

Participating Experts
3
Points
100
Comments
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Answers

 

by: stefan73Posted on 2004-04-19 at 02:55:33ID: 10857996

Hi terrywong,
> I shouldn't put tar / (root) in the script? if there is alternative
> method to backup / ?

Depends. Some tars, such as Gnu tar, allow you to specify not to cross a file system's boundary.
In terms of performance, it's probably better to back up all file systems in parallel, but you'd need several tape drives for that.

> I saw there is some limitation on using tar to backup the file size which is bigger than 2 G, so how to solve?

Again, depends :-)
There are tar versions which support 64bit file sizes. You can simply check yours by creating a dummy file, like

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1024k count=2500 > some_place_which_supports_big_files

...and tar it.

(maybe dd also doesn't like 2G files - check your documentation)



Cheers,
Stefan

 

by: stefan73Posted on 2004-04-19 at 02:56:20ID: 10857998

terrywong,
I strongly suggest to use gtar. Check http://www.gnu.org on how to get it for AIX.

Stefan

 

by: TintinPosted on 2004-04-19 at 20:15:30ID: 10865477

You are better off using the AIX backup command instead of tar for system backups.

BTW, why are you asking an AIX question in the Solaris area?  Did you know there is a new "AIX ISMs UNIX OS" area?

 

by: RayZillaPosted on 2004-05-27 at 12:51:13ID: 11175024

tar -cvf /dev/rmt0.1 / >> /logs/coldbackup
this will backup anything in and below root i.e you're whole filesystem.

Proposed Solution :

In Solaris 8 there is the X switch   (tar -cvfX   ) it allows you to
use an Exclude file in side of which you can place
excluded files and directories

SYNOPSIS
     tar c  [  bBeEfFhiklnopPqvwX  [ 0-7 ]  ]  [ block ]  [  tar-
     file  ]   [ exclude-file ]  { -I include-file | -C directory
     | file  | file }

Don't know if that exists in AIX


example :  Text inside a file named  Exclude or any name you give it.

/tmp                             will exclude eveything in tmp and below for example
/etc                              next line ,  something else to exclude
/bogus/sample_file        Exclude a particular file within the bogus directory


Hope this helps

RayZilla

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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