SUMMARY: files too big for TAR

From: Steve March <Steve.March_at_Airgas.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 10:29:07 -0500

Thanks for all the responses! The solution is to use the -E switch or to use
something else like vdump.

Regards,
Steve March
e-mail: Steve.March_at_airgas.com
-------------------
Are you using the -E flag? Without this, tar has a filesize limit of 8 GB;
with it, the limit is 4 TB. (See section A.1.9 of the 4.0D release notes.)
-------------------
Well, if you look at the spec for the tar file format, you'll see that the
file size is stored as an octal number in an 11-byte field. The truncation
size is octal 37777777777, so it's hard to push the limit much higher.
(A smart tar utility should be able to double that limit by treating that
field as an unsigned number, but there may be interoperability issues.)

However, if you read carefully the man page, you will find that the -E
option
to tar allows you to create an archive with "extended headers" and thus
break
the 8GB limit on file size (among other limits).

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve March
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2000 9:07 AM
To: 'tru64-unix-managers_at_ornl.gov'
Subject: files too big for TAR


I have been using the tar command to do offline backups of database files.
It fails to backup very large files and I receive the following error:

tar: ./u0i/oradata/dwpp/datafiles/sales_history5.dbf : File too large for
archive format, truncating to 8589934591 bytes

I am running Digital Unix 4.0D on a Alpha 4100. Does anyone have
information or a solution of this problem?

Regards,
Steve March
Airgas, Inc.
e-mail: Steve.March_at_airgas.com
Received on Fri Dec 15 2000 - 15:30:16 NZDT

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