*BSD News Article 4144


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!darwin.sura.net!jvnc.net!nuscc!ntuix!eoahmad
From: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
Subject: tar 'multivolume' bugs and workaround workound
Message-ID: <1992Aug26.041547.26517@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>
Organization: Nanyang Technological University - Singapore
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 04:15:47 GMT
Lines: 53

gnu tar 1.10 which comes with 386bsd bin01 distribution "cannot" do multivolume
compressed backup but can do uncompressed multivolume backup.

There is a need to reduce the temporary file storage for systems with limited
disk space. 0.1 method of distribution requires that the entire files must
first be loaded before they can be extracted.
	0.0 was better because it does not have to so was much faster and
does not require a lot of tmp space.

The solution was that I used to backup my root device is to

tar -cvpzf ar.tar.Z
tar -cvMf /dev/rfd1a

To extract: the O option extracts to stdout instead of to files

tar -xMOf /dev/rfd1a | tar xvzf -

I do not manage to recover the symbolic links. Maybe I missed some options.

Someone who wants to extract bin01, may try my method like this. This is only
an idea. I do not need to do it because I have sufficient disk space(60Mbyte).


cd /tmp
mread "a:*.*" . ; for all disks
tar -cvMf /dev/rfd1a

;to extract

tar -xvMOf /dev/rfd1a | uncompress | cpio -idalm 
 

Anyone would like to try?
I may do that using etc distribution which uses up 20 disketes. I have not
even managed to download all of them. The filelists already take up the
first 20 files. I cannot even extract bash which is what I need the most,
after downloading the first 20 files.

IMHO the utilities in etc01 should be distributed in normal compressed tar
format as previously was done for 0.0 instead of being jumbled into
 90 files which must all be downloaded together.

Chris, are you reading?



--
Othman bin Ahmad, School of EEE,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2263.
Internet Email: eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
Bitnet Email: eoahmad@ntuvax.bitnet