Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:40:30 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> To: Leif Neland <leif@neland.dk> Cc: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Filesystem holes Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0010300109440.86769-100000@ren.sasknow.com> In-Reply-To: <01a801c04236$ed0a0d20$0e00a8c0@neland.dk>
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Leif Neland wrote to Ryan Thompson and Matt Dillon: > > What will happen, if somebody (possibly you, as mahordomo says), tries to > make a backup of that file. Make sure to use a program that can cope ;-) > Will the copy also be with holes, or would that file suddenly use all 96GB? > It will at least do so, if one does cat file>file.bak > Probably tar will do the same. Actually, tar will handle holes elegantly (this I have tested), with the --sparse option. Older versions would not. cat and other similar "filters" are naive, as they simply block I/O. Backing up with tar and/or a filesystem dump would be just as effective as with any other storage strategy. cat file > file.bak on even a 2GB file is probably not something that would be popular, anyway. > I'd be afraid to create something which could easily blow up by having > normal operations applied to it. That's a valid concern. That's the biggest drawback I see to the overall strategy... But, specialized problems sometimes encourage specialized solutions. > > Leif > -- Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> Network Administrator, Accounts Phone: +1 (306) 664-1161 SaskNow Technologies http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E Saskatoon, SK S7H 0W2 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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