From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Nov 23 13:39:05 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 62B4416A4CE for ; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:39:05 +0000 (GMT) Received: from aiolos.otenet.gr (aiolos.otenet.gr [195.170.0.23]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F73B43D5A for ; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:39:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: from orion.daedalusnetworks.priv (aris.bedc.ondsl.gr [62.103.39.226])iANDcwqf026862; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:38:58 +0200 Received: from orion.daedalusnetworks.priv (orion [127.0.0.1]) iANDcuxx017055; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:38:56 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from keramida@localhost)iANDcu1h017048; Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:38:56 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 15:38:56 +0200 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Derrick Ryalls Message-ID: <20041123133856.GB13159@orion.daedalusnetworks.priv> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Odd Tar behavior X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:39:05 -0000 On 2004-11-22 17:00, Derrick Ryalls wrote: > I just observed some really strange behavior with a tar file in my > backup script. Using a command like tar -cf /someplace/www.tar www > (when in /usr/local) it produces a 2 Meg file. Under webroot, there > are several files that are 500+ meg in size, so this size value is > suspect, though it only took a few seconds to create the archive. > > The weird part comes in when I untar www.tar. Suddenly all files > are there in their full sized glory, leading me to believe that I am > only saving file pointers or something. Also, it isn't a > compression issue as I am not using compression, and the files > themselves really aren't very compressable. Whatever the case, how > do I use tar to create reliable backups, including large files? Hmm, check that you are not archiving symbolic links instead of the files themselves. If that is the case, you might want to use the -H option of tar.