Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1998 20:39:31 -0500 From: Randall Hopper <aa8vb@pagesz.net> To: Matthias Buelow <mkb@altair.mayn.de> Cc: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: bin/9135: tar doesn't back up device files Message-ID: <19981220203931.A1514@pagesz.net> In-Reply-To: <199812200439.FAA08087@altair.mayn.de>; from Matthias Buelow on Sun, Dec 20, 1998 at 05:39:31AM %2B0100 References: <199812200412.XAA10654@stealth.dummynet.> <199812200439.FAA08087@altair.mayn.de>
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Matthias Buelow: |"aa8vb@pagesz.net" wrote: | |> Using tar to backup my root partition, I find that tar can't |>back up many (around 80) of my device files. The errors are all of |>this form: |> |> tar: dev/da0s3: minor number too large; not dumped |> tar: dev/rda0s3: minor number too large; not dumped |> tar: dev/da0s4: minor number too large; not dumped | |That's why you should use cpio or dump to backup filesystems, not tar. I prefer to use tar because it seems to "have the smarts" to talk to a tape drive correctly. I don't know what's at work under-the-hood, but when I "tar -f /dev/nrsa0" to my Exabyte tape drive, I can archive a given tree in 20-30 min. If I use "cpio > /dev/nrsa0" (even if I compress before sending it to tape), it never finishes (well, I let it sit-and-spin for over 10 hours; no dice). And I can't do "cpio > file.cpio; tar -f /dev/nrst0 file.cpio" because I usually don't have as much free space available as is used. At any rate, it seems FreeBSD tar not working on a stock FreeBSD UFS tree is a bug. Is there a technical reason why it cannot work correctly? Thanks, Randall To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-bugs" in the body of the message
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