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Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2017 22:21:12 +0200
From: =?UTF-8?Q?Sol=C3=A8ne_Rapenne?= <solene@perso.pw>
To: David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com>
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: tar: Failed to open '/dev/sa0'
In-Reply-To: <9369978e-7041-3ef9-2cb4-66555054425b@holgerdanske.com>
References: <9369978e-7041-3ef9-2cb4-66555054425b@holgerdanske.com>
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Je 2017-06-18 20:59, David Christensen skribis:
> FreeBSD questions:
> 
> 
> BSD tar also fails:
> 
> 2017-06-18 11:52:56 dpchrist@freebsd ~
> $ tar --version
> bsdtar 3.2.1 - libarchive 3.2.1 zlib/1.2.8 liblzma/5.2.2 bz2lib/1.0.6
> 
> 2017-06-18 11:53:14 dpchrist@freebsd ~
> $ tar c .thunderbird > dpchrist-thunderbird-20170618.tar
> tar: Failed to open '/dev/sa0'
> 
> 
> What's the problem?
> 
> 

hello,

I think the syntax should be

tar cf - .thunderbird > output.tar

or

tar cf output.tar .thunderbird

/dev/sd0 is a tape device IIRC, tar assume you want to save to a tape
by default, that's why you have to use the f flag (to a file or to
standard output)