automount symlink problem

[Jeremy Sanders]

Hi

I get the feeling this an FAQ problem, but I can't find it mentioned. If I
have the linux automounter mounting a local export, it just symlinks it:

xpc12:~/www/logs> ls -l /home
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     system         21 Dec  4 09:24 jss ->
/xpc12_data1/home/jss

Using tar to attempt to back up the home directory (below), as expected
just backs up the symlink

xpc12:~> tar cvf temp.tar /home/jss
tar: Removing leading `/' from archive names
home/jss

However, putting a slash on the end of /home/jss doesn't help either:

xpc12:~> tar cvf temp.tar /home/jss/
tar: Removing leading `/' from archive names
home/jss

Schily's tar (star) backs up the home directory using the second command.

Is this a feature or tar bug? Is there a way around this? I don't want to
explicitly back up the proper location for the home directory, as it would
be a special case.

I've tested this on the tar (GNU tar) 1.13.17 version.

Thanks,

Jeremy

PS Please cc replies to me, as I'm not on the mailing list.

-- 
Jeremy Sanders <address@hidden>  http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jss/
Pembroke College, Cambridge. UK   Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. UK