Re: GNU Tar question

[Paul Eggert]

> From: "Rowley, David" <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:53:20 -0400

> /usr/local/bin/tar: WARNING: Cannot close /dev/rmt/1 (3, -1): I/O error
> Prepare volume #2 for /dev/rmt/1 and hit return:

Did you hit RETURN at this point, or did it continue without your
hitting RETURN?

> /usr/local/bin/tar: Cannot open /dev/rmt/1: I/O error

The second error message makes it look like 'tar' did not manage to
reopen the file successfully.

Which version of GNU tar are you running?  How did you get your copy built?

Were you running GNU tar as part of a cron job, or were you running
it interactively from a terminal?

Can you use 'truss' to find out which system calls it is executing
when it runs into trouble?  (Warning: the output of "truss" will be
long.)  E.g.:

truss -o /tmp/tr /usr/local/bin/tar --multi-volume -cvf /dev/rmt/1 <filename>.gz

> 1. Why did we get error messages?

It's not entirely clear.

> 2. Is there a size limit to gnutar files?

Yes.  The limit depends on the tar version.

> 3. Is our tar command correct?  Are there other options we should use, maybe
> the "--tape-length" option?

--tape-length might help, if we can't figure out how to get it to work
with your EOT hardware.

> 4. Are there any bugs we should know about?

Perhaps.  You might try running the latest test version, at:
ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar/

> 5. Does the fact that the file was gzipped have any impact?  Should we have
> used the uncompressed file and then used hardware compression?

Typically gzip will compress better than hardware compression.

> First posting to this list.  Couldn't find a list for questions about gnu
> tar.  If this is the wrong forum for this question, please let me know.

Please send such messages to <address@hidden>.  Thanks.

> This message is in MIME format.

Can you please fix your email client to send text messages as plain text?
Thanks.