Re: tar 1.13.17 Alpha Linux problems

[James W. McKelvey]

On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Paul Eggert wrote:
> > From: "James W. McKelvey" <address@hidden>
> > Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 10:55:30 -0700
> > 
> > tar: : Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
> 
> I think this bug may be fixed in the latest test version.
> Can you please give it a try?
> ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.13.25.tar.gz

No, I get the same thing:

.bash_history
Verify Sun_Apr_14_13_30_31_PDT_2002
Verify 
/usr/local/bin/gtar: : Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
Verify lost+found/

> 
> > tar: /dev/st0: Cannot read: Input/output error
> > ...
> > I know it could be a drive or tape problem, but it's suspicious that this
> > always happens at the end of the archive. There are only a few small files
> > to go, so I wonder whether tar is trying to read too far.
> 
> Yes, that sounds plausible.  This sort of problem tends to be specific
> to tape drive model, though, so if it is a tar bug I'm afraid you'll
> have to find out what's happening, with GDB say.

 OK, I'll investigate. It's not a verify problem, because I get the same
error doing a gtar tvf. It could be a problem flushing out the last
partial block.

By the way, there's a minor problem with --exclude that's a real puzzle. My
dump script writes to a log file, and I try to exclude the log file. But
it won't be excluded! So I always get minor errors about the mod time and
size. 

Here's the script I use:

#! /bin/bash -x

mt -f /dev/st0 retension
mt -f /dev/st0 rewind

label=`date | tr " :" "__"`

log=$PWD/$label.log

echo $log

# Make sure $log exists
touch $log

cd /

/usr/local/bin/gtar --create --label $label --verify --verbose \
    --file /dev/st0 --totals --preserve-permissions \
    --exclude /proc --exclude /tmp --exclude /mnt \
    --exclude /dev --exclude /var/spool --exclude $log \
    --exclude /SmaugA --exclude /SmaugB --exclude /SmaugC \
    / >$log 2>&1

status=$?

mt -f /dev/st0 rewind
mt -f /dev/st0 offline

if test $status != 0
then
    echo "Failure $status" 1>&2
fi

exit $status


thanx,

Jim

-- 
All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky
-- W.H. Auden