Facing issues with tar and gzip !

Hi,
I am trying to :-
(1.) Tar the file and then
(2.) Gzip it !

Tar command :-
 
tar -cvf BLUESTAR_Archive.log_$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M).tar  /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs
 
 
Gzip command :-
 
Gzip  /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs/BLUESTAR_Archive.log_$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M).tar 
 
 

Bothe of these commands are working fine but the problem is regarding the file size.

After doing the tar and gzip operation the size of the file keeps on increasing which is expected to be less or same as the previous gzip files.

Extract :-
 
-rw-r--r--  173471   Jul  9 13:03 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_09_13_03.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  318456   Jul  9 13:14 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_09_13_14.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1031131 Jul  9 13:15 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_09_13_15.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  1523045 Jul  9 13:16 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_09_13_16.tar.gz
-rw-r--r--  3020915 Jul  9 13:18 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_09_13_18.tar.gz
 
 

The size of the parent file doesn�t increase beyond 2000000 !!!!!

I am not able to understand that why the size of the files after gzip keeps on increasing when the size of the parent file doesn�t increase beyond 2000000 !!!!

When I delete the older logs the gzip again starts behaving in the same fashion i.e the 1st file of less size and gradually the size of files increases like the above one .
I am very surprised by this behavior !

Could anyone please help me to understand the problem or is there something wrong with my logic or way of doing it !!!!

Is there any other command similar to tar and gzip ??

Please help.

Regrads.

Why are you surprised? You are archiving all the same logs over and over. Naturally your archives get bigger over time, the later files hold all the old files plus newer ones.

Your archives are under /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs so they they get included in the tar archive ! The more times you run it, the bigger it gets.

hey Methyl & Corona688 thanks a lot for the prompt reply !!

Could you please let me know the way. So that the tar archieve doesn't gets included and which in turn doesn't increase the file size !

Please let me know the way/ solution to resolve this issue.

What modifications needs to be done in the script so that this type of problem doesn't occurs !!!

Thanks in advance !

---------- Post updated at 09:16 PM ---------- Previous update was at 09:08 PM ----------

An update !

After taking the backup of the parent file. I run the following command to make the parent file of size 0 :-

 
cat /dev/null > BLUESTAR_Archive.log
 

What I am confused at is that after taking the backup and making the parent file contents nill i.e. size 0 !!!

Then also after ding the tar and gzip task on a file. The file size still keeps on increasing !!!

I don't understand why this is happening ??

Run this command and check whats is getting tarred!!

tar -tvf <tar_file>

Hi Zedex,

Thanks for the post !

I tried using :-

 
tar -tvf <tar_file>

After executing it. All the list of the backup log files were displayed. The size of the file doesn't got reduced. Like before it is again doing the tar and gzip operation on the already done files and because of that the size of the backup file is increasing !!!

---------- Post updated at 01:08 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:39 PM ----------

Hi,
Please let me explain my requirement and the bottleneck!
My Requirement:-
In our main file BLUESTAR_Archieve.log the logs gets appended every day.
So, we are required to take the back-up of the log files daily based on timestamp.
For this I have written a script :-

 
#!/bin/ksh
# A shell script ------------------------------------------------------------------
cd /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs
 
find BLUESTAR_Archieve.log -exec cp {} BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M) \;
 
tar �cvf BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M).tar /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs
 
gzip /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs/ BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M) 
 
mv BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M) .tar.gz /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs /LogsBackup
 
rm �f /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs / BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M)
 
cat /dev/null > BLUESTAR_Archieve.log
 

Problem :-
The script is running fine.
But when I checked the back-up log files. The size of the files are increasing :-

-rw-r--r-- 1734571 Jul 9 10:03 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_10_10_03.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 3318456 Jul 9 10:10 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_10_10_10.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 12031131 Jul 9 10:15 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_10_10_15.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 41523045 Jul 9 10:26 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_10_10_26.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 66620915 Jul 9 10:38 BLUESTAR_Archive.log.log_12_07_10_10_38.tar.gz
 

After getting the post from fellow members. I came to realize that the tar and gzip are performing the action on the files on which this action had already been performed.
I tried the below command also :-

Tar �tvf <tar_file >

But this is displaying all the files in the BackupLogs !!!

Is there any way around. So, that the tar and gzip don�t perform the same operations on the already performed files.
I don't need the tar and gzip to perform the same action on the already done files. Instead it should be doing the tar and gzip action only on new files !
Please suggest/ help !

Thanks

Of course it gets larger!

Day 1: you archive today.og
day 2: you archive yesterday.log, today.log
day 3: you archive 2 days ago.log, yesterday.log, today.log
...and so on.

This is not strange or unexpected.

Solution: Don't do that. Either delete the old files after archiving them, or exclude them.

The latest script posted is contains typing errors (not just the spelling of Archive). There is an extra space character in the destination of the mv command /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs /LogsBackup which could be a disaster.
There are two extra spaces in:
rm �f /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs / BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M)
which will give rm three separate arguments.

Anyway the process seems to contain the same design problem:

/app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs/LogsBackup
is a subdirectory of:
/app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs
so your tar will pick up the lot.

Now if your directory structure was like this, you would not have the problem:

/app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs
/app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/LogsBackup

I wonder ...?

Do understand this command? Ignoring the typing errors (extra space after .log) and the spelling of Archive.
It would take the entire contents of the directory tree /app/local/XXX/XXX/XXX/logs and archive it into an archive file called BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M).tar .
The command as stated does not create a tar archive of the single file called BLUESTAR_Archieve.log _$(date +%y_%m_%d_%H_%M) .

Also, evaluation the current time in every command is not a good idea. One day your script will overlap a change of minute.

I think that we need to know what the script is meant to do. If there is only one log, the tar is pointless.

Thanks Corona688 !!!

Even I also think so !

---------- Post updated at 12:39 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:37 PM ----------

Hey Methyl thanks a lot !!