Strange behavior with tar

UNIX AIX
1

I am trying to create an archive using tar. I am specifying a list of directories using the -L option. For testing purposes I created a simple directory structure:

/backup/test
/backup/test/test1
/backup/test/test2

The file specified by the -L option, named files.txt, contains:
-C/backup/test
test1
test2

The command I am executing is:

 tar -cvf test.tar -Lfiles.txt

The archive is created, but I am getting some strange output. Here a sample:

tar: can't change directories to _=/usr/bin: No such file or directory
tar: can't change directories to TMPDIR=: No such file or directory
tar: LANG=en_US: No such file or directory
tar: can't change directories to tmp=: No such file or directory
.
.
.
a test1
a test2

There are "No such file or directory" messages for every environment variable currently set.

I have used this same method on Linux with no issues, but AIX is not cooperating.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Thanks!!

2

What is - Cfiles.txt supposed to do?
for me -C is to change directory...

Linux is not UNIX hehe
(G)tar is not tar nor vim is vi...

3

oops, that is supposed to be -Lfiles.txt
the actual command that is producing the error strange behavior is:
tar -cvf test.tar -Lfiles.txt

...was up late trying to get this resolved

4

Whats is in that file? Because it seems the content isnt good (syntax or non printable chars?)
What the file generated from windows?

5

The file has only these 3 lines:
-C/backup/test
test1
test2

It was created on the server with vi. I don't see any control characters in it.

6

What is test1 test2 ?
/backup/test if is a directory it will create the directory, but will not backup the files in it...
the idea of -L is to give a list file with all you want for tar (and I suppose it does not use joker because I dont use it... haha
I will go and test...)

7

demo:

file.txt:
/usr/bin/
/usr/bin/ls
/usr/bin/vi
/usr/local/etc/
/usr/local/etc/*

n12:/home/vbe $ tar -cvf /home/vbe/test.tar -L/home/vbe/file.txt    
a /usr/bin/
a /usr/bin/ls 53 blocks
a /usr/bin/vi 713 blocks
a /usr/local/etc/
tar: /usr/local/etc/*: No such file or directory

So the listfile must be exaustif - no * ? ... only files and directories one by one...
and listing a directory doesnt mean it will backup its content...

8

On my RedHat Linux, "man tar" says:

I have never seen that -L flag behave the way you describe on Linux. -L is documented on IBM's AIX web site but it says it is a list of files and directories. "-C/backup/test" therefore should indicate that that the current directory has a subdirectory named "-C". You seem to think that you can put command line options in your file. I don't see any language to support that. But I have no AIX to test.

9

/backup/test is a directory, /backup/test/test1 and /backup/test/test2 are directories as well.

The command I am using to test this will not grab any files in test1 or test2, but if I add the -R option, it will.

Right now, I'm just trying to keep it simple to resolve this issue.

The purpose of doing this is that I want to archive test1 and test2, but I do not want the path to be stored.

So, given these directories:
/backup/test/test1
/backup/test/test2

I want to archive to contain test1 and test2, not /backup/test/test1 and /backup/test/test2.

files.txt could ultimately contain 100+ different directories to archive, which is why I am trying to use the -L option instead on using -C on the command line

---------- Post updated at 11:31 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:29 AM ----------

the tar command is different between Linux and UNIX. On Linux, using a file to list the items to be archived it done with the "-T" option, but its done with "-L" on UNIX, at least AIX...