tar--limits ????

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1

Hi! All,

This is True64 Unix, 4.0.F patch kit 4

I have a 15GB Oracle dump file that I have to backup to tape. I am trying to use "tar" to dump it to tape, but
tar complained that the file was too big and that it was
truncating it!.

I am compressing the file using the "compress" utility.
Now, here comes the BIG IF?

  1. Is there a limit on the file size that can be tar-rd?
    I did not find anything in the man pages.

  2. What do I do if tar complains even after the compression?

  3. Won't the file get corrupted if it's truncated??

What next? :frowning:

Please lead me to the light!!!!

Suresh

2

For as I understand there should not be a limit on the Tar command - it is designed to do large files.

I prefered to do a UFS dump to tape though on large files
Here is the tape backup script I use after mounting the tape

for i in `cat /backup/fslist`
do
ufsdump 0cuf servername:/dev/rmt/0n $i
done
echo ""
echo " BACKUP COMPLETED "
echo ""

The /bakcup/fslist file contains all the directories I wanna backup. And servername = your servername

I understand your pain, I got 8 Oracle databases on each of my servers, I wanna kill my DBA....

3

See:
man -s5 largefile
That should tell you whether the tar on your system supports largefiles ( > 2GB) or not.
Or you can use some vairant of the dump command to dump the entire filesystem.
Better still, why don't you use some other backup software like Veritas or it's likes?

4

Thanks n9ninchd, and NoOne for your responses!

The man -s5 largefile did not work on the True64 box, but it did work on the Solaris!

herez the latest!
1.initial dmp file---> 15 GB
2.tar complained --> compressed the file--> 10 GB
3.now tar worked! (No errors)
4.On listing the contents of the tar tape
the file was listed as a 8.5GB file! :frowning:
5.We did not have any problems, when we restored the file
from tape to a Solaris box.(File is 8.5GB)
6. Right now we are uncompressing it--

Somehow, all this seems a bit weird to me!-- no errors/complaints, but the file sizes are not the same.

I am waiting to restore the Oracle tables to confirm......

We are using Legato for backup- but that has not been working, and we are trying alternate backup of the critical files.

yes, we'll probably do the "dump"- but that'll have to be during DB downtime!

Any thoughts/suggestions......?

Suresh

[Edited by sdharmap on 05-11-2001 at 03:04 PM]