'tar -xvf' command filled up /dev/root

UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users
1

On a newly configured hp unix server, I got the following error while I was trying to untar a file:

tar -xvf 9201rdbms.tar
....
/htc_ora_prod/stage9.2.0_64bit/Disk2/stage/Components/oracle.rdbms.seeddb.compoltp/9.2.0.1.0/1/DataFiles/Expanded/seed/templates/Transaction_Processing.dfj, 174282115 bytes, 340395 tape blocks

msgcnt 2 vxfs: mesg 001: vx_nospace - /dev/root file system full (1 block extent)
tar: /htc_ora_prod/stage9.2.0_64bit/Disk2/stage/Components/oracle.rdbms.seeddb.compoltp/9.2.0.1.0/1/DataFiles/Expanded/seed/templates/Transaction_Processing.dfj: HELP - extract write error
# bdf /dev/root
Filesystem          kbytes    used   avail %used Mounted on
/dev/root          1048576 1048576       0  100%

Question:
1) Did the tar command fill up the filesysem and what is the fix?
2) what does /dev/root do?
Thanks.

2

Just check something. Is there a seperate filesystem mounted under the '/htc_ora_prod' directory? If not, the directory is in the root filesystem due to which the root has got full.
Do one thing, create a filesystem and mount it under the '/htc_ora_prod' directory - then try to extract the tarball.

3

I believe that GNU tar allows you to specify an alternate root path.

The problem is that the tar file was created using an explicit path. An explicit path always starts with /, and means it starts from root. A relative path would be something like local/bin/wget when you have cd'd to /usr.

Tar files are best made relative, unless you want to insure the files are put back exactly where they came from (like a database). You can use 'tar -tvf' to show what files are stored, and evaluate the path before extracting.

hope that helps.