Very Computer

Hi Experts:

   Sorry, I misspelled this newsgroup's name when
trying to cross post from the X86 group.

   I discovered a month ago that cpio, which I've
been using for years, no longer extracts files I've
archived.  It suddenly complains about the inode
value being too large, and fails to recover.  

   Fortunately, I also perform full system backups
using ufsdump, and nothing major is lost.  But my
next account backup was with tar.  

   I think it sucks severely that Solaris is being
shipped with unreliable backup utilities.  These
facilities are too important.  Anybody with me?  

   I used that tar tape to recover my account today,
and got the following error shortly after starting:

      tar: directory checksum error

   I used cpio on my Solaris PC to back up my account
on an NFS mounted Linux system, without a tape of its
own.  This was when I still trusted cpio.  Recovery
with cpio, of course, failed.  I really needed the
contents of that tape, and found that I could recover
that tape's files with gnu cpio.  

   The most important question I have is, can I trust
ufsdump?  I use Andrew Gabriel's great utilities that
rely on ufsdump and ufsrestore.  

   I want something portable between Solaris and Linux
to recover my account.  What do you folks use to backup
your user accounts to tape?  

                                              Thanks
                                              Larry

HI,

I think I have read somwhere that cpio is more or less on it's way out.

Quote:

>    Fortunately, I also perform full system backups
> using ufsdump, and nothing major is lost.  But my
> next account backup was with tar.  

>    I think it sucks severely that Solaris is being
> shipped with unreliable backup utilities.  These
> facilities are too important.  Anybody with me?  

ofcourse, but what sucks?

Quote:

>    I used that tar tape to recover my account today,
> and got the following error shortly after starting:

>       tar: directory checksum error

First, don't use SUN tar due to limitations in PATH depth, second stick
to one tar, like GNU tar then on all platforms.

Quote:

>    I used cpio on my Solaris PC to back up my account
> on an NFS mounted Linux system, without a tape of its
> own.  This was when I still trusted cpio.  Recovery
> with cpio, of course, failed.  I really needed the
> contents of that tape, and found that I could recover
> that tape's files with gnu cpio.  

>    The most important question I have is, can I trust
> ufsdump?  I use Andrew Gabriel's great utilities that
> rely on ufsdump and ufsrestore.  

I like and have not had any problems with ufsdump, I do ufsdump from
disk to disk for daily backup, very nice although I would like to have
completion in ufsrestore :)

But you can not do verify on a live system, thats the problem so you
need to use fssnap first to frezze the filesystem onto a temp disk, then
ufsdump from that place.
 >
 >    I want something portable between Solaris and Linux
 > to recover my account.  What do you folks use to backup
 > your user accounts to tape?

gtar :)

/michael

...

Quote:>   I used that tar tape to recover my account today,
>and got the following error shortly after starting:

>      tar: directory checksum error

>   I used cpio on my Solaris PC to back up my account
>on an NFS mounted Linux system, without a tape of its
>own.  This was when I still trusted cpio.  Recovery
>with cpio, of course, failed.  I really needed the
>contents of that tape, and found that I could recover

...

Quote:>   I want something portable between Solaris and Linux
>to recover my account.  What do you folks use to backup
>your user accounts to tape?  

If you use GNU tar on Linux and tar on Solaris, this may be the problem.

GNU tar is using a nonstandard way to do some things that may lead
to tar: directory checksum error messages.

If you are working on different platforms, I recommend star

ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star

http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php

--



URL:  http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/usr/schilling ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

Quote:>>    I used that tar tape to recover my account today,
>> and got the following error shortly after starting:

>>       tar: directory checksum error
>First, don't use SUN tar due to limitations in PATH depth, second stick
>to one tar, like GNU tar then on all platforms.

If you have long path names, don't use GNU tar because it uses a non standard
way to archive long path names.

SUN tar perfectly implements POSIX.1-1988 TAR archives with medium sized
path names and a precursor of the POSIX.1-2001 extended TAR format for
really long path names.

Star implements POSIX.1-1988 TAR and the final POSIX.1-2001 extended TAR format
as well as the SUN precursor version of the format.

General rule of thumb:

Avoid to create archives with GNU tar because most TAR implementations cannot
deal with the GNU tar extensions.

Try to use star if possible because star automatically deals with all TAR format
variants.

ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star

http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php

--



URL:  http://www.fokus.fraunhofer.de/usr/schilling ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

   I didn't run any tar on Linux.  I did use gnu tar running
on Solaris X86 to back up my account on the NFS mounted
Linux file system.  

   For grins, I tried to extract using /usr/bin/tar, but
that didn't work either.  

Quote:> If you are working on different platforms, I recommend star

> ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star

> http://www.blastwave.org/packages.php

   I'm leaning toward star.  I've been burned, not too badly,
by a utility that must work.  

   I appreciate your advice.  

                                                       Thanks
                                                       Larry

   Yep, I haven't used Sun's tar for a long time.  I've
been using gnu tar.  

Quote:> >    I used cpio on my Solaris PC to back up my account
> > on an NFS mounted Linux system, without a tape of its
> > own.  This was when I still trusted cpio.  Recovery
> > with cpio, of course, failed.  I really needed the
> > contents of that tape, and found that I could recover
> > that tape's files with gnu cpio.

> >    The most important question I have is, can I trust
> > ufsdump?  I use Andrew Gabriel's great utilities that
> > rely on ufsdump and ufsrestore.
> I like and have not had any problems with ufsdump, I do ufsdump from
> disk to disk for daily backup, very nice although I would like to have
> completion in ufsrestore :)

   What do you mean by "completion"?

   Have you looked at Andrew's utility?  It's sweet.  I
low level my drives and start Solaris from the CD in single
user mode.  Andrew's script formats and partitions the
drives as they were.  15 minutes after booting the tape is
turning and files are being recovered.  

   He built it for X86, you might check with him if you
want to use it with SPARC.  

   I've made minor mods so it will recover all my filesystems
with no user intervention.  

Quote:> But you can not do verify on a live system, thats the problem so you
> need to use fssnap first to frezze the filesystem onto a temp disk, then
> ufsdump from that place.

   Yea, system backup and recovery are a single user mode
operation.  Something I can do on my own workstation.  I
backup my account on a live system.  

Quote:>  >    I want something portable between Solaris and Linux
>  > to recover my account.  What do you folks use to backup
>  > your user accounts to tape?

> gtar :)

   Yea, but that's what bit me.  

   Computers have hiccups.  This is the first time I used
gnu tar, instead of cpio, for my account backup.  And I
got hit.  It may be that gnu tar is fine, and I'll never
have this problem again.  But I think it's worth seeing
what others are using.  

   Thanks for your advice.  

                                                   Larry