GNU TAR on AIX - problems 1

[KolesG]

Hello!

I have to move a large database (400GB) via the FTP and I would like to tar gzip it first.

Since AIX 5.3's TAR utility does not handle source files above 15GB, I installed GNU TAR on source AIX 5.2 and destination AIX 5.3 machines.

On source machine I tried to gtar directory:

[tt]gtar zcvf file.tar.gz directory[/tt]

I got the folllowing error at the end:

[tt]gtar: Error exit delayed from previous errors[/tt]

But I ignored it.

Now when I want to list files in archive:

[tt]gtar tvf file.tar.gz[/tt]

I get the following output:

[tt]gtar: This does not look like a tar archive
gtar: Skipping to next header
gtar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers
gtar: Archive contains `\004|E?\217ü)%?\001\b?' where numeric off_t value expected
gtar: Archive contains `?(?\006\220\227.?' where numeric mode_t value expected
gtar: Archive contains `¤°\032@^\\I5\000ATA' where numeric time_t value expected
gtar: Archive contains `?\222?WT[??' where numeric major_t value expected
gtar: Archive contains `x¨\a¨´\023eM' where numeric minor_t value expected
gtar: Archive contains `\006?D\226\004\221\024f' where numeric uid_t value expected
gtar: Archive contains `\001o­J)e^?' where numeric gid_t value expected[/tt]

and so on...

Is there another easy way to archive big files to one file with compression in AIX 5.2 and 5.3?

 

[p5wizard]

try
[tt]gtar [red]z[/red]tvf file.tar.gz[/tt]
to automagically gunzip your tarball before listing the contents...


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[KolesG]

Thank you, that was it.

Do you know what that strange error means when making tar.gz file:

[tt]gtar: Error exit delayed from previous errors[/tt]

Can I ignore it?

 

[p5wizard]

No, I don't , but I'm sure google does ;-)

I can guess though: gtar had difficulties in reading one or more files (or sending some files to the tarball) and remembered those errors to report them as a "general failure error" at the end of processing.

See what this does:

[tt]gtar zcf file.tar.gz directory[/tt]

without the [tt]v[/tt]. It should produce less stderr and maybe you can see the different error messages?

HTH,

p5wizard