SUMMARY: 2GB tarfile Error

From: Martin Schumacher (mschu@wst.edvz.sbg.ac.at)
Date: Thu Feb 06 1997 - 11:02:33 CST


Here is the question I asked to sun-managers:

> Hello!
>
> I just wanted to create a very big tar file,
>
> tar cvf staff.tar /home/staff
>
> but I got this error
>
> tar: can't write to staff.tar : Invalid argument
>
> when the size of the file was exactly 2147481600 bytes.
>
> Hmm, 2 KB more and it would be (2 pow 32)/2.
>
> Seems like an internal tar error with an signed integer?
>
> Does anyone know a workaround?
>
>
> thx in advance
> -- Martin

The solution is very simple, and I want to thank the nearly
hundred people who told it to me.

THE PROBLEM:

1. It is no problem of tar itself, it is much more a problem
   of the SunOS and Solaris filesystem!
   It is not possible to create files bigger than 2GB until
   you use a 64 bit operating System like Solaris 2.6

WORKAROUNDS:

2. So, when you tar onto a tape you can create files bigger
   than 2GB.

3. a nice little script (thanks to Peter Bestel)
   to break the stuff into pieces
 
        mkdir /tmp/staff
        cd /home/staff
        for dir in *
         do
                echo $dir
                tar cf /tmp/staff/$dir.tar ./$dir
         done

4. compress the data and hope it won't get bigger than 2GB
   (thanks to Jens Fischer and many others)

        tar cvf - /home/staff |compress > staff.tar.Z

MANY THANKS TO:

"Matthew Stier" <Matthew.Stier@MCI.Com>
Chad Adams <cadams@crrel41.crrel.usace.army.mil>
nsp83273@cae091.ed.ray.com (Neal S. Pressman ex 2317)
"Daniel M. Eischen" <deischen@iworks.InterWorks.org>
Daniel Lorenzini <lorenzd@gcm.com>
"Trevor Paquette" <tpaquett@AEC.CA>
Tim Evans <tkevans@eplrx7.es.dupont.com>
Michael Blandford <mikey@lanl.gov>
"Matthew Stier" <Matthew.Stier@MCI.Com>
"Alfredo Sola" <adminsis@intelideas.com>
deuskar@cat.com (Shridhar Deuskar)
"Coffindaffer, Virginia@MacPO1" <CoffindafferVirginia@wangfed.com>
bismark@alta.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Bismark Espinoza)
David Fetrow <fetrow@biostat.washington.edu>
cecilp@adonis.westel.com (Cecil Pang)
poffen@San-Jose.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Charles Mengel <crm@lgi.com>
"RAJMANI.US.ORACLE.COM" <RAJMANI@us.oracle.com>
gmp@adc.com (Gregory M Polanski)
miquel@proton.uab.es (Miquel Cabanas. BBM-UAB)
Martin Hofbauer Bacher Systems EDV GmbH <mh@mobil.bacher.co.at>
intrepid!tb@uunet.uu.net
Mike Varney <mlv03@health.state.ny.us>
Bob Bennett <bbennett@nh.aspectdv.com>
baldma@aur.alcatel.com (Mark A. Baldwin)
springer@aitsun500.tci.com (Jerry Springer)
Rich Kulawiec <rsk@itw.com>
Satish Somanath <satish@lvision.com>
Kevin.Sheehan@uniq.com.au (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
"James J. Waldram" <waldram@cat.UWYO.EDU>
Sean Ward <seanw@amgen.com>
John DiMarco <jdd@cs.toronto.edu>
Daniel Baldoni <dbaldoni@freport.wa.gov.au>
peter.bestel@uniq.com.au (Peter Bestel)
Satish Somanath <satish@lvision.com>
richard@zeus.hud.ac.uk (Richard Neale)
rtrzaska@uk.mdis.com (Ray Trzaska)
Duncan White <css1dw@ee.surrey.ac.uk>
Tim Pointing <Tim.Pointing@dciem.dnd.ca>
Jens Fischer <jefi@kat.ina.de>
Glenn Carver <glenn@atm.ch.cam.ac.uk>
john benjamins <johnb@Soliton.COM>
gerhard@jason.nl (Gerhard den Hollander)

-- Martin

-----------------------------------------------------------
| Martin.Schumacher@sbg.ac.at | System Administrator |
| Unix Support Group (USG) | http://www.sbg.ac.at/~usg |
| University Of Salzburg | Tel: +43 (662) 8044 6731 |
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