Subject: tar becomes (too ?) picky.
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Martin Weber <Ephaeton@gmx.net>
List: current-users
Date: 05/05/2003 16:46:18
Hoi.
I have a backup script for my mails which does, among other things basically
the following:
touch $TARFILE
for i in <backup-list> ; do
tar -rf $TARFILE $i || exit 1
...
done
Well. I'm failing with the funniest kinds of errors, and I wonder why
it stopped working, or rather, if that is intended. Fwiw, I use that
script monthly, and last month it worked fine :)
The things I'm seeing when I'm doing the above (create an empty archive
with touch and then append to it) is:
tar: Unexpected EOF on archive file
BUT it appends the file, and then (after imo successful operation) exits
1 ! *grumble*. Fine, I then created a file with some metadata which starts
out in the tar archive.
echo "something" > meta
tar -cf $TARFILE meta && rm -f meta
for i in ... ; do
tar -rf $TARFILE $i || exit 1
...
done
This works fine for the first two or three files then it spreads joy with
tar: Unable to append, archive header flaw
tar: Cannot append to an archive that may have flaws.
uh huh. So tar wants to say : "Pardon me, I was too dumb to create a flawless
header, have pity and don't use append" ?
Can anyone please tell me what I'm missing ? Thanks in advance,
-Martin