UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi! All,

This is True64 Unix, 4.0.F patch kit 4

I have a 15GB Oracle dump file that I have to backup to tape. I am trying to use "tar" to dump it to tape, but
tar complained that the file was too big and that it was
truncating it!.

I am compressing the file using the "compress" utility.
Now, here comes the BIG IF?

1. Is there a limit on the file size that can be tar-rd?
I did not find anything in the man pages.

2. What do I do if tar complains even after the compression?

3. Won't the file get corrupted if it's truncated??

What next?

Please lead me to the light!!!!

Suresh

For as I understand there should not be a limit on the Tar command - it is designed to do large files.

I prefered to do a UFS dump to tape though on large files
Here is the tape backup script I use after mounting the tape

for i in `cat /backup/fslist`
do
ufsdump 0cuf servername:/dev/rmt/0n $i
done
echo "****************"
echo " BACKUP COMPLETED "
echo "****************"

The /bakcup/fslist file contains all the directories I wanna backup. And servername = your servername

I understand your pain, I got 8 Oracle databases on each of my servers, I wanna kill my DBA....

See:
man -s5 largefile
That should tell you whether the tar on your system supports largefiles ( > 2GB) or not.
Or you can use some vairant of the dump command to dump the entire filesystem.
Better still, why don't you use some other backup software like Veritas or it's likes?

Thanks n9ninchd, and NoOne for your responses!

The man -s5 largefile did not work on the True64 box, but it did work on the Solaris!

herez the latest!
1.initial dmp file---> 15 GB
2.tar complained --> compressed the file--> 10 GB
3.now tar worked! (No errors)
4.On listing the contents of the tar tape
the file was listed as a 8.5GB file!
5.We did not have any problems, when we restored the file
from tape to a Solaris box.(File is 8.5GB)
6. Right now we are uncompressing it--

Somehow, all this seems a bit weird to me!-- no errors/complaints, but the file sizes are not the same.

I am waiting to restore the Oracle tables to confirm......

We are using Legato for backup- but that has not been working, and we are trying alternate backup of the critical files.

yes, we'll probably do the "dump"- but that'll have to be during DB downtime!

Any thoughts/suggestions......?

Suresh


[Edited by sdharmap on 05-11-2001 at 03:04 PM]