UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Im trying to use tar to backup the os directories. I have a file called bdirs which contains a list of the directories that im trying to backup:

/bin
/dev
/devices
/etc
/export
/home
/kernel
/lib
/local
/mnt
/opt
/platform
/proc
/sbin
start
/usr
/var
/vol
/xfn

Im then using the follwoing command to backup these directories:

tar -cvf /tmp/osbak.tar -I /tmp/bdirs -X /tmp/exfile

The problem im getting is the tar command seems to recursivly try to backup the floppy disk:

a /dev/fd/0 OK
a /dev/fd/0 OK
a /dev/fd/0 OK


Ive tried puting this directory in an exclude file but it doesnt seem to have made a difference.

Any ideas?

A quick suggestion - post the script - makes trouble shooting easier (for myself anyways).

It would really help if you would tell us what os and system that you are using. But it looks like you are using SunOS. On SunOS, /dev/fd/x is a psuedo filesystem. Use "man -s4 fd" for info. The floppy driver is called fd, but the devices are called stuff like "/dev/diskette".

You will never succeed in backing up /dev/fd on a sun. You're just causing tar to effectively dup its own file descriptors.

Thanks perdarbo, good guess, im using sun solaris 2.6

Im not particuarly bothered about backing up the /dev/fd directory. Iven tried including /dev/fd in the exlude file

-X /tmp/exfile

but to no avail. I think the problem maybe to do with the way tar recursivly searches subdirectories but im not sure.