[Bug-tar] Recovering large backup file

[Sara Martínez-Alonso]

Hello,

I'm having problems recovering with tar large backup files (~4GB) I made under
Linux with the tar-based script below. I can recover smaller backup files (up
to ~3.9GB) with no problem. This is the error message I get:

tar xpf /mnt/disk3/BACKUP_LINUX/zahir-01Jul.tar
tar: Read 4095 bytes from /mnt/disk3/BACKUP_LINUX/zahir-01Jul.tar
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now

I don't think the backup files are corrupt; could this be a problem caused by
their size?

I've updated my tar version to 1.15.91 but that didn't help. I also tried
splitting the tar files using split-tar
(http://www.informatik-vollmer.de/software/split-tar); splitting and then
untaring worked with tar files under 4GB, but I couldn't get split-tar to work
with larger files.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Sara

backup.cron

#!/bin/sh
# full and incremental backup script
# created 07 February 2000
# Based on a script by Daniel O'Callaghan <address@hidden>
# and modified by Gerhard Mourani <address@hidden>

#Change the 5 variables below to fit your computer/backup

COMPUTER=zahir                                  # name of this computer
DIRECTORIES="/home/martinas"                    # directoris to backup
BACKUPDIR=/mnt/disk3/BACKUP_LINUX               # where to store the backups
TIMEDIR=/usr/local/bin/BACKUPS/LAST-FULL        # where to store time of full
backup
TAR=/bin/tar                                    # name and locaction of tar

#You should not have to change anything below here

PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
DOW=`date +%a`                          # Day of the week e.g. Mon
DOM=`date +%d`                          # Date of the Month e.g. 27
DM=`date +%d%b`                 # Date and Month e.g. 27Sep

# On the 1st of the month a permanet full backup is made
# Every Sunday a full backup is made - overwriting last Sundays backup
# The rest of the time an incremental backup is made. Each incremental
# backup overwrites last weeks incremental backup of the same name.
#
# if NEWER = "", then tar backs up all files in the directories
# otherwise it backs up files newer than the NEWER date. NEWER
# gets it date from the file written every Sunday.


# Monthly full backup
if [ $DOM = "01" ]; then
        NEWER=""
        $TAR $NEWER -cf $BACKUPDIR/$COMPUTER-$DM.tar $DIRECTORIES
fi

# Weekly full backup
if [ $DOW = "Sun" ]; then
        NEWER=""
        NOW=`date +%d-%b`

        # Update full backup date
        echo $NOW > $TIMEDIR/$COMPUTER-full-date
        $TAR $NEWER -cf $BACKUPDIR/$COMPUTER-$DOW.tar $DIRECTORIES

# Make incremental backup - overwrite last weeks
else

        # Get date of last full backup
        NEWER="--newer `cat $TIMEDIR/$COMPUTER-full-date`"
        $TAR $NEWER -cf $BACKUPDIR/$COMPUTER-$DOW.tar $DIRECTORIES
fi


----- End forwarded message -----

backup.cron
Description: Binary data