[Bug-tar] mystic message: tar: bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk: File shrank by 7579713536 bytes

[Alexander Sashnov]

Hello,

I just tried to backup my VmWare virtual machine and got 
mystic message.

This message is wrong because it doesn't say is my archive 
OK or not.
In console I cannot see comes it on stdout or stderr (I 
use default shell in Debian 7).


Actual result:

address@hidden:~/vmware$ tar czf bdeb60x64_vmware.tgz 
bdeb60x64
tar: bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk: File shrank by 7579713536 
bytes; padding with zeros


Expected result:

tar: info: bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk: File shrank by 
7579713536 bytes because 3926 Mb of file's tail contains 
only zeroes; it will be extracted successfully if you 
extract it with GNU tar >= 1.15



Additional information:

$ ls -l bdeb60x64
total 11432920
-rw------- 1 user user        8684 Dec  3 03:34 
bdeb60x64.nvram
-rw------- 1 user user 11697389568 Dec  3 03:34 
bdeb60x64.vmdk
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user           0 Aug 20 02:36 
bdeb60x64.vmsd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user user        2421 Dec  3 03:34 
bdeb60x64.vmx
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user         264 Aug 20 02:36 
bdeb60x64.vmxf
-rw------- 1 user user     9580699 Aug 21 21:56 
vmmcores-1.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user       40552 Dec  1 06:39 
vmware-0.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user      151175 Dec  1 06:16 
vmware-1.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user      125118 Dec  1 05:27 
vmware-2.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user      244793 Dec  3 03:34 vmware.log

$ ls -lh bdeb60x64_vmware.tgz
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 1.8G Dec  3 03:43 
bdeb60x64_vmware.tgz

$ du -hs .
53G     .

$ tar tzfv bdeb60x64_vmware.tgz
drwxrwxrwx user/user         0 2014-12-03 03:35 bdeb60x64/
-rw-r--r-- user/user    151175 2014-12-01 06:16 
bdeb60x64/vmware-1.log
-rwxr-xr-x user/user      2421 2014-12-03 03:34 
bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmx
-rw-r--r-- user/user     40552 2014-12-01 06:39 
bdeb60x64/vmware-0.log
-rw-r--r-- user/user    125118 2014-12-01 05:27 
bdeb60x64/vmware-2.log
-rw-r--r-- user/user       264 2014-08-20 02:36 
bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmxf
-rw-r--r-- user/user         0 2014-08-20 02:36 
bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmsd
-rw-r--r-- user/user    244793 2014-12-03 03:34 
bdeb60x64/vmware.log
-rw------- user/user   9580699 2014-08-21 21:56 
bdeb60x64/vmmcores-1.gz
-rw------- user/user      8684 2014-12-03 03:34 
bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.nvram
-rw------- user/user 11697389568 2014-12-03 03:34 
bdeb60x64/bdeb60x64.vmdk



---
Alexander Sashnov.