Hi there --

I am trying to archive a directory that is 4.6 GB in size. Tar has a limitation of
2 GB. I am trying to omit several subdirectories in order to work around this problem. If that does not work, I might try cpio. Does cpio have the same size limitation as tar?

It is a file size limitation and not a limitation of tar. AFAIK tar has support for large files (i.e. >2GB). cpio would also have the same problem.

BTW what distribution and kernel are you running?

I quick search found the link below. You should be able to change the size to fit your needs. I do not know if it works or not.

tar czvf - source | split -b 650m tarpiece-

...should create files tarpiece-aa tarpiece-ab tarpiece-ac...

To reassemble, copy to disk, then:

cat tarpiece-* > file.tar.gz

...will reassemble the tarfile.


or this might work:
http://www.informatik-vollmer.de/sof...split-tar.html

I did some additional research and I found out that starting with Red Hat 8.0, the 2 gigabyte limit is no longer a factor. The machine the directory in question is on runs Red Hat 7.3. Luckily the directory is exported via NFS. I was able to log onto another system running Red Hat 8.0, and the tar went by without a problem.