tar + split question

300zxkyle · 12-06-2007, 02:54 PM

In a previous thread I asked how to create a tar archive that would allow me to limit the file size and break up automatically into incremental archives.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...volume-603509/

I decided to use the split option as it is meant for this and the -M flag for tar really isn't.

Code:

tar -cvpj 'directory/name'/ | split -d -b 4000m - /name/of/archive.tar.bz2.

which produces something like...

Code:

archive.tar.bz2.00
archive.tar.bz2.01
archive.tar.bz2.02

My question is this. How with the existing file size limit can I extract the contents of one of these archives back to the file system. I can't reassemble the files onto the file system because they will break the 4GB limit. Is there a way that I can pipe cat through tar? Are their other alternatives still?

Any help is appreciated.

kilgoretrout · 12-06-2007, 03:15 PM

I don't think that's possible. Once you use split you have to join the files back together with cat before you can do anything else.
The real solution is to stop taring up your files to a FAT32 filesystem with its 4GB single file size limit. You shouldn't have this problem on any native linux filesystem.

David1357 · 12-06-2007, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 300zxkyle

My question is this. How with the existing file size limit can I extract the contents of one of these archives back to the file system. I can't reassemble the files onto the file system because they will break the 4GB limit. Is there a way that I can pipe cat through tar? Are their other alternatives still?

Try

# cat *.bz2* | (cd path-to-destination; tar jxv)

That should send a byte-stream through stdin to tar in the destination directory of your choice.

matthewg42 · 12-06-2007, 03:48 PM

dar allows you to split archive files and retrieve files from the archive without having to assemble them into one huge archive file. It will even pause while you eject media and mount the next disk in a series.

Dar is a good replacement for tar if you are making archives for storing on removable media, although I think it's not suitable for tape backups (which is tar's job).

300zxkyle · 12-07-2007, 07:52 AM

David,

The solution you provided worked like a charm. Thanks everyone for the input.