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Old 12-14-2005, 09:32 AM   #1
Fillys6
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tar not working at all. Is it dead?


We have RH ES3 with the GNOME GUI. I created the cronjob found here: http://www.faqs.org/docs/securing/chap29sec306.html. It was modified as described to reflect the directories and computer name on my machine. The job never started running.

So I went to the command line and did a simple:

tar -cvf test.tar mydir

I also tried to extract a tar file that I have:

tar -xvzf mytarfile.tar.gz

No luck for either. If I do ANYTHING with tar it does absoulely nothing. What can I do to get tar working again? I had extracted some files last week and it worked fine. Since I put this cronjob in, it hasnt worked. This may just be a coincidence, but I dont see how it would affect the tar command? I did remove the file from cron.daily to be safe and it still doesnt work. Is there some sort of a tar "service" that I can restart?

Thanks A LOT for any help.
 
Old 12-14-2005, 09:37 AM   #2
homey
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whereis tar
tar: /bin/tar /usr/include/tar.h /usr/share/man/man1/tar.1.gz


Have you tried it using the /path/to/tar at the command line and in the cron job?
/bin/tar
 
Old 12-14-2005, 09:59 AM   #3
ralvez
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If what homey tells you here works you may want to create a simlink of the tar executable into /usr/local/bin, like this:
<code>
ln -s /bin/tar /usr/local/bin/tar
</code>

that way it will be in your path and will execute just by typing "tar - parameters"

Hope this helps.

Rick
 
Old 12-14-2005, 10:08 AM   #4
Fillys6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by homey
whereis tar
tar: /bin/tar /usr/include/tar.h /usr/share/man/man1/tar.1.gz


Have you tried it using the /path/to/tar at the command line and in the cron job?
/bin/tar
Yes. I tried:

/bin/tar -cvf test.tar mydir

No luck.


Also, fyi, when I do a "whereis tar" it responds with:
tar: /bin/tar /usr/include/tar.h /usr/share/man/man1/tar.1.gz

Last edited by Fillys6; 12-14-2005 at 10:11 AM.
 
Old 12-14-2005, 10:41 AM   #5
homey
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Does it work as root user ( su - ) ?
 
Old 12-14-2005, 11:59 AM   #6
Fillys6
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No, I have tried root and also other users in the root group. No luck.
 
Old 12-14-2005, 01:46 PM   #7
michapma
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Maybe try this:
$ tar --help

That should let you know whether the system knows where tar is. If it still doesn't respond, maybe tar is tied up somewhere. Try a ps -A to see whether there is already a tar process, who knows.
 
Old 12-14-2005, 03:10 PM   #8
Fillys6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by michapma
Maybe try this:
$ tar --help

That should let you know whether the system knows where tar is. If it still doesn't respond, maybe tar is tied up somewhere. Try a ps -A to see whether there is already a tar process, who knows.
Ok, typing the following does nothing

tar --help
/bin/tar --help


If I do a man tar it shows the manual just fine.

If I run a
ps aux | grep tar
it shows 2 processes using tar. One is the grep, one looks like it is tied into an application that we use but the date is all the way back to Nov06. This just started happening this week.

Thanks for any more tips.
 
Old 12-14-2005, 03:18 PM   #9
michapma
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If it's acceptable to kill those processes, I'd try that.

If this isn't a server (desktop machine or whatever that doesn't require uptime; likely not a server if you've got Gnome running), you could try rebooting. Sounds like a typical x86 solution, eh?

Edit: I'd just give in ps -A and then scroll through *all* the processes; you never know what you might miss with a grep.
 
Old 12-19-2005, 11:02 AM   #10
Fillys6
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Well I rebooted the server and tar is STILL not working.

Any other ideas?
 
Old 12-20-2005, 03:23 PM   #11
Fillys6
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Is there any type of service I can restart? Or should I download a different version of tar? Im kinda stuck.

Thanks guys.
 
Old 12-20-2005, 06:17 PM   #12
ralvez
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If it was me I would be looking to re-install the tar package.

;-)

Rick
 
Old 12-21-2005, 09:39 AM   #13
Fillys6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ralvez
If it was me I would be looking to re-install the tar package.

;-)

Rick
Yea I tried to seach for a tar package but with "tar" being so common I couldn't find anything on the web. Any tips or maybe a link? Thanks for your help.
 
Old 12-21-2005, 10:17 AM   #14
Oxagast
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http://directory.fsf.org/tar.html I think thats GNU tar's homepage. I think all thats dirrectly on that page though is the source package, which is tarred, so go to http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/ and I believe they have Gzipped and Bzipped packages so you don't have to use tar to get them open.
 
Old 12-22-2005, 02:15 PM   #15
Fillys6
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Thanks Oxagast.

I downloaded and installed TAR from the link above. I did a

./configure
make
make install

Then I tried tar -cvf myfile.tar myfile

No luck. Argghh! Was I supposed to run another command?
 
  


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