i'm trying to use tar to backup a number of directories. i tried tarring a couple that are some 7+ gb, and tar died w/ the error:
"size limit exceeded" or something similar. the resulting size both times was approx 2gb. can tar not handle creating archives > 2gb?

the man pages said nothing of a size limit!
thanks

what is your kernel. 2.4 supports over 2gb without problems

thanks for the link - i saw that one after i posted

- as far as the problem being solved in 2.4xx kernels, i dont think that is correct, unless redhat 7.3 ships with screwed up tar. redhat 7.3 uses 2.4.18 and tar has that same limit

The limitation isn't inherent to the kernel or the GNU tar program, but is a problem of the filesystem. Ext2 only supports file sizes up to 2Gb (gotta remember how old ext2 is, 5 years? something like that). I don't know if ext3 beats the 2gb limit, but I'm pretty certain Reiser is alright, and I know XFS and JFS don't have that problem.

Cheers,

Finegan

I've got an almost 9 gig tar file on reiser.

Sweet, I think Ext3 allows larger. I believe I have 5GB movie file.

i'm pretty sure that the fs is ext3, which would probably explain it. that fact that one has a 5gb movie file is irrelevant - ext2 allows for large files as well - just not creating tarballs > 2gb.

of course if you tarballed your movie file and it ended up as 5gb then that is relevant .

thanks crew - you all are why linux is amazing

Howdy folks,
I have a question about limiting the size of tarball archives. I'm developing a backup system that pulls data off remote boxen and tars and compresses them (tar -zcvf...). I want the option of burning these archives to a cdrom, so they should be limited to about 650 megs a pop. I am pretty sure i've read that tar can tell when it's reached a size limit, close off the archive, and start a new one; but for the life of me I can't find the article!! Can anybody shed some light on the subject?

Thanks a million,
shinepuppy