Best way to zip a large directory in the background with logging to know it completed successfully

anon091 · 08-10-2016, 01:12 PM

I have a half TB directory that I want to tgz. What's the best command to tgz in in the background with logging I can tail or check in the end somehow to know it completed successfully? I can't leave my ssh session open for the days this will probably take to complete, but want to make sure it actually completes successfully tgz'ing all the files.

Beads · 08-10-2016, 01:46 PM

I have not compressed that much data yet; but open a terminal and type "man zip". There are a lot of information in that manual; and in verbose mode, it will log in that terminal a blow by blow status of each file compressed. It also recognizes most of the zipped file types. It also has a verification mode.

Just might work for what you desire.

Sefyir · 08-10-2016, 01:49 PM

Use screen or tmux.
For screen

Code:

screen -S zipping_thing
program files_to_compress
Then Ctrl-a, Ctrl-d to leave

When you want to return to it,

Code:

screen -r zipping_thing

24x7servermanagement · 08-10-2016, 02:24 PM

You can use jobs command as well. Refer : jobs command example

chrism01 · 08-10-2016, 07:57 PM

For tgz, something like

Code:

nohup tar zcvf /path/to/target.tgz <dirs to tar/compress> >/path/to/target.log 2>&1 &

nohup = keep running even after I logout
2 >&1 = send o/p msgs and err msgs to same log
final '&' = run it in background ie give me term prompt back immediately

HTH

anon091 · 08-10-2016, 08:05 PM

Thanks everyone!