Hi,

Using guides from various websites, I have backed up a directory (and its sub-directories) to tape using the following command:- (the folder 'media' is in the root)

The command returned a message about stripping the leading slashes, and then went on to complete normally.

I now want to verify the backup, so I tried the following:-

This, after reading the entire tape, returns:-

I tried without the leading '/' (as the original backup said it had stripped it) and that returned "Warning: Cannot stat: No such file or directory" for every file name.

I know at least some of the files are there as

starts a full directory listing from the tape.

How do I verify my backup? I can't restore the backup and check it that way as I don't have enough disk space.


[EDIT] The directory listing returns the full path without the leading / i.e "media/store/ARSF/Append.sql"

Hi

The reason tar gives the warning when making the tar file with leading slashes, is that it could be a serious security problem. Let's say I did this:

tar -czf test.tgz /etc/passwd

Then I send the .tgz (or tape) to someone else. They will typically go to a directory, do tar -xzf to unpack it, and expect the files to be unpacked in the current directory.

If it instead wrote to /etc/passwd, weird things could happen. So it strips leading slashes.

The solution is simple. Instead of using leading / when using tar, go to the start and do the tar without any leading /.

cd / && tar -czf /dev/st0 media/store

cd / && tar -dlpzvf /dev/st media/store

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks Guttorm for your very clear and concise answer.

Running the command from the root directory has solved the problem.

You don't have to change to the root dir. tar -C / -dlpzf ... makes tar to go to the root dir before the operation. In your first post you wanted to compare from /dev/st instead of /dev/st0. I take it that was a typo.

jlinkels