I've done a backup as -

tar -czv -f /dev/st0 .

and then a restore as -

tar -xkpszv -f /dev/st0


After the restore I've lost the symbolic links and permissions to

/etc/rc.d/rc6.d


The permissions flags (ls -l) are set to


---------- 1 root root 0 2004-04-19 17:35 K10Cups

whereas it should be

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 2004-03-10 12:30 K10Cups -> ../init.d/cups

What have I done wrong?

I use tar -cvpzf

-p, --same-permissions, --preserve-permissions

I don't know whether it's the wrong combination of flags or not because it appears that not all links have been damaged.

If the link is represented in ls as -

vmlinuz -> vmlinuz.2.4.20-30.9 or

rc0.d -> rc.d/rc6.d

these are OK

if represented as

K10cups -> ../init/cups

these have failed. Presumably when extracting the links tar is not keen on the relative path!

I have the correct links within the tar, inspecting the tar with the list (t) option, as

./etc/rc0.d/K10cups - ../init/cups

I feel the urge to write a script to correct the problem.


What I want to know for peace of mind is how to avoid this problem in the future. As a small test I tried tared to a file instead of tape and restored it didn't appear to create the same problem!!

Any suggestions welcome!!!!!

AK

Well I now know what I did wrong! Or at least I've now restored using tar without any other intervention and all links are there.

The first attempt at restore was with -

tar -xkpszv -- no-same-owner --same-owner

The second attempt as restore was with I believe -

tar -xkpszv

The third and successful attempt was with

tar -xzv

However, what may be the real reason the third attempt was successful was that on the second attempt I had chopped the restore after it had restored the partition I was interested in. I knew that the tape on it dumps for slackware, redhat, mandrake, fedora and more slackware. I was recovering as root in slackware and thought from inspecting the output from when the tar was created that the dump of the redhat partition was in one contiguous block on the tape and that if I chopped the restore are the last file in the redhat partiton I would save myself a considreable amount of time.

On the last and successful attempt to restore (with the verbose option) and after stdout had listed the last file in the redhat partition I inspected /etc/rc.d/rc6.d and it had tthe same problem as before ----------.

I fired of the previous note and went to the pub to drown my sorrows leaving the restore running. When I got back rechecked and found that the issue had resolved itself and all the symbolic links were present and correct.

Should have gone back to the pub to celebrate!

Tar must do something at the end of the backup in respect of symbolic links.

AK