topic Re: tar /dev/tty request when run with at in Operating System - HP-UX

tar /dev/tty request when run with at

Vladimir Tihu — Wed, 21 May 2003 10:36:18 GMT

Using tar interactively I can create archives >2Gb, but when I put it in a script run with at the archive stops at 2Gb with a message to tar's standard output: "Can't open /dev/tty to prompt for more media.".
Is there a way to prevent tar from (pseudo)requesting media from terminal? (when run interactively it doesn't really prompt it simply runs on).

Thanks

Vladimir

Re: tar /dev/tty request when run with at

David_246 — Wed, 21 May 2003 10:38:51 GMT

Hi Vladimir,

This is a know issue when interaction is needed.

Please do the following :

tar cvf .. ...

Best Regs David

Re: tar /dev/tty request when run with at

Jean-Louis Phelix — Wed, 21 May 2003 10:44:14 GMT

Hi,

No, you can't do it because I suppose that your script is run from crontab or something similar which is not attached to any tty

Regards

Re: tar /dev/tty request when run with at

Frank Slootweg — Wed, 21 May 2003 10:50:36 GMT

This is probably due to the ulimit setting for an at(1) job.

Do
echo ulimit | at now + 1 minute
to see the setting.

You can hopefully change the setting in your script. If not, you will have to change /var/adm/cron/.proto accordingly. See the at(1) and proto(4) manual pages for details.

Note that ulimit details depend on the type of shell. See the "#! ..." line, if any, at the beginning of your script.

Depending on your OS version and patch-level, you may also run into an old at(1)/.proto bug.

Re: tar /dev/tty request when run with at

Vladimir Tihu — Wed, 21 May 2003 11:11:58 GMT

Yes, the ulimit was the problem; in the interactive environment it was set to unlimited but at has a different default setting.
(redirecting standard input to anything doesn't work, tar wants the terminal, anyway).

Problem solved.

Thanks.