tar to different directory

[Steven Chen_1]

I want to tar xvf file to different directory from the original, but I can't.

for example:
tar tvf /dev/rmt/c0t0d0BEST, shows file on tape as /tmp/file1.

then:
tar xvf /dev/rmt/c0t0d0BEST /disk1/file1 would not copy file1 to /disk1 directory.

But I can tar xvf back to /tmp where the file1 being tar cvf from.

Can somebody helps?

[Antoanetta Naghiu]

cd in the desired directory and tar xvf /dev/rmt/0m

[Alan Riggs]

I believe you are working from a tape archive that was made with absolute pathnames. If so, the tar command has no way to redirect the extraction. This is one reason why I always recommend writing archives with relative pathnames.

All is not lost, though. I believe the pax command will be able to do a string replacement on the extraction path for you. Please see man pax for the syntax and details.

[Steven Chen_1]

for all files to extract to desire location, that works.

but how about to get just some files instead of all of them from the tape?

[Antoanetta Naghiu]

Use fbackup or cpio, omniback. I've done it under cpio, fbackup, omniback, never under tar.
The documentation said that using
tar xvf archive file_name you can extract desired file... Ty it....

[Alan Riggs]

To specify a single file to be restored from an archive simply give it as a command line option:

tar vxf /dev/rmt/0m file/to_be.restored

[Michael Hiron]

The pax command should do what you require. Something like:

pax -r -v -s !/olddir!/newdir!gp -f Tape_Device_File

See man page of pax for more details.

[Steven Chen_1]

I would like to know more on how to make tar files with relative pathname.

Example:

files location to be tar: /disk3/file1,file2...

I has done:
tar cvf /dev/rmt/c2t0d0BEST /disk3/file1,file2...

In order to get files back to any other location, what should I use to tar at the begining?
tar cvf /dev/rmt/c2t0d0BEST disk3 ? or any?


Thanks a lot.

[Devbinder Singh Marway]

Absolute backup(i.e. /test/files , you can restore from anywhere and it will restore in the correct directory , with relative backup you can specify where you want to restore files i.e (.file1 / ./test/file)

if you want to backup all the files in a directory ( relatively) :-

1. cd into the directory

tar cvbf 64 /dev/rmt/0m .
*when you look at the files on tape they will be .file1 .file2 .file3 etc..

However if you want to do a relative backup from root

cd /
tar cvbf 64 /dev/rmt/0m "./dir1/dir2"

on the tape files will be listed as

./dir1/dir2/file1 , ./dir1/dir2/file2 etcc

so to restore to say test1 dir , it will create direcries dir1,dir2 under test
where as the first method will restore files
in the directory you CD'ed into.

Basically a dot (.) means relative i.e. current directory
and / means absolute

To restore individual files or directories
put them in quotes i.e.

tar xvbf 64 /dev/rmt/0mn "./file2" "/tmp/ds"

one other thing is create a directory if you do not have spare tapes and create some dummy files and try out the tar command
so instead of using the tape device use a file name for the tar archive and view this later i.e. tar cvbf 64 testtar "files"
to view tar tvf testtar

hope this helps

[Andre van der Laarse]

Hi,

Normally I would do the following:

cd
tar -cvf /dev/rmt/0m .
Note that there is a . (dot) at the the end, to indicate the current directory.
this way all the files and subsequent directories are on the tape, to reload them
in a desired directory,
cd
tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m

The files in the tar are listed with a . (dot) at beginning, to indicate a relative pathname from the current directory.

Regards, Andre