Problem with GZIP command...getting "Unknown error"

[Daniel M. Gonzales]

Anyone see this error before?

/var/adm/crash# fsadm -F vxfs /var/adm/crash
largefiles
/var/adm/crash# ll
total 4394356
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 2249902080 Aug 22 16:05 20010822.tar
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 96 Aug 22 15:45 lost+found
/var/adm/crash# bdf /var/adm/crash
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vgcrash/crash 4096000 2199795 1778211 55% /var/adm/crash
/var/adm/crash# gzip 20010822.tar
20010822.tar: Unknown error

I was able to compress & uncompress the tar file.
In addition, I validated the tar file with "tar tvf" and
"tar xvf".

[someone_4]

what if you untar the file the gzip it.

Richard

[linuxfan]

Hi,

I believe gzip has a 2GB limitation, but let me confirm that

-Ramesh

[linuxfan]

Hi Daniel,

First of all Sorry, take that back, the gzip version 1.2.4 supports files greater than 2GB
but the strange thing is the default gzip (/usr/contrib/bin/gzip which is the version 1.2.4 gives me the same problem) but i downloaded the 1.2.4a from hp porting site (http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Gnu/gzip-1.2.4a) and tried using the new gzip (which by default gets installed in /opt/gzip) and it works.

The strange part is both the gzip versions when issued a -V report as 1.2.4 but one works the other(/usr/contrib/bin/gzip) doesn't.

-HTH
Ramesh

[linuxfan · Accepted solution]

Hi Jeff,

Promise my last post to this problem (hopefully) ;-)

Here is the deal, the gzip version 1.2.4 by default on HP-UX doesn't support files greater than 2GB. If you download the gzip from the HP site and install it, it works because the large files support has been added. If you want to download the source code and compile it yourself ( you would need the "texinfo" and you would have to give the options to include large files (look in the HPUX.Install file). Ofcourse the easier option is to install the binary from the depot file.

So to put it in short though they both (gzip in /usr/contrib/bin/gzip and /opt/gzip/bin/gzip) say they are version 1.2.4, the latter was built with large file support(>2GB). so if you want to gzip your file you will have to download the depot and install it.

-HTH
Ramesh

[Daniel M. Gonzales]

Thanks Ramesh-

Just downloaded the /opt/gzip/bin version and that did the trick! Can gzip those larger files now. Also noticed the newer version includes more utilities:

gunzip
gzcat
gzcmp
gzdiff
gzexe
gzforce
gzgrep
gzip
gzmore
gznew

Thanks again!