TAR with large files

[ASSIST]

Hi,

I can't backup some Oracle Datafiles greater than 2 GB (6-7 GB) with tar. Man of tar command says that is not possible to backup these files due to compatibility problems with POSIX standards.
There is some patch that allows tar to backup these kind of files?

Thanks in advance

[Frank Li]

Hi,

I encountered this problem few monthes ago :

and I have asked this question in this forum before and here is th answer:
1.Your file system maynot support largefile
#fsadm /dev/vg00/rvol5
to check it.

2. tar command itself can't support file larger than 2GB

[Michael Tully]

Sorry, but tar will only backup files less than 2gb. I suggest you use 'fbackup' to do this task. There is no patch that I am aware of that will fix this problem.

HTH
Michael

[Alexander M. Ermes]

Hi there.
tar, cpio and gzip do not process files larger than 2 GB. Using fbackup or OmniBack or some other real backup software is the only way to go. If you want to use fbackup, do it command line mode and read the manpage before.
Doing fbackup from sam will give you trouble for these files.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Michael Tully]

Only other thing I can suggest for backing up files of this size, is to use OmniBack with the on-line extension. This has the full capability of using 'onbar' as an integration tool for hot and cold backups.

[Tim D Fulford]

Surely Oracle comes with its own backup utility? Use this.

If there isn't such a tool you can try dd. However, this will (like tar) mean you must stop your database.

I'm sure Oracle must have an online backup utility, even if it costs something other wise all those large OLTP databases out there will need to be shut down to back them up!

Good luck

Tim

[Insu Kim]

The only way to back up files greater than 2GB on HPUX is to use "fbackup" and "frecover".

[Joseph C. Denman]

Everyone is correct. However, you may be able to overcome the problem by running the file through a pipe. This should work:

mknod mypipe p
gzip < mypipe > filename.gz &
tar cvpf mypipe file1 file2 file3 file....
rm mypipe


To retrieve the files

mknod mypipe p
gunzip < filename.gz > mypipe &
tar xvpf mypipe
rm mypipe

It would be worth a try. I have used this when my tar file was getting over 2g.

Hope this helps

...jcd...

[Eberardo Pipani_1]

Hi
try to use tne gtar, the gnu tar which is compatible with tar but is work fine.

bye Eberardo

[Shannon Petry]

I have successfully backed up files of 10-20GB with standard HP-UX tar! While HP says it is not supported, this is for several reasons. 1. they dont want their support people diagnosing user errors on these things especially since media plays a crucial role.
2. They want to make $$ from omniback.
3. They would prefer that if you are cheap, you use fbackup where they have tested backups of large files and will support it!

However, as another user mentioned, you can download GNU-Tar, which supports files of unlimited size!

You may want to look also at a nice backup tool like Omniback, which does a whole lot more than just backup of your dump files!

Regards,
Shannon

[Larry Basford]

We had the same question about backups over 2BG
We use vxdump vxrestore
/usr/sbin/vxdump -0 -f /dev/rmt/0mn -u /data
/usr/sbin/vxrestore -if /dev/rmt/0mn

the vxrextore works interactively and is very fast compared to frecover which seems to take for ever when you really need it.

It is able to handle over 2GB and will work across the network if needed. Or to a file.

Filesystems must be large file enabled, of course.