tar: write error: unexpected EOF

[Happy Huang]

I use a DLT80 driver to do the data backup in a Solaris 2.6 server. The backup command I use is: tar cvfp /dev/rmt/0un /vobs . (/vobs is the directory to be backup) But when I check the backup log, I find the error message as the title: tar:write error: unexpected EOF. I've tried to use a new tape, but still got the same result. Such error message occurs not at the end of the backup log file, but somewhere unexpeted. And to my strange, I use the same DLT driver to backup other directory in the same server, no such error message occurs. And the volumn of /vobs direcory is not very huge and should be held in one tape.
So anyone here can give me some advice to solve the problem. Thank you!

[Zeev Schultz]

Hm,probably /vobs is a certain type of filesystem that has a special requirements how
to be treated?

Zeev

[Francisco J. Soler]

What is the storage size?

Perhaps in the /vobs directory has a file greather than 2 Gb or 8 Gb.

Frank.

[Happy Huang]

I've checked the size of the files under /vobs directory, and no lagrge file whose size exceeds 2GB. And all the file under /vobs are normal data files.

[Francisco J. Soler]

Do you have enough space in another patition?
If yes, you could try a tar over the hard disk to see what happens.

tar cvfp /partition_with_space/tarfile.tar /vobs

Frank.

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

if this is clearcase, verify you've got a valid view set. If it's not so big, try to tar it to file for later transfer to tape.
Make sure that your tape device is unique on the bus.

[Zeev Schultz]

Ok,try using fbackup and see if it fails as well.If not - you have some tar problem,could
be patching issue.Else - you've probably files
problem,could be clearcase-something or else.

Zeev

[Zeev Schultz]

sorry,its ufsbackup on Solaris I beleive :)

[Chris Vail]

Check the /etc/fstab to see if the largefiles option is listed. Our entry looks like:
/dev/vgAPPS/lvolAPPS1 /usr/local/apps vxfs rw,largefiles,delaylog 0 2


Chris

[Tom Danzig]

Check to density of the tape you are using. If it's of newer technonlogy than the drive, you can get this message.

I've seen this error when trying to use a DDS2 tape in a DDS1 drive.

[Happy Huang]

I did the test to backup the directory to the hard disk partition using the command: tar cvfp /backup/vob.tar /vobs . And the backup is successful. No such error message occured. It seems there is no special requirement to do the backup of the /vobs directory.
And the type of the driver is DLT80 and the tape I used is DLTape IV Data Cartrideg(C5141F). The tape should be matched with the tape driver.
At the same time, I did another test to backup the diretory to the hard disk partition not enought to hold the data. The same error message as the title occured when the space of the partition was full.
It seems that the problem occurs in the tape itself: the "tar" process has not detectd the EOF lable of the tape but it can't write data to the tape due to no spare space , so the "unexpected EOF" error message occurs. Do you think so?

[Peter Nikitka]

Yes, of course.
If you list the tape content (via tar tvf ), you should see all files upto the tape-is-full condition like in your backup.

Try to put your tarfile to the tape to see,
how much data you can get to it:

dd if=/backup/vob.tar of=/dev/rmt/... bs=20b

This should give you
- a message, that NOT all data coukld be copied to the tape
- the count of blocks (20b = 10KB), that could be transferred to tape.

Good luck!

[Rizwan Mohammed]

Hi

Small input ,try to check whether you are using the right tape drive ,check the tape drive status ,whether it holds to tape or not ,give rew to tape and check whether its working

This error comes when there is no tape in tapedrive

Rizwan

[Shannon Petry]

If this is Solaris, you may have better error detection and performance using "ufsdump"

The syntax is relatively easy, you will be fine using

/usr/sbin/ufsdump 0ulTbf 99h 96 $HOSTWITHTAPE:/dev/rmt/$DEV /vobs

You may want to also post what the output of
df -k /vobs

You state that it's not "that" huge, but no definitions.

If ufsdump fails, please post exactly what the error is, including error number.


Regards,
Shannon