tar

[Richard Buerger]

Can someone tell me how I can extract files from a tar created tape and put them to a different disk/directory than the disk/directory from where the files were originally located?

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,

not possible with tar if you used the full directory path when creating the tar backup.

tar -cf /dev/rmt/0m /tmp/file1
--> will be restored to /tmp/file1

cd /
tar -cf /dev/rmt/0m tmp/file1
--> can be restored below current working directory.


regards,
Thierry.

[Sanjay_6]

hi Richard,

If the files were archived with the leading edge, you cannot extract them to another directory.

Say you tarred using this format,

tar cvf /dev/rmt/0m /home

Now you cannot restore home to another directory. But if you tarred using this,

cd /
tar cvf /dev/rmt/0m home

you can restore it to any other directory, say /temp

cd /temp
tar xvf /dev/rmt/0m

You can also try the solution suggested by harry in the link below if you have backed up using absolute path,

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x38d6cf38d6bdd5118ff10090279cd0f9,00.html

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Patrick Wallek]

How were the files written to tape? Were they written using absolute paths (/somedir/somefile) or relative paths (somedir/somefile or ./somedir/somefile)? The answer depends.

If they were written with relative paths, then it is easy. You just cd to the dir you want to restore to and extract from the tape:

# cd /mydir
# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m somedir/somefile
or
# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m ./somedir/somefile

If the files were written to the tape using absolute paths, its a bit more difficult, but not impossible. You can try using pax for this ('man pax' for more info):

Here's an example from the pax man page:

To read the archive a.pax, with all files rooted in the directory /usr in the archive extracted relative to the current directory, enter:

# pax -r -s ',//*usr//*,,' -f a.pax

[Helen French]

Hi,

You need to use 'relative path' methord here. While backing up your data, you have to privide the relative paths. For eg: if you want to backup /home/dir1 and restore it to /usr1/dir1, then:
# cd /home/dir1
# tar -cvf /dev/rmt/0m .
# cd /usr1/dir1
# tar -xvf /dev/rmt/0m

This will restore the dir1 to the current directory. If you are using 'absolute path' for backing up data (tar -cvf /dev/rmt/0m /home/dir1), that will restore the data to the original location.

HTH,
Shiju

[Marcin Wicinski]

Hi,
you can recover files from tar archive to relative path if the archive was created with relative path. Full path - to full path.
Later,

[Helen French]

Sanjay, it was Thierry ...not Harry ! =))

Shiju

[Steve Steel]

Hi

Confirm you cannot

Best is to copy the current contents to another place

restore tar

move restored files to new place

move back originals


Steve Steel

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Richard,

First use tar tvf to see if the tarfile was created with relative or absolute paths. If relative, cd to the directory you want and the files / dirs will be extracted relative to that directory.

If created with an absolute path, use pax (see Patrick's suggestion).

Darrell

[Darrell Allen]

Here's a link with more info:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x589bd5fab40ed6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html

Darrell

[Helen French]

Hi,

Check this out:

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=3ac31176034e2576cd/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000047257225

HTH,
Shiju