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From: tar@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu (Tim Ramsey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: backup with compressed cpio files ?
Summary: This makes recovering from a bad spot in the tape impossible
Message-ID: <872@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>
Date: 18 Feb 89 10:44:34 GMT
References: <9100001@netmuc>
Sender: news@deimos.cis.ksu.edu
Reply-To: tar@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu (Tim Ramsey)
Organization: Kansas State University, Dept of Computing & Information Sciences
Lines: 29

In article <9100001@netmuc> bothe@netmuc.UUCP writes:

>hello,
>has anyone tested to backup compressed cpiofiles ?

>what i suggest is to save my files with:
>find . -print | compress | cpio -oacB >/dev/rmt0

>and to restore them with
></dev/rmt0 uncompress | cpio -icB ...

I see two problems:

1) You can't compress the output from find and pipe that into cpio.  Try:
      find . -print | compress | cpio -oac > /dev/rmt0

   Note that since cpio isn't writing directly to the tape device, the
   "-B" option doesn't do anything.

2) If you get a bad spot on the tape later you won't (never say never :-)
   be able to recover anything beyond the bad spot.  This is a tradeoff
   when you use compress.

Tim
--
Timothy Ramsey
BITNET: tar@KSUVAX1
Internet: tar@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu
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