On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 04:35:48PM -0600, Douglas K. Rand wrote:
> >> > > > And did you put a file   "exclude.gtar"   in there?
> >> > > 
> >> > > Yes, I did, and that got rid of the message.  But if amanda needs this
> >> > > file, why doesn't it just create it?
> >> > 
> >> > Because it is a file you create specifying what you want to exclude.
> >> > If you don't want to use it, don't list it in amanda.conf.
> >> 
> >> It wasn't necessary with 2.4.2  If it's necessary for 2.4.3, then why
> >> isn't it installed with or created by that version?
> 
> Jon> Perhaps it is an added extra check that that should have been in
> Jon> 2.4.2.  Extra checking is not a bad thing.
> Jon> The file is not necessary.  
> 
> I really liked how it behaved in 2.4.2. You told Amanda to tell
> gnu-tar to use an exclude file. Amanda didn't care if the exclude file
> was there or not, and actually gnu-tar didn't care very much
> either. Gnu-tar emits a warning that the exclude file doesn't exist,
> and so it won't use it.

I'm surprised at your observations.
gnutar on my system terminates with an error if the exclude file is missing.

OPPS, ran some tests last evening and assumed -- never assume --
that the error message, error exit status, and very fast completion
meant it did not do the tar dump.

Just checked again.  Turns out it does.

Sorry for the mis-information.

-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
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