On Mon, 10 Jan 2005, Eric Siegerman wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2005 at 02:47:43PM -0700, Jason Davis wrote:
> > tar: ./2005-01-07_17-00-57/ibdata01.ibz: implausibly old time stamp
> > 1969-12-31 17:00:00
> 
> For some reason, tar thinks the file's timestamp is 0, or else
> the timestamp recorded in the tarball is in fact 0.  (1969-12-31
> 17:00:00 is the UNIX epoch, converted to your local timezone.)
> I'm not sure why it's happening.
> 
> Are you sure you're using GNU tar for both the backup and the
> restore?  If the backup used gtar but the restore used your
> vendor's tar, there might be an incompatibility.

I've seen the same message when restoring on a different machine than the
backup was taken. Both backup and restore machine had GNU tar, but different
versions (restore machine is an Athlon XP running current Debian testing,
backup machine is an Alpha running a very old Debian version (the one before
woody (slink?), I think)). Didn't notice any other problems, but I didn't do a
full restore anyway, I just had to look at some files in /etc.

If anyone is interested in more details, I can look up the version of GNU tar
in the backups (old machine itself is stored in mottballs right now).

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                                                Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert AT linux-m68k 
DOT org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                                            -- Linus Torvalds