On Wed, 20 Sep 2006, Paul Bijnens wrote:
> On 2006-09-20 11:56, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > On Mon, 11 Sep 2006, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > > On Sat, 9 Sep 2006, Josef Wolf wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Sep 05, 2006 at 03:34:42PM -0400, Jean-Louis Martineau wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > >    * Works with GNU tar 1.15.91 - work with new gtar state file
> > > > > format.
> > > > Can someone please explain what this exactly means?
> > > The format to store information about the incrementals was changed. Since
> > > Amanda made some assumptions about this format (while she shouldn't have
> > > cared,
> > > and just considered it as opaque files), this broke Amanda.
> > > After the fix, Amanda just treats the files as opaque files.
> > > 
> > > But be careful, at least the tar 1.15.91-2 from Debian is broken: it
> > > ignores
> > > the --one-file-system option when doing incrementals, causing exorbitant
> > > backup
> > > sizes for any level > 0. I don't know about the upstream version, but
> > > since
> > > this bug has been reported almost 2 months ago, I'm afraid that one is
> > > broken,
> > > too.
> > 
> > Apparently the problem is more subtle. Thanks to the Debian bug tracking
> > system, I noticed this:
> > 
> > http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=384508
> > tar: -l option changed meaning, without any warning!
> 
> 
> OK. But AFAIK (grep *.c in the sources), Amanda does NOT use the
> -l option, but only the --one-file-system option, since a very long
> time already.
> 
> So I think this option name change has nothing to do with the
> use of gnutar by Amanda.  (AFAIK the format of the incremental-state
> files has changed, and Amanda assumed they were in some line-oriented format
> instead of handling it as opaque objects.)

Indeed, thanks for reminding me! I just send a clarification to the Debian BTS:
  - 384508 is about -l no longer meaning --one-file-system
  - 377124 is about --one-file-system breaking when combined with
    --listed-incremental (Amanda does pass --one-file-system (not -l) to
    tar)

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