Re: [Bug-tar] problem (bug?) using listed-incremental on multiple file-systems

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Niels Laukens <address@hidden> wrote:

> tar --create --one-file-system --preserve-permissions --label "Bla" \
> --exclude="/some/file" --listed-incremental "listfile" \
> /boot /usr /var /tmp / | bzip2 ...

--one-file-system option means 'do not dump any directories that are
on filesystems other than the current one', i.e. mount point directories
are added to the output archive, but their content is not. Consequently,
when restoring from the incremental backup, tar assumes the directories
where empty. This is what occurs with root/boot directory in your example.

> I guess the problem is that those "directories" are on different file
> systems. Can anyone confirm that this is a bug?

No, it is not. Using --one-file-system (and, generally speaking, any
option abridging the set of files to be included in the archive) implies
that these files will be lost when extracting from the resulting archives.

> or am I just not using the right commands?

Do not use --one-file-system when creating incremental archives.

Regards,
Sergey