Re: [Bug-tar] I don't know why tar-1.27 cannot back up the contents of a softlink

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 23 July 2014 10:49:55 Pavel Raiskup did opine
And Gene did reply:
> On Wednesday 23 of July 2014 09:31:49 Gene Heskett wrote:
> >> ...
> >> Messy, very messy, testsuite.log attached. What did I do wrong?
> >> 
> >> Cheers, Gene Heskett
> >> ...
> > 
> > Turned out I had to rebuild and reinstall amanda to effect that path
> > change.  I have a script that automates that.
> > 
> > However, 1.27.1 did pass ALL of amanda's "amcheck" and "make check"
> > tests.
> > 
> > But a megabyte of log, 1/2 of which is "FAILED"? Genuine spooky.  But
> > we'll see if the email from amanda is any less mouthy tonight...
> 
> This is just small problem in Makefile.am (and not your fault at all)
> that the testsuite-related binaries was not built for you.  To
> workaround that, run 'make check' before 'make installcheck'.
> 
> Also, we could consider pushing attached patch.
> 
> Pavel

I don't think we are exactly on the same page. After 2 or 3 backups by 
amanda, I am still looking at a refusal to handle softlinks, which should 
be backed up by including the link data.

So I am still looking at this in my amdump backup reports:

STRANGE DUMP DETAILS:
  /-- coyote /lib lev 1 STRANGE
  sendbackup: info BACKUP=APPLICATION
  sendbackup: info APPLICATION=amgtar
  sendbackup: info RECOVER_CMD=/bin/gzip -dc 
|/usr/local/libexec/amanda/application/amgtar restore [./file-to-restore]+
  sendbackup: info COMPRESS_SUFFIX=.gz
  sendbackup: info end
  ? /usr/bin/tar: ./init/rw: directory is on a different filesystem; not 
dumped
  | Total bytes written: 10373120 (9.9MiB, 1.7MiB/s)
  sendbackup: size 10130
  sendbackup: end
  \--------
  /-- coyote /var lev 3 STRANGE
  sendbackup: info BACKUP=APPLICATION
  sendbackup: info APPLICATION=amgtar
  sendbackup: info 
RECOVER_CMD=/usr/local/libexec/amanda/application/amgtar restore [./file-
to-restore]+
  sendbackup: info end
  ? /usr/bin/tar: ./lock: directory is on a different filesystem; not 
dumped
  ? /usr/bin/tar: ./run: directory is on a different filesystem; not 
dumped
  ? /usr/bin/tar: ./lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs: directory is on a different 
filesystem; not dumped
  | Total bytes written: 735180800 (702MiB, 23MiB/s)
  sendbackup: size 717950
  sendbackup: end
  \--------

Now, according to fdisk:

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00073a0c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         128     1024000   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2             128      120981   970752000   83  Linux
/dev/sda3          120981      121602     4984832   82  Linux swap / 
Solaris

/dev/sda2 is / on this drive, /dev/sda1 is /boot

So all of those skipped softlinks are in fact ON THE SAME FILESYSTEM.

The recovery of the OS is essentially worthless without the contents of 
those softlinks.

How do we fix this once and forever?

FWIW, I just now applied that patch, then did a make clean;make
which bails out now:

Making all in tests
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/tar-1.27.1/tests'
 cd .. && /bin/bash /usr/src/tar-1.27.1/build-aux/missing automake-1.14 --
gnits tests/Makefile
/usr/src/tar-1.27.1/build-aux/missing: line 81: automake-1.14: command not 
found
WARNING: 'automake-1.14' is missing on your system.
         You should only need it if you modified 'Makefile.am' or
         'configure.ac' or m4 files included by 'configure.ac'.
         The 'automake' program is part of the GNU Automake package:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/automake>
         It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run:
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf>
         <http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
         <http://www.perl.org/>
make[2]: *** [Makefile.in] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/tar-1.27.1/tests'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/tar-1.27.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2

and:

address@hidden:/usr/src/tar-1.27.1$ sudo apt-get install automake-1.14
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package automake-1.14

So my src tree is now hosed, will have to blow away that directory, unpack 
the tarball again, and make from scratch.

Except the install itself has not been affected.  It simply doesn't do 
softlinks to other location on the same filesystem.

I could I suppose revert to 1.22, its in the ubuntu LTS archives.  But it 
cannot be told to skip the device-check. With that feature defaulted to on 
by some genius, you cannot do a bare metal recovery to a new drive, its 
the wrong device. So that feature is AFAIAC, something that could go 
completely away as I cannot come up with a recovery scenario where it 
would be a valid feature. In 1.27 we can at least pass a disabling 
argument to tar, in 1.22 we cannot.

Thanks people, but this really does need fixed.  What does star do in 
these situations?

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS