gzip segmentation fault - but only some times

Paul Howarth paul at city-fan.org
Mon Dec 20 10:36:52 UTC 2004


Chris wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have a daily backup script where I backup a database and later in the 
> process, compress the backup files using
> 
> for i in /home/tmp/*dbk
> do
>         j=${i##/home/tmp/}.gz
>         gzip -v < ${i} > /home/public/backup/stage/${j}
> done
> 
> This usually works just fine (the compressed files are getting created 
> in a different filesystem from the uncompressed backup files). But every 
> few days, gzip crashes during the process and I get this output in the 
> email cron sends:
> 
>  73.6%
>  72.8%
>  72.6%
>  73.0%
>  72.5%
> /home/root/bin/backup: line 32: 27749 Segmentation fault      gzip -v 
> <${i} >/home/public/backup/stage/${j}
>  42.4%
>  46.6%
>  76.5%
> 
> Has anybody seen this before? As you can see, 7 of the files are getting 
> compressed just fine, one doesn't want to. It still outputs the 
> compression percentage (42.4%) - but the output file is garbage:
> 
> gunzip < phone-6-20041219.odbk.gz > /tmp/x.odbk
> 
> gunzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
> 
> Each of the input files (except the last one) is 2 GB (minus 1 byte) in 
> size.
> 
> Machine specs: FC2 with all the latest updates, X not running on the 
> console, AMD 3200+ CPU, 1.5 GB memory, ASUS motherboard
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.

How big is the the source file you are trying to compress?

Paul.




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