Tar and hard links.
Sean Estabrooks
seanlkml at rogers.com
Sat May 1 18:33:21 UTC 2004
On Sat, 01 May 2004 18:56:46 +0100
WipeOut <wipe_out at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
<snip>
> Anyway, I now need to backup the 6 days worth of daily backups (along
> with other data) to a tape and I will be using tar.. I don't want to
> have to backup the full volume of 4GB if there is a way to backup the
> hard links and so save space on the tape..
A hard link is just a directory entry. When a file is first created it
has one "hard-link". That is, it has a single directory entry. When you
create a new "hard link" you're just creating another directory entry
that points to the file.
Hard links are indistinguishable from the original file. Once you've hard
linked a file there is no way for the system to determine which is the
original directory entry and which is the directory entry you
created with the ln command.
> How does tar handle hard links?? Is there a switch to use or does it
> handle them automatically??
>
> I looked through the man page and only saw a reference to symlinks but
> not hard links..
It handles them as regular files.
Cheers,
Sean
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