lastlog devours universe

[Jesse Keating]

On Tue, 2005-06-07 at 16:35 -0700, Andy Ross wrote:
> Indeed:
> 
>   tar cf /tmp/unbelievably-huge-file /var/log/lastlog
> 
> I killed it after 10 seconds and a few hundred MB.  What if someone
> tries to backup their logs?  Surely there must be a saner way to store
> this data than a 1.2TB sparse file...  This is a sysadmin disaster
> waiting to happen.

From 'man tar'

       -S, --sparse
              handle sparse files efficiently


From 'man rsync'

        -S, --sparse                handle sparse files efficiently

Most backup software I've looked at mentions sparse files and how to
handle them.  Perhaps what is prudent is a mention in the release notes
and FAQs that /var/log/lastlog is a sparse file and should be treated
accordingly.

-- 
Jesse Keating RHCE      (http://geek.j2solutions.net)
Fedora Legacy Team      (http://www.fedoralegacy.org)
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(http://geek.j2solutions.net/jkeating.j2solutions.pub)

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