> > Yes, sparse files make a lot of sense.
> >
> > Except for the administrator of a machine with evil users who
> > purposesly make files with huge holes in them, the volume gets backed
> > up to tape using tar and fits, he tries to restore it later and lo and
> > behold the disk lacks the room for the files. Classic problem.
>
> GNU tar option --sparse / -S handles sparse files.
I'd say "tries to handle"... gnu-tar can't distinguish between allocated blocks all zero
and sparse holes. in case where it's important that some areas are really allocated,
gnu-tar may break your files. might not be a common problem but tar just can't
deal with sparse files perfectly; dump/restore can...
Harald
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Harald Koenig, \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
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koenig@tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de ^^^^^ ^^^^^