Jesse Keating wrote: > 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. > If the change that causes /var/log/lastlog to be a huge sparse file is accepted, it is _imperative_ that all common backup tools be updated to support sparse by default. Actually, I don't understand why this isn't the default anyway, except that it is a tiny bit slower (on Linux systems it shouldn't be significantly slower).