[Sunhelp] gnu tar question

[George Munk]

Bill,

I also backup files from a remote NetApp filer using tar on an NFS client.
Assume the following configuration:

netapp - NetApp filer hostname
netapp:/qtree1 - an exported directory mounted locally on /dir1/qtree1
netapp:/qtree2 - an exported directory mounted locally on /dir2/dir3/qtree2

Tar only goes into the .snapshot directories /dir1/qtree1/.snapshot and
/dir2/dir3/qtree2/.snapshot. The find command behaves in the same way. One way
of describing the behavior is that the .snapshot directory is only visible in
the mount-point directory. One can only get into the .snapshot directory in
other directories if is is explicitly stated. For example, 
"ls -a /dir1/qtree1" shows .snapshot but 
"ls -a /dir1/qtree1/subdir" does not show .snapshot even though you can
"cd /dir1/qtree1/subdir/.snapshot". This is specifically designed special
behavior.

Also, there is also an option "nosnapdir" that I can only find in my original
documentation. It doesn't show up in the documentation for the current
version of the filer O/S. It doesn't show up in the list of options when the
"options" command is run on the filer but:

netapp> options nosnapdir
nosnapdir            off
netapp> options nosnapdir on
netapp> options nosnapdir
nosnapdir            on
netapp> options nosnapdir off
netapp> options nosnapdir
nosnapdir            off

>From "NetApp Filer Command Reference Guide Release 4.1", page 65, USER
COMMANDS, na_options(1):

"nosnapdir
Disable the visible .snapshot directory that is normally present at client
mount points, and turn off access to all other .snapshot directories."

Your original question implies that you think that tar will descend into all
.snapshot directories. My experience is that this is not true. Therefore, it
looks like you may have two possible solutions. Exclude all
"/mount-point/.snapshot" directories from the tar command which is a known,
reasonably small list or turn on the "nosnapdir" option which may be an option
that is no longer officially supported.

If you like I could ask our local SE about the status of the "nosnapdir"
option. We used to work together before he want to work for NetApp so I can bug
him about anything.


Hoping to finally give something useful back to Bill,
George Munk



On 21-Jul-2000 Bill Bradford wrote:
> Question - while using GNU tar, is there a way to 
> --exclude a filename *anywhere*?  E.g., what I'm
> doing is backing up a couple of NetApp filers via
> GNU tar to a DLT drive, and I want to *exclude* the
> .snapshot directories everywhere....
> 
> Bill
> 
> -- 
> +-------------------\ /-----------------+
>| Bill Bradford      |  www.sunhelp.org |
>| mrbill at mrbill.net  |   www.decvax.org |
>| Austin, Texas USA  |    www.pdp11.org |
> +-------------------/ \-----------------+
> _______________________________________________
> SunHELP maillist  -  SunHELP at sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/sunhelp