>> OK, my question: what's the best utility to preserve the permissions,
>> UIDs, GIDs, sparse files,...? Woud GNU tar cut it? I was thinking about
>> something like this:
> Any pax or tar or cpio should do OK for UIDs, GIDs, permissions, devices,
> etc.
> Tomsrtbt does not include gnu-tar, it has a pax = tar = cpio.
> Normal (non-gnu) cpio is better than normal (non-gnu) tar, as the tar
> standard does not support arbitrary lengths of file names. If you use the
> tomsrtbt pax, use either the pax or cpio syntax with the cpio file format.
> You can maintain more portability with gnu-cpio than with gnu-tar.
> I doubt the tomsrtbt pax/tar/cpio preserves sparseness. You might want to
> check and see if there is anything on the system where you care...
>> Will something like this work and not affect things like, say, the /dev
>> directory, or the lost+found dirs on every partition (I think it won't but
>> wanna make sure).
> Gnu tar should work. Gnu cpio should work. I personally think cpio is a
> better file format than tar, though I prefer the tar command syntax.
> Tomsrtbt tar or cpio or pax will also work well enough, with the exception
> of the sparse files issue.
> I will copy the pax maintainer re: is there sparse support in the works?
> -Tom
You can "resparse" a file using the GNU cp command
with the --sparse=always option.
--
Jim Dennis [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Linuxcare: Linux Corporate Support Team: http://www.linuxcare.com
