problem using tar under system V

[3673,ATTT]

In article <368 at gtenmc.UUCP> fst at gtenmc.UUCP (Fariborz Skip Tavakkolian) writes:
>In article <1295 at amethyst.math.arizona.edu> mat at zeus.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Mat Watson) writes:

>>so we tried to use tar.  However, the tar command on his system quits
>>after it has writen roughly 2Mb to the archive file ...
>>Tar always quits at the same number of bytes no matter what kind of device
>>or file we try to write to ( a pipe or a disk file ) ...
>>Is tar under system V broken?  Any ideas on a workaround?

>This looks like the ULIMIT problem; by default most 3B2, 6386 etc. are
>setup with a ULIMIT of 2048 (1K) blocks.  There is information in the AT&T
>manuals on how to change the system limits.

well, it makes sense if you are running in a developement environment
and want to keep runaway processees from eating up all of the disk
space.  no matter how much disk space (total) you have, a full partition
is a real pain in the butt.

also, at least for the vaxen at work running SysV rel3.1 the block size
is for 512 byte blocks.  did this change for the 3.2 release?

>P.S., I am working on a VAX 8810 with 128 MB of main memory (RAM) running
>SVR3.1 and close to a GAZILION MB of disk; the  ULIMIT is set to 2048, makes
>no sense whatsoever ...

so get your SA to raise it.  my 3b1 at home has a ulimit of 2**31 (-1)
(and i only have 67Meg of disk space. :-(

BTW: gazillion is spelled with two L's ;-)

>Skip
--
=====================================================================
Bill Rankin				email address:	att!moss!wtr
was: Bell Labs, Whippany NJ				att!bromo!wtr
now: AT&T Federal Systems, Burlington NC  (919) 228 3673 (cornet 291)