sparse files

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Tue, 2005-05-24 at 16:31 -0500, Mike Reinehr wrote:

> > The linux 2.2 kernel does not support files larger than 2 GB, so the size of 
> your image must not exceed this limit. You can solve this problem using the 
> 2.4 kernel, which doesn't have this limitation. You can also split your image 
> into small files (of 1,9 GB for example). You also require a recent glibc 
> version: 2.2 or newer

This is a 2.6 kernel in all places I am trying this. And glibc 2.3.4.

> > `tar' ignores the `--sparse' (`-S') option when reading an archive.

I do not see this in my tar's man page. I use tar 1.15. I specify
--sparse when tar creates and extracts the archive.

> All of the information regarding sparse files pertained to creating the 
> archive. I got the distinct impression that tar makes no effort to recreate 
> the sparse file in it's original form.
> 
> I'm wondering now, if the answer to your problem is to use a tool such as gzip 
> or bzip2 to create a compressed archive of your qemu file, rather than tar.

I think if I use bzip or such tool, the 6GB will be compressed and
recreated on the destination. This means that the copy will no longer be
sparse.

I can deal with this if it is not expected to work. But discussions I
have read imply that it should.


-- 
Roger Oberholtzer <roger at opq.se>