CentOS - Nov 2006 - tar vs. star vs. something-else-I-don-t-know-about

Hello all,

today I've been sitting at work and upgrading a very-very-very old
server with RedHat Linux 6.2 installed up to CentOS 3.8. The process
went smoothly, as it is not the first time I was doing the things like
this. Just after upgrading I went to rpm -qai list and got an
interesting observation: there are at least two "tar" utilities
installed
on the system.

One is tar, and second is star.

[root at devel mrtg]# rpm -qi star
Name        : star                         Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 1.5a08                            Vendor: CentOS
Release     : 4                             Build Date: ??? 29 ??? 2004 04:54:14
Install Date: ??? 13 ??? 2006 09:38:38      Build Host: centos3.wellhouse
Group       : Applications/Archiving        Source RPM: star-1.5a08-4.src.rpm
Size        : 336744                           License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, ??? 16 ??? 2004 01:48:38, Key ID 7049e44d025e513b
URL         :
http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/star.html
Summary     : An archiving tool with ACL support
Description :
Star saves many files together into a single tape or disk archive,
and can restore individual files from the archive. Star supports ACL.

[root at devel mrtg]# rpm -qi tar
Name        : tar                          Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 1.14                              Vendor: CentOS
Release     : 4                             Build Date: ??? 21 ??? 2005 18:58:37
Install Date: ??? 05 ??? 2006 19:48:51      Build Host: bhrama.build.karan.org
Group       : Applications/Archiving        Source RPM: tar-1.14-4.src.rpm
Size        : 824393                           License: GPL
Signature   : DSA/SHA1, ??? 27 ??? 2005 00:39:26, Key ID a53d0bab443e1821
Packager    : Karanbir Singh <kbsingh at centos.org>
URL         : http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/
Summary     : A GNU file archiving program.
Description :
The GNU tar program saves many files together in one archive and can
restore individual files (or all of the files) from that archive. Tar
can also be used to add supplemental files to an archive and to update
or list files in the archive. Tar includes multivolume support,
automatic archive compression/decompression, the ability to perform
remote archives, and the ability to perform incremental and full
backups.

If you want to use tar for remote backups, you also need to install
the rmt package.

I would like to know, what are the differences between them? Which
one should I use in the future? Is star compatible with amanda backup
suite (I use amanda as a main backup software solution for our
production environment servers)?

Also, there may be other tar-like/compatible utilities shipped
with CentOS3/4 that I simply don't know about. It would be great, if
somebody will provide me with info (or a link to a place) about such
utilities, and with a comparison between them all. Thanks in advance.

-- 
? ?????????,
 Alexey                          mailto:aloukianov at lavtech.ru

On 11/15/06, Alexey Loukianov <aloukianov at lavtech.ru>
wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> today I've been sitting at work and upgrading a very-very-very old
> server with RedHat Linux 6.2 installed up to CentOS 3.8. The process
> went smoothly, as it is not the first time I was doing the things like
> this. Just after upgrading I went to rpm -qai list and got an
> interesting observation: there are at least two "tar" utilities
installed
> on the system.
>
> One is tar, and second is star.
Tar is the one you'll likely run into the most. Star is similar to
tar, but has ACL support, so if you're using extended ACL support
(requires a mount option to the file system) you get to keep all the
fine grained permissions. This applies to about 1% of the user
population*.

* This statistic was yanked directly from the southern orifice and
should not in any way be considered accurate

Mostly, learn tar first as it is what nearly everything uses and expects.


-- 
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell

On Wed, 2006-11-15 at 18:23, Alexey Loukianov wrote:
> I would like to know, what are the differences between them? Which
> one should I use in the future? Is star compatible with amanda backup
> suite (I use amanda as a main backup software solution for our
> production environment servers)?
Amanda needs the --listed-incremental mode of GNU tar.  Star
has some different extensions but won't work with amanda.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com