Re: Bug in cp ???

[Jim Meyering]

Shamsher Sandhu <address@hidden> wrote:
| I am using Oracle here on Redhat 6.2 load. We are copying oracle
| databfiles for backup using cp command. The copy is happening when oracle
| is down. The copy is being done across nfs. The problem is that sometimes
| the copied file is of different size than the original one. The difference
| can range between 200 to 300 mb on a 500 mb file. I discovered this while
| to restore from backup and I realised that I could not recover beacuse of
| thius problem. I have seen this problemn at least 5 times after that and
| happens with many files. Could it be that oracle datafiles have embedded
| EOF characters that confuse cp into thinking that the file has ended or
| what. Any way I will leave it upto you to figure it out. But please keep
| me informed about this problem.

Thanks for the report.
>From what type of file system (df -T) are you copying?
What type of file system are you copying *to*?
What version of cp are you using?

Did you try using the --sparse=always option?

There may be something wrong with cp's code that detects
whether a file is sparse.

Did you try comparing the files before and after?
The destination file (the one that's way too big)
probably has big blocks of zero bytes that correspond to
`holes' in the original.

Would you please see if the problem persists when using the
latest test release?

  ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/fetish/fileutils-4.0.32.tar.gz

I expect to make an official release of the fileutils within the next
month or so, and would really like to resolve any problems before then.

Regards,
Jim