On Tue, 2006-09-12 at 12:48 -0400, Robert Moskowitz wrote: > > Tar shouldn't have stopped regardless of complaints about files that > > are unreadable or disappear. If you are sure it isn't completing > > try running it with 'strace' and look at the system errors when > > it dies. > Sounds reasonable. Had to lookup up strace. > > So I would run: > > starce -o /tmp/strace.log tar -cpvzO / --exclude-from=/home/not-file > 2>/tmp/tarlog.err | ssh user at ipaddrs "cat > backup.tgz" Spell it right.. But I think I'd try to narrow down the set of files that make tar stop before you think it should and do something simple like: strace tar cf /dev/null file1 file2 file3 and look at the return values on the system calls affecting these files. But, my first guess is that your excludes aren't working the way you expect and you are wandering into /proc. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell at gmail.com