[gentoo-user] Re: Question about making a tarball

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Dale wrote:
> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Dale wrote:
>>> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>> Dale wrote:
>>>>> I try to keep a "up to date" stage 4 tarball here in my system just in
>>>>> case.  I basically did the creation just like I would if I were booted
>>>>> from the CD.  I created /mnt/gentoo/ on my system, extracted a stage 3
>>>>> there, then chroot in and create a stage 4 tarball.  I have one weird
>>>>> thing tho that has me confused.  When it creates the stage 4
>>>>> tarball, it
>>>>> is in /mnt/gentoo.  Today I unpacked the stage 4 so that I could
>>>>> update
>>>>> it and when I do a tar xjpf stage4 -C /mnt/gentoo, it actually looks
>>>>> like this, /mnt/gentoo/mnt/gentoo/ which is not what I am looking
>>>>> for. It doesn't matter on a running system, but it would if I were
>>>>> trying to
>>>>> rescue myself.
>>>>>
>>>>> How do I tell tar when I am making the tarball to look at /mnt/gentoo/
>>>>> as it start point, root directory if you will?  I read the man page
>>>>> but
>>>>> suspect I am missing it somewhere.  There has to be a way since it is
>>>>> done that way for the stage 3 tarball.
>>>> You strip the leading directory during extraction using the
>>>> "--strip=1" option ("1" means "strip 1 leading directory", which will
>>>> ignore "gentoo/" during extraction.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> OK.  That makes sense, sort of.  How do the people that make the stage3
>>> tarball do it?  When I extract a stage3 tarball, it doesn't have
>>> /mnt/gentoo on it at all.  Are they using a "dedicated" install to build
>>> those tarballs on?
>>>
>>> Also, since I want it to ignore /mnt/gentoo, wouldn't I have to use
>>> --strip=2 to remove both /mnt and the /gentoo after that?  Just trying
>>> to make sure I understand this correctly.
>>>
>>> I would like to do this on the creating part if possible.
>> To do this on creation, you can do use "-C /mnt/gentoo ." as options
>> (translate: package the current directory of /mnt/gentoo).  The
>> top-level directory of the tarball will then be "./".
>>
>>
>>
>
> I tried this but it didn't like it very much:
>
> root@smoker / # tar -cjfvp /data/Gentoo-stuff/stage4-x86-04-2009.bz2 -C
> /mnt/gentoo/
> tar: Removing leading `/' from member names
> tar: /data/Gentoo-stuff/stage4-x86-04-2009.bz2: Cannot stat: No such
> file or directory
> tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
> root@smoker / #
>
> I also tried reversing the thing, thought maybe I had it backwards, but
> it didn't like that either.  Maybe I'm getting to old for learning new
> tricks.  LOL
>
> Where am I wrong here?

1) Better use -cjvpf  ("f") takes an argument (the filename of that tar 
to be crated) so it must be at the end.

2) You are forgetting the dot (= current directory) at the end of the 
command:

tar -cjpf /data/Gentoo-stuff/stage4-x86-04-2009.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo .