lastlog devours universe

[Neal Becker]

Jesse Keating wrote:

> On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 07:09 -0400, Neal Becker wrote:
>> 
>> If the change that causes /var/log/lastlog to be a huge sparse file is
>> accepted, it is _imperative_ that all common backup tools be updated
>> to
>> support sparse by default.  Actually, I don't understand why this
>> isn't the
>> default anyway, except that it is a tiny bit slower (on Linux systems
>> it
>> shouldn't be significantly slower).
>> 
> 
> You're going to have to tell me what 'default' is.  The backup tools I
> use don't do anything by default except give me a usage statement....
> 

If I understand correctly, tar will only handle sparse files properly if
told to explicitly, using the --sparse flag.  Unless tar defaults to
handling sparse intelligently without the flag, 85% of all fedora sysadmins
are going to be really pissed.