We run a daily backup script that puts a large tar file on a remote ftp server (with ncftpput). We need to have a local list of contents ("ls -la" or "tar -tvz") of this file without creating this large file locally before it is transferred and without downloading this file after it is saved remotely. The backup script runs a few hours. Therefore the verbose output of tar without detailed information of filesize and timestamp is not sufficient and to run "ls -la" on these files hours later is not a good option, too.
What is the best way to create the mentioned list of contents?
Is there a better way than creating an index file (with tar options "v" and "--index-file=file") and running another local script hours later to get more file information (timestamp and size - that could have changed in the meantime)?
Can't you gather the list while tarring?
$ mkdir test
$ cd test
$ touch a b
$ tar cvvf ball.tar .
drwxrwxr-x james/james 0 2017-06-28 14:27 ./
-rw-rw-r-- james/james 0 2017-06-28 14:27 ./a
-rw-rw-r-- james/james 0 2017-06-28 14:27 ./b
tar: ./ball.tar: file is the archive; not dumped
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