Re: [Bug-tar] Problem with multi-volume archives.

[Joerg Schilling]

Petr Sumbera <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi.
>
> While using GNU tar (lately 1.22) on Solaris I'm bumping often to 
> following problem when extracting/testing multi-volume tar archives:
>
> gtar tMf /mnt/test.tar
> ...
>  
> usr/apache/tomcat55/classes/org/apache/catalina/core/ApplicationFilterChain.class
> Prepare volume #2 for `/mnt/test.tar' and hit return: n /test.tar.2
> gtar: Archive value -3654 is out of off_t range 0..9223372036854775807
> gtar: Archive value -3654 is out of uintmax_t range 0..18446744073709551615
> gtar: 
> `usr/apache/tomcat55/classes/org/apache/catalina/core/ApplicationFilterChain.class'
>  
> is not continued on this volume
> Prepare volume #2 for `/test.tar.2' and hit return:
>
> ---
>
> Any idea about that?

More than 6 years ago, I file a bug against GNU tar that states that there is 
a high risk that GNU tar will create multi-volume archives that cannot be read
back by GNU tar.

The reason at that time was that GNU tar

a)      would not create correct multi-volume headers in case that
        a file is not split across volumes

b)      would not create correct multi-volume headers in case that
        a pseudo-file (additional header + content) is split across volumes.

The background is that the GNU tar archive format tries to verify followup 
volumes with an inapropriate algorithm.

The archives related to a) can be read back by star 
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/star/
as star uses a working verification algorithm for own archives and ignores the 
verification hints from GNU tar archives.

I am not sure whether this GNU tar bug has been fixed....

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:address@hidden (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
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