Re: [Bug-tar] xattr support on Linux

[Pavel Raiskup]

> I've held off through a combination of wanting to stay as close as
> possible to the upstream sources and an apparently erroneous assumption
> that with several xattr patches floating around that eventually one
> would be merged.
>
> What's the story here?  Are there plans to add xattr support to tar?  If
> not, would it help if I pick one, merge it, and expose it, say, through
> inclusion in Debian's experimental tree?

Bdale, thanks for touching this important topic.  I just want to ask you
whether there is xattr patch other than Fedora originated?  It could look
like there is several xattr patches but AFAIK it is still the single one
xattrs patch applied in Fedora/Gentoo/RHEL but with several incremental
improvements (both from Gentoo/RH side).  If you are considering this, be
sure you have at least checked the last updated version:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-tar/2012-08/msg00012.html

Please ping me with pointers to other patches (if any) -- I'd like to
analyze the incompatibilities and fix them.

I would appreciate if you could also look at my proposal and make a
review..  I *really* want to held at least discussion regarding xattrs &
tar.

On Mon, 2012-10-01 at 22:30 -0700, Paul Eggert wrote:
>On 10/01/2012 07:27 PM, Bdale Garbee wrote:
>> Are there plans to add xattr support to tar?
>
> I don't have any, no.

Paul, Sergey, Linux extended attributes are quite important file system
feature -- at least users of POSIX ACLs, capabilities or SELinux need some
way to backup these.  I'd be glad to help you with related problems to
reduce maintenance cost of course if you reconsidered patching GNU tar for
xattrs again.  Could you discuss the pros and cons in mentioned thread?

Pavel