tar-1.24 released [stable]

[Sergey Poznyakoff]

Hello,

This is to announce tar 1.24, a new stable release of GNU tar.  This
release fixes several bugs found in the previous 1.23.  See below for
a list of changes.

Thanks to everyone who reported bugs and suggestions.  Special
thanks to Paul Eggert for his hard work on this release.

Here are the compressed sources:
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.tar.gz    (3.3MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.tar.bz2   (2.3MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.tar.xz    (1.7MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.shar.gz   (5.0MB)
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.cpio.gz   (3.3MB)

Here are the GPG detached signatures[*]:
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.tar.gz.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.tar.bz2.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.tar.xz.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.shar.gz.sig
  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.24.cpio.gz.sig

To reduce load on the main server, please use a mirror listed at:
  http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html

Here are the MD5 and SHA1 checksums:

6f84e44a332449844995874cf5245094  tar-1.24.tar.gz
ba905d8b1dcf06254e8025cc4468d8e5  tar-1.24.tar.bz2
debae443de7e1c61cd24c2d53bca50c6  tar-1.24.tar.xz
cc963053c7e5a9696056ddd9bc693556  tar-1.24.shar.gz
c16a9c0e1d3488e5869ac044ee8b871f  tar-1.24.cpio.gz
35af7035e269f3d48d55fd4fd04ac91fd8788b84  tar-1.24.tar.gz
d9ce3b4a4d18b010294ed8609473b0e6ae276a5d  tar-1.24.tar.bz2
ca796b8bbe976b3fd3762a4bd652404d13650e72  tar-1.24.tar.xz
52dab4560ef042c49ae553b909e0bd2c68603177  tar-1.24.shar.gz
e22480b4ebd90a1dd408739d0ebf02aef7addb63  tar-1.24.cpio.gz

[*] You can use either of the above signature files to verify that
the corresponding file (without the .sig suffix) is intact.  First,
be sure to download both the .sig file and the corresponding tarball.
Then, run a command like this:

  gpg --verify tar-1.24.tar.gz.sig

If that command fails because you don't have the required public key,
then run this command to import it:

  gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-keys 55D0C732

and rerun the `gpg --verify' command.

This release was bootstrapped with the following tools:
  Autoconf 2.63
  Automake 1.11.1
  Gnulib v0.0-4399-g9645318

Noteworthy changes in this release:

* The --full-time option.

New command line option `--full-time' instructs tar to output file
time stamps to the full resolution.

* Bugfixes.

** More reliable directory traversal when creating archives

Tar now checks for inconsistencies caused when a file system is
modified while tar is creating an archive.  In the new approach, tar
maintains a cache of file descriptors to directories, so it uses more
file descriptors than before, but it adjusts to system limits on
the number of file descriptors.  Tar also takes more care when
a file system is modified while tar is extracting from an archive.

The new checks are implemented via the openat and related calls
standardized by POSIX.1-2008.  On an older system where these calls do
not exist or do not return useful results, tar emulates the calls at
some cost in efficiency and reliability.

** Symbolic link attributes

When extracting symbolic links, tar now restores attributes such as
last-modified time and link permissions, if the operating system
supports this.  For example, recent versions of the Linux kernel
support setting times on symlinks, and some BSD kernels also support
symlink permissions.

** --dereference consistency

The --dereference (-h) option now applies to files that are copied
into or out of archives, independently of other options.  For example,
if F is a symbolic link and archive.tar contains a regular-file member
also named F, "tar --overwrite -x -f archive.tar F" now overwrites F
itself, rather than the file that F points to.  (To overwrite the file
that F points to, add the --dereference (-h) option.)  Formerly,
--dereference was intended to apply only when using the -c option, but
the implementation was not consistent.

Also, the --dereference option no longer affects accesses to other
files, such as archives and time stamp files.  Symbolic links to these
files are always followed.  Previously, the links were usually but not
always followed.

** Spurious error diagnostics on broken pipe.

When receiving SIGPIPE, tar would exit with error status and
"write error" diagnostics. In particular, this occurred if
invoked as in the example below:

   tar tf archive.tar | head -n 1

** --remove-files

`Tar --remove-files' failed to remove a directory which contained
symlinks to another files within that directory.

** --test-label behavior

In case of a mismatch, `tar --test-label LABEL' exits with code 1,
not 2 as it did in previous versions.

The `--verbose' option used with `--test-label' provides additional
diagnostics.

Several volume labels may be specified in a command line, e.g.:

   tar --test-label -f archive 'My volume' 'New volume' 'Test volume'

In this case, tar exits with code 0 if any one of the arguments
matches the actual volume label.

** --label used with --update

The `--label' option can be used with `--update' to prevent accidental
update of an archive:

  tar -rf archive --label 'My volume' .

This did not work in previous versions, in spite of what the docs said.

** --record-size and --tape-length (-L) options

Usual size suffixes are allowed for these options.  For example,
-L10k stands for a 10 kilobyte tape length.

** Fix dead loop on extracting existing symlinks with the -k option.

Regards,
Sergey