tar problems.

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

While installing red hat 7.2 I found the following problems with tar.
Obvioulsy I waited a while for it to stabilize and installed all of
the "suggested" RPMs.

I downloaded the latest version of tar from the GNU archive, recompiled
it and still had the same problems.

I used tar-1.13.tar.gz s the source file while gcc-3.0.3 and
glibc-2.2.4-19.


1. When restoring with same permissions and same owner, symlinks are
   restored as 0 length files owned by root and permission 000.

2. Multiple level excludes are ignored.

I have written 2 shell scripts to test tar and point out if your tar
has the bugs. I'm enclosing them here (cut and paste not as enclosures).

If you run them from the tests directory of a tar distribution uncomment
the call to  ./preset

I hope this helps, Thanks.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson
Bloomberg L.P., BFM (Israel) 2 hours ahead of London, 7 hours ahead of New York.
Tel:  972-(0)3-754-1158 Fax 972-(0)3-754-1236 Email: address@hidden 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
#       Restoring with same-owner and --same-permissions was creating
#       0 byte files instead of symlinks
#
#       Writen by Geoffrey S. Mendelson February 2002
#
#
#       Note: This test MUST be run as root!!!
#. ./preset

OUTDIR="/tmp"
ARCHIVE="$OUTDIR/link01test.tgz"
INDIR="$OUTDIR/bin"

rm -r $INDIR >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
rm $ARCHIVE >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
echo "creating tar of /bin"
tar -c -z -f $ARCHIVE -C / bin
echo "restoring tar of /bin"

tar --same-owner --same-permissions -x  -z -C $OUTDIR -f $ARCHIVE

echo "looking for empty files in $INDIR"
echo "if you find any, it's a problem"
ZERO=`find $INDIR  -type f -size 0 | wc | awk '{print $1}'`
echo $ZERO "zero length files found."

echo "looking for sybolic links in $INDIR"
echo "if you do not find any, it's a problem"
LINKS=`find $INDIR  -type l | wc | awk '{print $1}'`
echo $LINKS "symbolic links found."

if [ $LINKS -eq 0 ] ; then
        echo "oops, we have a problem."
        exit 1;
fi
rm -r $INDIR >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
rm $ARCHIVE >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
echo "tar passed link test with no problem."
exit 0

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

#!/bin/sh
#
#       Dumping files with --exclude does not exclude the files. 
#
#       Writen by Geoffrey S. Mendelson February 2002
#
#. ./preset

OUTDIR="tmp"
LEVEL0="/$OUTDIR/exclude01"
LEVEL1="$LEVEL0/level1"
LEVEL2="$LEVEL1/level2"
LEVEL3="$LEVEL2/level3"

INDIR="$OUTDIR/exclude01"
EXCLUDE="$INDIR/level1/level2/level3/*"



rm -r $LEVEL0 >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
mkdir $LEVEL0
mkdir $LEVEL1
mkdir $LEVEL2
mkdir $LEVEL3
echo "hello" >$LEVEL1/a.file
echo "hello" >$LEVEL2/another.file
echo "hello" >$LEVEL3/athird.file


TARCMD="tar --exclude $EXCLUDE  -c -v -f /dev/null -C / $INDIR"
echo $TARCMD
OOPS=`$TARCMD | grep athird`
if [ " $OOPS" == " " ] ; then
        echo "tar handles multiple level excludes properly."
        exit 0
fi
echo "tar dumped $OOPS and should have excluded it. Bad tar, bad."
exit 1