[Bug-tar] Re: HP-UX tar -> GNU tar: Archive value -56720837941 is out of uid_t range 0..4294967295

[Paul Eggert]

<address@hidden> writes:

> we get error messages like these:
>
> boclu21:afarber {60} tar xvfzC 
> /projects/scratch_r1011/usr/afarber/isa_sw-03_w31/product_config/upp_family/hdh12_52_config/ppm/mididata.tgz
>  /tmp
> tar: Archive contains obsolescent base-64 headers
> tar: Archive value -56720837941 is out of uid_t range 0..4294967295
> 0089.mid
>
> when trying to unpack archives created by 
> people with long UID's using the HP-UX tar.

Thanks for the bug report.  Do you get the same problem with tar
1.13.25?  <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.13.25.tar.gz>

Also, can you send a copy of such a tar file?  E.g., can you
send the output of the following shell commands, run as root?

  touch foo
  chown 2147483647 foo
  tar cbf 1 tar foo
  uuencode tar tar >output

Please substitute the maximal HP-UX UID for '2147483647'.


> The error messages are printed regardless if 
> we specify --no-same-owner --no-same-permissions
> or not.

That is probably because GNU tar ignores the uid-decoding problem if
it finds the user name.

> So when trying to unpack HP-UX tar archives 
> your GNU tar switches to V7_FORMAT, correct?

Yes.

> Don't you think, that it would better to add
> some check for --no-same-owner there?

It's probably not worth the trouble.  It'd be better to fix GNU tar to
understand the HP-UX user-id encoding system.