Re: [Bug-tar] --format=oldgnu not working in GNU tar 1.16

[Sebastian Kaps]

Hallo Sergey!

Am Thu, 26 Apr 2007 18:20:42 +0300 schriebst Du:

> Ah, I see.  But I seem to have missed something (probably one of your
> messages did not reach the list).  

Yes, probably. I answered one message directly to Paul. Here's a copy of
what I wrote to clarify things:

,----[ Copy of my answer to Paul ]
| I have an embedded device running Linux (AVM Fritz!Box Fon WLAN, a
| German DSL/WLAN router) that uses a tar version which only understands
| the oldgnu format. I currently have no shell access to that box,
| otherwise I would be more specific.
| 
| Anyway, firmware updates for that box come as tar archives. You can
| transfer them to the box via web interface and the box unpacks the
| archive and runs an included update script. I also have a utility that
| modifies existing firmware files and creates new ones.
| 
| The problem I now have is, that the box doesn't accept these new
| firmware files because the tar process on the box exits with an error
| saying that the file format is not recognized.
| So I untarred this firmware file, resulting in the above cited "var"
| directory. As you saw, tarring again with --format=gnu and
| --format=oldgnu didn't result in differnt files.
| But when I boot from an older Linux Live CD (an old version Knoppix 3.x,
| in case you know it) and use the included tar binary from that cd, I get
| two different archives. Additionally the archive created with
| --format=oldgnu is perfectly understood by the DSL box.
| 
| So, to my understanding, there must have been a change in the code that
| creates archives in oldgnu-format before the 1.16 version of tar.
`----

-- 
Ciao, Sebastian