[Bug-tar] bug in filename buffer

[Christian Wetzel]

Hi there,

the new tar  buffers the filenames read from stdin (cat <some_filenames> 
| tar c -T- | ...).
There are two problems with that.

1. tar does not check the available ram or address space. On a 32 bit 
system tar crashes
   when the filelist is too large.
2. On an 64 bit system it uses all available ram resources.

We used tar to copy a lot of files (billions) over the network like thist:

zcat large_filelist.gz | tar c -T- | netcat ip port

on the other side:

netcat -lp port | tar x

It was the fastest way to copy a large amount of files and this is no 
longer possible.
Currently we downgraded to the old tar, but will there be a switch to 
turn this new behaviour off ?
The gnu tools have always been incredible reliable (thanks for that) and 
now the streaming
capability and reliability of tar get's thrown away for a imho 
unneccessary feature ?

Best regards,
Christian Wetzel