Re: [Lzip-bug] Tarlz 0.4: Use of 'ustar' format instead of 'posix'; question about future of Tarlz utility

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Timothy Beryl Grahek wrote:
> > Thanks. I have copied then to my TODO list and will try to implement
> > them as time permits. Of course I'll implement first the "limited
> > posix format" to allow files larger than 8 GB.
>
> Excellent! I am very glad to hear that.

I think I have found an unexpected difficulty. It seems that the pax 
format has a serious flaw not present in the ustar format. The extended 
records in the pax extended header are not protected by any checksum in 
spite of containing critical metadata (file size, filename, file 
time,...). This may lead to several kinds of undetected corruption.

Please, could you verify[1] that extended records are not protected by 
any checksum. Thanks.
[1] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/pax.html

Maybe we will need to propose a change to the pax format.


Best regards,
Antonio.