197 lines
8.2 KiB
Plaintext
197 lines
8.2 KiB
Plaintext
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README for GNU tar
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Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001
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Free Software Foundation, Inc.
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This file is part of GNU tar.
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GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
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it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
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the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
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any later version.
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GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
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but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
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MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
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GNU General Public License for more details.
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You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
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along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
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the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
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Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
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Please glance through *all* sections of this
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`README' file before starting configuration. Also make sure you read files
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`ABOUT-NLS' and `INSTALL' if you are not familiar with them already.
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If you got the `tar' distribution in `shar' format, time stamps ought to be
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properly restored; do not ignore such complaints at `unshar' time.
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GNU `tar' saves many files together into a single tape or disk
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archive, and can restore individual files from the archive. It includes
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multivolume support, the ability to archive sparse files, automatic archive
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compression/decompression, remote archives and special features that allow
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`tar' to be used for incremental and full backups. This distribution
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also includes `rmt', the remote tape server. The `mt' tape drive control
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program is in the GNU `cpio' distribution.
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GNU `tar' is derived from John Gilmore's public domain `tar'.
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See file `ABOUT-NLS' for how to customize this program to your language.
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See file `COPYING' for copying conditions.
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See file `INSTALL' for compilation and installation instructions.
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See file `PORTS' for various ports of GNU tar to non-Unix systems.
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See file `NEWS' for a list of major changes in the current release.
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See file `THANKS' for a list of contributors.
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Besides those configure options documented in files `INSTALL' and
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`ABOUT-NLS', an extra option may be accepted after `./configure':
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* `--disable-largefile' omits support for large files, even if the
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operating system supports large files. Typically, large files are
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those larger on 2 GB on a 32-bit host.
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The default archive device is now `stdin' on read and `stdout' on write.
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The installer can still override this by presetting `DEFAULT_ARCHIVE'
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in the environment before configuring (the behavior of `-[0-7]' or
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`-[0-7]lmh' options in `tar' are then derived automatically). Similarly,
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`DEFAULT_BLOCKING' can be preset to something else than 20.
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For comprehensive modifications to GNU tar, you might need tools beyond
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those used in simple installations. Fully install GNU m4 1.4 first,
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and only then, Autoconf 2.13 or later. Install Perl, then Automake
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1.4 or later. You might need Bison 1.28 or later, and GNU tar itself.
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All are available on GNU archive sites, like in
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ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/.
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Send bug reports to `bug-tar@gnu.org'. (Beware, old-timers: it is
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`@gnu', not `@prep'; and not `bug-gnu-utils' anymore.) A bug report is
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an adequate description of the problem: your input, what you expected,
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what you got, and why this is wrong. Diffs are welcome, but they only
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describe a solution, from which the problem might be uneasy to infer.
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If needed, submit actual data files with your report. Small data files
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are preferred. Big files may sometimes be necessary, but do not send them
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to the report address; rather take special arrangement with the maintainer.
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Your feedback will help us to make a better and more portable package.
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Consider documentation errors as bugs, and report them as such. If you
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develop anything pertaining to `tar' or have suggestions, let us know
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and share your findings by writing to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
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Installation hints
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------------------
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Here are a few hints which might help installing `tar' on some systems.
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* gzip and bzip2.
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GNU tar uses the gzip and bzip2 programs to read and write compressed
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archives. If you don't have these programs already, you need to
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install them. Their sources can be found at:
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ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/
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http://sourceware.cygnus.com/bzip2/
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If you see the following symptoms:
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$ tar -xzf file.tar.gz
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gzip: stdin: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
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tar: Child returned status 2
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then you have encountered a gzip incompatibility that should be fixed
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in gzip test version 1.3, which as of this writing is available at
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<ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/>. You can work around the
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incompatibility by using a shell command like
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`gzip -d <file.tar.gz | tar -xzf -'.
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* Solaris issues.
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GNU tar exercises many features that can cause problems with older GCC
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versions. In particular, GCC 2.8.1 (sparc, -O1 or -O2) is known to
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miscompile GNU tar. No compiler-related problems have been reported
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when using GCC 2.95.2 or later.
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Recent versions of Solaris tar sport a new -E option to generate
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extended headers in an undocumented format. GNU tar does not
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understand these headers.
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* Static linking.
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Some platform will, by default, prepare a smaller `tar' executable
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which depends on shared libraries. Since GNU `tar' may be used for
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system-level backups and disaster recovery, installers might prefer to
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force static linking, making a bigger `tar' executable maybe, but able to
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work standalone, in situations where shared libraries are not available.
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The way to achieve static linking varies between systems. Set LDFLAGS
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to a value from the table below, before configuration (see `INSTALL').
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Platform Compiler LDFLAGS
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(any) Gnu C -static
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AIX (vendor) -bnso -bI:/lib/syscalls.exp
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HPUX (vendor) -Wl,-a,archive
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IRIX (vendor) -non_shared
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OSF (vendor) -non_shared
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SCO 3.2v5 (vendor) -dn
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Solaris (vendor) -Bstatic
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SunOS (vendor) -Bstatic
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* Failed tests `ignfail.sh' or `incremen.sh'.
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In an NFS environment, lack of synchronization between machine clocks
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might create difficulties to any tool comparing dates and file time stamps,
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like `tar' in incremental dumps. This has been a recurrent problem with
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GNU Make for the last few years. We would like a general solution.
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* BSD compatibility matters.
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Set LIBS to `-lbsd' before configuration (see `INSTALL') if the linker
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complains about `bsd_ioctl' (Slackware). Also set CPPFLAGS to
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`-I/usr/include/bsd' if <sgtty.h> is not found (Slackware).
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* OPENStep 4.2 swap files
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Tar cannot read the file /private/vm/swapfile.front (even as root).
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This file is not a real file, but some kind of uncompressed view of
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the real compressed swap file; there is no reason to back it up, so
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the simplest workaround is to avoid tarring this file.
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Special topics
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--------------
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Here are a few special matters about GNU `tar', not related to build
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matters. See previous section for such.
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* File attributes.
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About *security*, it is probable that future releases of `tar' will have
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some behavior changed. There are many pending suggestions to choose from.
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Today, extracting an archive not being `root', `tar' will restore suid/sgid
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bits on files but owned by the extracting user. `root' automatically gets
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a lot of special privileges, `-p' might later become required to get them.
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GNU `tar' does not properly restore symlink attributes. Various systems
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implement flavors of symbolic links showing different behavior and
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properties. We did not successfully sorted all these out yet. Currently,
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the `lchown' call will be used if available, but that's all.
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* POSIX compliance.
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GNU `tar' implements an early draft of the POSIX 1003.1 `ustar' standard
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which is different from the final standard. This will be progressively
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corrected over the incoming few years. Don't be mislead by the mere
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existence of the --posix option. Later releases will become able to
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read truly POSIX archives, and also to produce them under option. (Also,
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if you look at the internals, don't take the GNU extensions you see for
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granted, as they are planned to change.) GNU tar 2.0 will produce POSIX
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archives by default, but there is a long way before we get there.
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* What's next?
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In the future we will try to release tar-1.14 as soon as possible and
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start merging with paxutils afterwards. We'll also try to rewrite
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some parts of the documentation after paxutils has been merged.
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