X-Git-Url: https://git.brokenzipper.com/gitweb?a=blobdiff_plain;ds=sidebyside;f=README;h=8871b30b22cb06e5103f51c4e50fcebc4a4f5c7a;hb=3962eb6a3ee4b50337e0b7f86b7afab96a3ffc32;hp=3387258401b19561a03dd2461a876e663f477f69;hpb=f6bb9ed8625cd6a37d861762f035db642c783ef5;p=chaz%2Ftar
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-This GNU tar 1.10. Please send bug reports, etc., to
-bug-gnu-utils@prep.ai.mit.edu.
+README for GNU tar
+See the end of file for copying conditions.
-GNU tar is based heavily on John Gilmore's public domain tar, but with
-added features. The manual is currently being written. An old
-manual, surely riddled with errors, is in tar.texinfo. Please don't
-send in bug reports about that manual. In particular, the mechanism
-for doing incremental dumps has been significantly changed.
+* Introduction
-This distribution also includes rmt, the remote tape server (which
-must reside in /etc). The mt program is in the GNU cpio distribution.
+Please glance through *all* sections of this
+`README' file before starting configuration. Also make sure you read files
+`ABOUT-NLS' and `INSTALL' if you are not familiar with them already.
-To compile tar (and rmt, if your system has the needed features) on
-Unix-like systems:
+If you got the `tar' distribution in `shar' format, time stamps ought to be
+properly restored; do not ignore such complaints at `unshar' time.
-1. Type `./configure'. This shell script attempts to guess correct
-values for various system-dependent variables used during compilation,
-and creates the file `Makefile'. This takes a couple of minutes.
+GNU `tar' saves many files together into a single tape or disk
+archive, and can restore individual files from the archive. It includes
+multivolume support, the ability to archive sparse files, automatic archive
+compression/decompression, remote archives and special features that allow
+`tar' to be used for incremental and full backups. This distribution
+also includes `rmt', the remote tape server. The `mt' tape drive control
+program is in the GNU `cpio' distribution.
-If you want to compile in a different directory from the one
-containing the source code, `cd' to that directory and run `configure'
-with the option `+srcdir=DIR', where DIR is the directory that
-contains the source code. The object files and executables will be
-put in the current directory. This option only works with versions of
-`make' that support the VPATH variable. `configure' ignores any other
-arguments you give it.
+GNU `tar' is derived from John Gilmore's public domain `tar'.
-If your system requires unusual options for compilation or linking
-that `configure' doesn't know about, you can give `configure' initial
-values for variables by setting them in the environment; in
-Bourne-compatible shells, you can do that on the command line like
-this:
-$ CC='gcc -traditional' LIBS=-lposix ./configure
+See file `ABOUT-NLS' for how to customize this program to your language.
+See file `COPYING' for copying conditions.
+See file `INSTALL' for compilation and installation instructions.
+See file `PORTS' for various ports of GNU tar to non-Unix systems.
+See file `NEWS' for a list of major changes in the current release.
+See file `THANKS' for a list of contributors.
-2. If you want to change the directories where the programs will be
-installed, or the optimization options, edit `Makefile' and change
-those values. If you have an unusual system that needs special
-compilation options that `configure' doesn't know about, and you
-didn't pass them in the environment when running `configure', you
-should add them to `Makefile' now. Alternately, teach `configure' how
-to figure out that it is being run on a system where they are needed,
-and mail the diffs to the address listed at the top of this file so we
-can include them in the next release.
+Besides those configure options documented in files `INSTALL' and
+`ABOUT-NLS', an extra option may be accepted after `./configure':
-3. Type `make'.
+* Install
-4. If your system needs to link with -lPW to get alloca, but has
-rename in the C library (so WANT_RENAME is not used), -lPW might give
-you an incorrect version of rename. On HP-UX this manifests itself as
-an undefined data symbol called "Error" when linking tar. If this
-happens, use `ar x' to extract alloca.o from libPW.a and `ar rc' to
-put it in a library liballoca.a, and put that in LIBS instead of -lPW.
-This problem does not occur when using gcc, which has alloca built in.
+** Selecting the default archive format.
-5. If the programs compile successfully, type `make install' to
-install them.
+The default archive format is GNU, this can be overridden by
+presetting DEFAULT_ARCHIVE_FORMAT while configuring. The allowed
+values are GNU, V7, OLDGNU, USTAR and POSIX.
-6. After you have installed the programs, you can remove the binaries
-from the source directory by typing `make clean'. Type `make
-distclean' if you also want to remove `Makefile', for instance if you
-are going to recompile tar next on another type of machine.
+** Selecting the default archive device
-makefile.pc is a makefile for Turbo C 2.0 on MS-DOS.
+The default archive device is now `stdin' on read and `stdout' on write.
+The installer can still override this by presetting `DEFAULT_ARCHIVE'
+in the environment before configuring (the behavior of `-[0-7]' or
+`-[0-7]lmh' options in `tar' are then derived automatically). Similarly,
+`DEFAULT_BLOCKING' can be preset to something else than 20.
-Various people have been having problems using floppies on a NeXT.
-I've gotten conflicting reports about what should be done to solve the
-problems, and we have no way to test it ourselves.
+** Selecting full pathname of the "rmt" binary.
+Previous versions of tar always looked for "rmt" binary in the
+directory "/etc/rmt". However, the "rmt" program included
+in the distribution was installed under "$prefix/libexec/rmt".
+To fix this discrepancy, tar now looks for "$prefix/libexec/rmt".
+If you do not want this behavior, specify full path name of
+"rmt" binary using DEFAULT_RMT_DIR variable, e.g.:
-User-visible changes since 1.09:
+./configure DEFAULT_RMT_DIR=/etc
-Filename to -G is optional. -C works right.
-Names +newer and +newer-mtime work right.
+If you already have a copy of "rmt" installed and wish to use it
+instead of the version supplied with the distribution, use --with-rmt
+option:
--g is now +incremental
--G is now +listed-incremental
+./configure --with-rmt=/etc/rmt
-Sparse files now work correctly.
+This will also disable building the included version of rmt.
-+volume is now called +label.
+** Installing backup scripts.
-+exclude now takes a filename argument, and +exclude-from does what
-+exclude used to do.
+This version of tar is shipped with the shell scripts for producing
+incremental backups (dumps) and restoring filesystems from them.
+The name of the backup script is "backup". The name of the
+restore script is "restore". They are installed in "$prefix/sbin"
+directory.
-Exit status is now correct.
+Use option --enable-backup-scripts to compile and install these
+scripts.
-+totals keeps track of total I/O and prints it when tar exits.
+** `--disable-largefile' omits support for large files, even if the
+operating system supports large files. Typically, large files are
+those larger on 2 GB on a 32-bit host.
-When using +label with +extract, the label is now a regexp.
+* Installation hints
-New option +tape-length (-L) does multi-volume handling like BSD dump:
-you tell tar how big the tape is and it will prompt at that point
-instead of waiting for a write error.
+Here are a few hints which might help installing `tar' on some systems.
+
+** gzip and bzip2.
+
+GNU tar uses the gzip and bzip2 programs to read and write compressed
+archives. If you don't have these programs already, you need to
+install them. Their sources can be found at:
+
+ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gzip/
+http://sourceware.cygnus.com/bzip2/
+
+If you see the following symptoms:
+
+ $ tar -xzf file.tar.gz
+ gzip: stdin: decompression OK, trailing garbage ignored
+ tar: Child returned status 2
+
+then you have encountered a gzip incompatibility that should be fixed
+in gzip test version 1.3, which as of this writing is available at
+. You can work around the
+incompatibility by using a shell command like
+ `gzip -d is not found (Slackware).
+
+** OPENStep 4.2 swap files
+
+Tar cannot read the file /private/vm/swapfile.front (even as root).
+This file is not a real file, but some kind of uncompressed view of
+the real compressed swap file; there is no reason to back it up, so
+the simplest workaround is to avoid tarring this file.
+
+* Special topics
+
+Here are a few special matters about GNU `tar', not related to build
+matters. See previous section for such.
+
+** File attributes.
+
+About *security*, it is probable that future releases of `tar' will have
+some behavior changed. There are many pending suggestions to choose from.
+Today, extracting an archive not being `root', `tar' will restore suid/sgid
+bits on files but owned by the extracting user. `root' automatically gets
+a lot of special privileges, `-p' might later become required to get them.
+
+GNU `tar' does not properly restore symlink attributes. Various systems
+implement flavors of symbolic links showing different behavior and
+properties. We did not successfully sorted all these out yet. Currently,
+the `lchown' call will be used if available, but that's all.
+
+** POSIX compliance.
+
+GNU `tar' is able to create archive in the following formats:
+
+ *** The format of UNIX version 7
+ *** POSIX.1-1988 format, also known as "ustar format"
+ *** POSIX.1-2001 format, also known as "pax format"
+ *** Old GNU format (described below)
+
+In addition to those, GNU `tar' is also able to read archives
+produced by `star' archiver.
+
+A so called `Old GNU' format is based on an early draft of the
+POSIX 1003.1 `ustar' standard which is different from the final
+standard. It defines its extensions (such as incremental backups
+and handling of the long file names) in a way incompatible with
+any existing tar archive format, therefore the use of old GNU
+format is strongly discouraged.
+
+Please read the file NEWS for more information about POSIX compliance
+and new `tar' features.
+
+* What's next?
+
+GNU tar will be merged into GNU paxutils: a project containing
+several utilities related to creating and handling archives in
+various formats. The project will include tar, cpio and pax
+utilities.
+
+* Bug reporting.
+
+Send bug reports to . A bug report should contain
+an adequate description of the problem, your input, what you expected,
+what you got, and why this is wrong. Diffs are welcome, but they only
+describe a solution, from which the problem might be uneasy to infer.
+If needed, submit actual data files with your report. Small data files
+are preferred. Big files may sometimes be necessary, but do not send them
+to the report address; rather take special arrangement with the maintainer.
+
+Your feedback will help us to make a better and more portable package.
+Consider documentation errors as bugs, and report them as such. If you
+develop anything pertaining to `tar' or have suggestions, let us know
+and share your findings by writing to .
+
+
+* Copying
+
+ Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000,
+ 2001, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+
+ This file is part of GNU tar.
+
+ GNU tar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+ it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+ the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
+ any later version.
+
+ GNU tar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+ but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+ MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
+ GNU General Public License for more details.
+
+ You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+ along with tar; see the file COPYING. If not, write to
+ the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor,
+ Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
+
+
+Local Variables:
+mode: outline
+paragraph-separate: "[ ]*$"
+version-control: never
+End:
-New backup scripts level-0 and level-1 which might be useful to
-people. They use a file "backup-specs" for information, and shouldn't
-need local modification. These are what we use to do all our backups
-at the FSF.