*BSD News Article 64084


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: tar no longer works? residual blocksize=n
Date: 24 Mar 1996 23:11:39 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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References: <4inf97$6od@midway.evtech.com>
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travis@evtech.com (Travis Hassloch x231) writes:
> A friend of mine is having trouble reading his old tar tapes he made
> under NetBSD<1.1 -- it is giving some kind of block size error and
> then saying "residual blocksize=n", where n is the blocksize he passed
> to tar -b.

I suspect the tape driver is expecting the wrong blocksize.  I don't
have an idea about how this can be setup in NetBSD.  Maybe they're
using the old st(8) program from the 386BSD times.  (In FreeBSD, it's
integrated into mt(1).)

> Are tar files supposed to be portable across OSes?

Yes, though tar != tar (there's a newer definition for the `ustar'
format).

-- 
cheers, J"org

joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)