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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxm!mel
From: mel@houxm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: tar fix
Message-ID: <528@houxm.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Aug-83 20:14:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: houxm.528
Posted: Mon Aug 29 20:14:35 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 14:53:53 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 13

On USG UNIX the usual tar trouble is in permission problems in
writing files into directories.  We get around these troubles by
removing the 2 chown() calls in the code.  If you use tar to
back-up your file systems it may make sense to preserve the ownerships
of the files.  However, in the usual case of transfer of files from
one system to another it makes no sense whatever to change the
ownership of the files to whoever on your machine has the same UID
as the owner of the original file on the original system.  If your
system administrator won't remove the chown's from your machine's
official version of tar, do it yourself on your private copy.  It
is just one short file, tar.c, and the 2 calls to chown() obviously
placed and easy to remove (watch the {}'s).
  Mel Haas  ,  houxm!mel