Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.misc,alt.os.linux,alt.sys.sun,bln.comp.sun,bln.comp.unix,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.sys.hp.apps,comp.sys.hp.misc,comp.sys.sgi.admin,comp.sys.sgi.apps,comp.sys.sgi.misc,comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.sys.sun.apps,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.solaris,de.comp.os.linux.misc,de.comp.os.unix,linux.dev.admin,linux.dev.apps,maus.os.linux,maus.os.linux68k,maus.os.unix,uk.comp.os.linux Subject: Star-1.3 source has been released Star is the fastest tar archiver for UNIX Star has many improvements compared to other tar implementations (including gnu tar). See below for a short description of the highlight of star. Star is located on: ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/unix/star Changes since star-1.4a05: With release 1.4a05, 10% of the code changed and another 10% of new code has been added. This causes a risk of bugs that might have been introduced with this release. Please test..... - Support for Caldera/SCO OpenUNIX has been added - -FFF option implementation cleaned up - Fixed a bug in the man page that still stated that -r & -u don't work. Both options have been implemented ~ 2 years ago. - Fixed property bug that caused star -diff not to diff atime/ctime by default if the archive format is 'pax'. - New sum statistics for chmod() utimes() errors. - Fixed a bug that caused a FIFO (named pipe) to be created twice in extract mode. This resulted in a warning "File exists...". - Better support for True-64 aka. OFS-1 Hints for using extended POSIX.1-200x headers: Star will understand extended headers if the archive format is from 'star', 'ustar', 'pax', 'xustar', 'exustar'. In addition, star will understand the POSIX-look-alike extended headers from Sun's tar (Solaris) if 'suntar' is selected or autodetected. Star will create extended POSIX headers when the archive format is 'pax', 'xustar' or 'exustar'. When the archive format is 'exustar', every file will get an extended header which holds at least atime/ctime/mtime in sub-second resolution. If the archive format is 'pax' or 'xustar', star will create the extended header only if there is a need for the extended header because one or more of the fields do not fit into the standard ustar header. Star supports the following fields in the extended header: times: "atime" "ctime" "mtime" (create/extract) id's (numeric): "uid", "gid" (create/extract) id's (names): "uname", "gname" (extract only) pathnames: "path" "linkpath" (create/extract) filesize: "size" (create/extract) Additional: "charset", "comment" (extract only - ignored) Vendor unique: "SCHILY.devmajor" "SCHILY.devminor" (create/extract) Sun compatibility: "SUN.devmajor" "SUN.devminor" (extract only) With -Hsuntar: "SUN.devmajor" "SUN.devminor" (create/extract) TODO List for extended headers: - Add better UNICODE support - Add some way of handling UID/GID Overflow in the traditional 7 char fields which limit to 2097151. - Add support for sparse files and continuation Files into the extended header stuff (as Vendor UNIQUE extensions with 'SCHILY.*' name). How to use extended POSIX.1-200x headers: - To emmit xhdr's only if really needed, use 'star -Hpax' or 'star -Hxustar'. In this case extended headers will be created if the path/linkname will not fit into the 'ustar' header or if the filesize is > 8 GB or uid/gid will not fit 07777777. - To emmit xhdr's always, use 'star -Hexustar' and even when no other extended attribute is needed atime/mtime/ctime are written in sub-second resolution. - To write extended headers simuilar to POSIX.1-200x as used by the Solaris tar, use 'star -Hsuntar' and every file will at least get a sub-second reaolution mtime. Note that Sun's main intention was to handle very long filenames and big uid/gid's. Revision history (short) 1982 First version on UNOS (extract only) 1985 Port to UNIX (fully functional version) 1985 Added pre Posix method of handling special files/devices 1986 First experiments with fifo as external process. 1993 Remote tape access 1993 diff option 1994 Fifo with shared memory integrated into star 1994 Very long filenames and sparse files 1994 Gnutar and Ustar(Posix.1-1988) handling added 1994 Xstar format (extended Posix.1-1988) defined and introduced 1995 Ported to many platforms 1999 Support for Win32 (Cygwin) 1999 base 256 support to overcome limitation with octal fields 2001 Large file support 2001 Support for POSIX.1-200x extended headers Supported platforms: Virtually any! Known to work: SunOS 4.x, Solaris (SunOS 5.x), Linux, HP-UX, DG/UX, IRIX, AIX, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OSF-1, True-64, BeOS, Apollo Domain/OS, Next-STep, OS/2, SCO-openserver, SCO-unixware, Cygwin (Win32), Sony NewsOS, BSDi (BSD/OS), QNX, Apple Rhapsody, MacOS X Joerg ------------------------------------------------------------- Star is the fastest known implementation of a tar archiver. Star is able to make backups with more than 12MB/s if the disk and tape drive support such a speed. This is more than double the speed that ufsdump will get. Ampex got 13.5 MB/s with their new DLT tape drive. Ufsdump got a maximum speed of about 6MB/s with the same hardware. Star development started 1982, development is still in progress. The current version of star is stable and I never did my backups with other tools than star. Its main advantages over other tar implementations are: fifo - keeps the tape streaming. This gives you faster backups than you can achieve with ufsdump, if the size of the filesystem is > 1 GByte. pattern matcher - for a convenient user interface (see manual page for more details). To archive/extract a subset of files. sophisticated diff - user tailorable interface for comparing tar archives against file trees This is one of the most interesting parts of the star implementation. no namelen limitation - Pathnames up to 1024 Bytes may be archived. (The same limitation applies to linknames) This limit may be expanded in future without changing the method to record long names. deals with all 3 times - stores/restores all 3 times of a file (even creation time) may reset access time after doing backup does not clobber files - more recent copies on disk will not be clobbered from tape This may be the main advantage over other tar implementations. This allows automatically repairing of corruptions after a crash & fsck (Check for differences after doing this with the diff option). automatic byte swap - star automatically detects swapped archives and transparently reads them the right way automatic format detect - star automatically detects several common archive formats and adopts to them. Supported archive types are: Old tar, gnu tar, ansi tar, star. automatic compression detect - star automatically detects whether the archive is compressed. If it has been compressed with a compression program that is compatible to decompression with "gzip" or "bzip2", star automatically activates decompression. fully ansi compatible - Star is fully ANSI/Posix 1003.1 compatible. See README.otherbugs for a complete description of bugs found in other tar implementations. Have a look at the manual page, it is included in the distribution. Author: Joerg Schilling Seestr. 110 D-13353 Berlin Germany Email: joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de, js@cs.tu-berlin.de schilling@fokus.gmd.de Please mail bugs and suggestions to me.