rankin@uoregon.uoregon.edu (6eorge Rankin.) (01/12/89)
We just got AIX 2.2.1 for the RT, and it looks pretty good. It has real sendmail, supports NFS, and even symbolic links! This is hot stuff for us AIX dullards :-) There is a rather severe problem with tar, however. When a directory with hard links is archived, the links all point to the first linked item. Rather odd things happen when the archive is restored. Repeat this problem by: %mkdir /tmp/foo %cd /tmp/foo %touch a %touch b %ln a c %ln b d %cd .. %tar cf badstuff foo %tar tvf badstuff rwxrwx---340/19 0 Jan 11 18:08 1989 foo/ rw-rw----340/19 0 Jan 11 18:08 1989 foo/a rw-rw----340/19 0 Jan 11 18:08 1989 foo/b rw-rw----340/19 0 Jan 11 18:08 1989 foo/c linked to foo/a rw-rw----340/19 0 Jan 11 18:08 1989 foo/d linked to foo/a Notice that file "d" is linked to "a", which is incorrect. (By the way, this is a simulated example... the RT is not yet on the net.) This problem became apparent when all of my local programs became "compress". As far as I know, our install completed with no problems. The disks are ok, and linked files normally point to to the correct place. I suspect somebody goofed when modifying tar to make it handle SYMBOLIC links, and then didn't check that hard links worked. I have reported the problem to my local rep. and assume that IBM will fix the problem soon. Meanwhile, I'll be installing gnu-tar... *************************************************************************** George Rankin Department of Research and Assessment Springfield Public School District #19 525 Mill Street Springfield Oregon (503) 726-9529 UNIX in a school district? Don't look, Martha!