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tar: large files: off_t value too large

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2008-09-19
2012-07-26
  • Josse Evans

    Josse Evans - 2008-09-19

    I'm using gnu tar v 1.13 on win2003 to tar a remote directory to a remote location (both CIFS, both windows 2003 machines).

    This generally works great and quickly, even with large directories (200+GB).
    However, I have one case where tar fails with the message: "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\tar.exe: off_t value 72840418836 too large (max=68719476735)".

    This value is exactly the number of bytes of a large file in this archive (67.8GB).
    It appears that using tar v 1.16 on a linux (debian stable) machine will create the tarfile without problems (altough 7zip on windows will not read it again).
    Is it possible there is a file size limitation in the old tar version?

    Would someone be willing to provide a newer binary? I'd really appreciate it.

     
    • GnuWin

      GnuWin - 2008-09-20

      This is due to the use of uintmax in converting values. Although tar has been compiled with large-file support, the value for uintmax_t has not changed; it is still the maximum value that will fit into an unsigned int. Apparently Linux does this differently. The matter will be investigated further, but it is unlikely that a new release of tar will be forthcoming in the near future. In the meantime, might it be possible to use bsdtar <http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/libarchive.htm> for your purposes?

       
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