Bug 69105 – amanda 2.4.4x doesn't think that alpha releases of tar (>=1.14.90) are gnu-tar compatible

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Richard Karnesky 2004-10-26 22:39:54 UTC]

The configure script that ships with amanda uses 'tar --version' to check if the tar program is gnu-compatible.  Because of the new output of tar 1.14.90, this check fails.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.emerge ">app-arch/tar-1.14"
2.emerge amanda

Actual Results:  
"configure: WARNING: *** /bin/tar is not GNU tar, so it will not be used."

amanda is installed WITHOUT tar support!!  Only dump support (AFAIK, this requires ext2 or xfs 
partitions smaller than your tape size)

Expected Results:  
amanda should install with tar support

A trivial work-around is to make sure emerge uses a previous version of tar.  Here's the patch 
(works with all amanda ebuilds currently in portage):
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
    app-arch/mt-st
    media-gfx/gnuplot
    sys-apps/gawk
-   app-arch/tar
+   <=app-arch/tar-1.14
    dev-lang/perl
    sys-apps/mtx
    app-arch/dump


The "correct" way to fix this would be to patch amanda's configure files to handle this situation.  
It could check the version number in the new format, but should probably also check gnu --help 
or attempt to use the needed arguments as well:  GNU-incompatible tars (such as star) have a 
similar --version tag.

[Comment 1 Robin Johnson 2004-11-16 01:33:01 UTC]

please submit a patch to fix up configure if you could...

[Comment 2 Richard Karnesky 2004-11-16 05:19:51 UTC]

The tar developers have fixed the output of 'tar --version' in the CVS, so hopefully only 1.14.90 (an alpha release) will be a problem.  We can still make a patch since 1.14.90 is in portage & will screw things up if it is the system tar.  I will need to check the output of 'tar --help' for all the versions of tar that are in portage & will also need to check to make sure that star doesn't return something similar.  I can do this next weekend.

Alternatively, we can patch tar 1.14.90 since the upstream provider has fixed the output for future versions.

[Comment 3 Richard Karnesky 2004-11-20 11:04:50 UTC]

Created attachment 44375 [details, diff]
Patch for amanda configure files to allow it to work with tar-1.14.90

Because GNU has promised that the output to 'tar --version' is fixed in CVS, we
can merely explicitly force amanda to work with tar-1.14.90.

[Comment 4 Richard Karnesky 2004-11-20 11:26:18 UTC]

Comment on attachment 44375 [details, diff]
Patch for amanda configure files to allow it to work with tar-1.14.90

Ooops--I forgot to escape some characters!  Sorry!

[Comment 5 Richard Karnesky 2004-11-20 11:27:20 UTC]

Created attachment 44379 [details, diff]
Fixed patch

[Comment 6 Robin Johnson 2004-11-21 19:36:47 UTC]

fixed in cvs.