> > We do [need free space on md0] until someone directs pax to keep its
> > temp data (permissions on extracted files) somewhere other than /tmp.
> 
> ...or we use something other than pax to do the extract.  It's a tar
> archive, right?  Why not use tar?
> 
> If our stock tar is too bloated for the install disks (it *is* a GNU
> program; there's probably a whole Lisp engine in there or something), I

I believe our stock tar is now a front-end for pax.

Besides, even GNU tar has the temp-space requirement.

Your tar might also; do you handle "xp" correctly for directories that are
read-only?

You have to set the permissions after filling the directory, and both tar/pax
use /tmp space to remember what permissions each directory should have.

In the special case of a distribution tarball, we might be able to order
the files such that each directory can be fixed up after its contents,
so no list is required in /tmp.

Perhaps the better solution is to chroot the tar/pax process and pipe the
distribution sets into it. I've been pushing the piping concept for FTP
lately, and based on what I see while shuffling boot disks lately, disk
seek time dominates anyway so there's no bottleneck from using pipes.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com