RHBA-2015:1285 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated tar packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

The GNU tar program can save multiple files in one archive and restore the files
from that archive.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, when the "--verify" or "-W" option was used, the tar utility

always exited with a status of 2, and false warning messagess per each archived
file were printed. This behavior was a regression introduced in tar-1.23-11.el6.
With this update, tar exits with a status of 2 only if there is a real problem
with the archived files. (BZ#923359)

• Prior to this update, tar interpreted an argument containing an unescaped "["

character and no corresponding "]" character as a pattern-matching string
instead of an archive member name, unless the "--no-wildcard" option was used.
Consequently, if a user wanted to extract an existing archive member with a path
name containing the argument, tar failed to match the argument with the
corresponding member, printed an error message, and eventually exited with a
non-zero exit status. This problem has been fixed, and tar is now able to
extract such a file. (BZ#1034360)

• Previously, tar did not automatically detect archives compressed by the xz

program if the user did not specify the "-J" or "--xz" option on the command
line. As a consequence, if the processed archive had the ".xz" extension, tar
extracted or listed the contents of the archive but printed an error message and
eventually exited with a non-zero exit status. If the archive did not have this
extension, tar failed. With this update, the automatic recognition mechanism has
been improved. As a result, tar no longer prints an error message in this
scenario, and it extracts or lists the contents of such archives correctly
regardless of the extension. (BZ#1056672)

• The tar(1) man page does not list all the available options; however, it now

mentions the fact that complete information on using tar is available in the tar
Info page, which can be displayed by running the "info tar" command.
(BZ#1119312)

Users of tar are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these
bugs.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata relevant
to your system have been applied.

For details on how to apply this update, refer to:

https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 923359 - tar -W option causes errors
• BZ - 1056672 - tar uses wrong magic number for xz archives
• BZ - 1119312 - tar man page does not explain PATTERN format of excludes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)