AIX - Fun with the tar command

I hit an issue today with a fresh install of a number of IBM software products ( WAS, DB2, BPM etc. ) on AIX 7.1.

Whilst trying to unpack a file using the gunzip command ( the file was TAR'd and GZIP'd with a .tar.gz extension ), I was seeing issues such as this: -

tar: 0511-169 A directory checksum error on media; -252676160 not equal to 44916.

which suggested that the file was somehow corrupted.

This was the command I was using: -

gunzip < file.tar.gz | tar xvf -

Source: [AIX] How to extract a tar.gz or .tgz file?

However, I also did a quick Google search, which drew me to this Technote: -

AIX tar command is not able to uncompress CI0I7ML_OP6.0.1 media package

which, in essence, says: -

When using AIX tar the package is not able to uncompress its contents. AIX TAR doesn't uncompress files with long names, and OP_6.0.1_Non_Embedded_DVD_1.tar.gz contains several files with long name patterns.

and provides a link from where the AIX Toolbox may be downloaded: -

IBM AIX Toolbox download information - Open Source packages available for installation on AIX

I looked for, and downloaded, TAR: -

and installed the new RPM: -

tar-1.22-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

which I then installed onto the AIX box: -

rpm -ivh tar-1.22-1.aix6.1.ppc.rpm

resulting in a new binary: -

-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     system       530022 Jan 21 2013  /opt/freeware/bin/tar

PS This page was also of use in getting me to the right version of GNU tar

Making GNU tar your default extraction program

This got me further forward, but I still saw similar exceptions during the tar process :-(

I re-downloaded the images, and compared the file sizes to those on the AIX box, and they were, as one might expect, different.

So I then uploaded some of the images to the AIX box: -

$ scp BPM_Adv_V85_AIX_* root@P710_05_LPAR1:/tmp/Downloads
root@p710_05_lpar1's password:
BPM_Adv_V85_AIX_1_of_2.tar.gz                 100% 1292MB  46.1MB/s   00:28  
scp: /tmp/Downloads/BPM_Adv_V85_AIX_1_of_2.tar.gz: File too large
BPM_Adv_V85_AIX_2_of_2.tar.gz                 100% 1361MB  48.6MB/s   00:28  
scp: /tmp/Downloads/BPM_Adv_V85_AIX_2_of_2.tar.gz: File too large

Can you spot the problem ?

Yes, I saw it as well :-)

Thankfully, as ever, Google had the answer, Google is my friend.

This developerWorks forum post: -

gzip: aix51ml9.tar: File too large ?

which states, in part: -

Could you have run into a user resource limit?

Check the fsize (maximum file size allowed) entry /etc/security/limits. Setting this to -1 will allow unlimited file sizes. You can also make changes via ulimit and possibly smit.

If you edit /etc/security/limits directly, you might have to reboot for the change to take effect; however, with ulimit you should not have to reboot.

Here's a link to the pubs for ulimit: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/pseries/v5r3/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.aix.cmds/doc/aixcmds5/ulimit.htm

'ulimit -a' will print the current user resource limits.
'ulimit -f <num>' will set the file size limit, where <num> is the file size limit in blocks.

Well, the answer was there ....

This was what I did: -

$ cd /etc/security
$ cp limits limits.original
$ vi limits

- changing fsize = 2097151 to fsize = -1

$ diff limits limits.original
37c37
<       fsize = -1
---
>       fsize = 2097151

Once I rebooted, the upload worked perfectly, and GNU tar did the rest.

Nice :-)