Subject: bug#13588: Pax hangs in case big UID

From: Stefano Lattarini <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:18:37 +0200

On 04/26/2013 12:48 PM, Pavel Raiskup wrote:
> Hi, I'm just thinking aloud here.. I'm ok with this.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> So *ACKing* :) with one simple remark which follows.
> 
>> [....]
>> +    # The $UID and $GID variables are not portable, so we need to resort
>> +    # to the POSIX-mandated id(1) utility.  Errors in the 'id' calls below
>> +    # are definitely unexpected, so allow the users to see them (that is,
>> +    # avoid stderr redirection).
>> +    am_uid=`id -u || echo unknown`
>> +    am_gid=`id -g || echo unknown`
>> +    AC_MSG_CHECKING([whether UID '$am_uid' is supported by ustar format])
>> +    if test $am_uid -le $am_max_uid; then
>> +       AC_MSG_RESULT([yes])
>> +    else
>> +       AC_MSG_RESULT([no])
>> +       _am_tools=none
>> +    fi
>> +    AC_MSG_CHECKING([whether GID '$am_gid' is supported by ustar format])
>> +    if test $am_gid -le $am_max_gid; then
>> +       AC_MSG_RESULT([yes])
>> +    else
>> +       AC_MSG_RESULT([no])
>> +       _am_tools=none
>> +    fi],
> 
> Here ^^ it would be possible to de-duplicate (just one message to standard
> output and little simpler code).  But it is just a matter of taste.
>
Actually, I prefer to keep the checks distinct, and output the problematic
UID/GID as well (makes debugging easier).  So I'd rather drop the squash-in
patch you proposed.

> To make it easier, follows the patch, do not assign me as a co-author.
> 
> I'm also quite afraid of testsuite performance of testsuite - this
> check costs more than 6 seconds..
>
Wait, you mean the new checks in m4/tar.4m?  That can't be right, they
should be very fast ...  Am I missing something?

> Thanks a lot, Pavel

Thanks for all the testing and feedback,
  Stefano