tar: Invalid tar magic

[Erik Hovland]

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 09:51:58PM +1100, yh at bizmail.com.au wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I downloaded a gzip file from a window machine to an ARM system which 
> running busybox. Then I've got following error after running tar -zxf 
> config.tar.gz on ARM system. I've also tried to run the same file "tar 
> -zxf config.tar.gz" on my linux box (FC5), there was no error at all. 
> Could anyone explain what was wrong with the busybox command?
> 
> tar: Invalid tar magic

It means that tar looked into the tar header of the tar file for a 4
byte entry that is the 'magic'. It should say something like 'utar'. I
am not exactly sure about that - look in the tar.c file in busybox's
source tree. Since it isn't right, it tanks. You could probably fix the
problem by unzipping the file and then using an editor that can work in
binary (emacs, vi, etc.) and editing the header so it has the right
bytes in the magic. At least if it isn't busybox's fault. If it is
busybox's fault, well, um, I don't know what to do.

E

-- 
Erik Hovland
mail: erik at hovland.org
web: http://hovland.org/
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