Re: AIX uid_t 4294967294

[Paul Eggert]

   From: "Ric Foster" <address@hidden>
   Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 16:05:14 -0400

   Problem: 4294967294 is used in AIX for user NOBODY and group
   NOBODY.  When I use tar with verify option, I get many messages

   "uid_t value 4294967294 too large (max=16777215)"

Please try test version 1.13.17 of GNU tar; it should have a
workaround for this problem.  You can find it at:

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/tar/


However, please note that you will have interchange problems if you
try to interoperate with other tar programs, as standard tar format
can represent uid_t values only up to 2**21 (2097152).  GNU tar 1.13
and earlier use a nonstandard extension to encode uid_t values up to
2**24 (16777216).  Version 1.13.17 uses a different nonstandard
extension, which can represent uid_t values up to 2**62
(4611686018427387904).  I hope this is enough even for IBM and for US
government agencies....

I've heard that POSIX will standardize yet another method for
representing large UIDs; when it does, GNU tar will no doubt support
that too.