Re: Tar extraction: Member name contains `..'

[Fred Ma]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 17:12:23 -0400
> > From: Fred Ma <fma@doe.carleton.ca>
> >
> > The problem is that files starting with '..' can be archived, but not
> > extracted.
> 
> You mean, files like "../foo"?  Use the -P switch to tell Tar to do
> that anyway.


Wow.  Imagine, that, right under my nose in the tar manual.  Thanks, Eli.
Now the solution is caught in Google Groups so that the next person
searching for a solution will see it.

And now that I have found the solution, I realize how dangerous it is.
For me, rather than allow tar to write to a file outside the directory
(and subtree) from which tar is issued, I just did a soft link from the
current directory to the desired file lying outside.  Then used the -h
option to get tar to archive it.

Fred