README
1PAX - Portable Archive Interchange
2
3Copyright (C) 1989 Mark H. Colburn
4All Rights Reserved.
5
6
7Introduction
8
9 This is version 1.2 of Pax, an archiving utility.
10
11 Pax is an archiving utility that reads and writes tar and cpio formats,
12 both the traditional ones and the extended formats specified in IEEE
13 1003.1. It handles multi-volume archives and automatically determines
14 the format of an archive while reading it. Three user interfaces are
15 supported: tar, cpio, and pax. The pax interface was designed by IEEE
16 1003.2 as a compromise in the chronic controversy over which of tar or
17 cpio is best.
18
19 The USENIX Association provided some support for the initial
20 implementation of this product. As a result, the Pax utility is being
21 distributed free of charge and may be redistributed by others in either
22 source or binary form. (See the liscensing section for restrictions)
23
24 The source for Pax has been posted to comp.sources.unix on USENET and
25 will also be available by anonymous FTP on the Internet from uunet.uu.net,
26 moon.src.honeywell.com and from ucb-arpa.berkeley.edu. The source
27 to Pax is also available via anonymous UUCP from jhereg.mn.org, the
28 author's home machine and possibly other sites.
29
30 The source for Pax will continue to change as long as the definition of
31 the utility is modified by the 1003.2 working group. (For example,
32 there are a number of changes in Draft 8 which will be incorporated as
33 soon as Draft 8 is available). Additional modifications will be made
34 based on user input, such as request for support of additional archive
35 formats, etc. Patches and new releases will be made as new functionality
36 is added or problems are diagnosed and fixed.
37
38
39Installation
40
41 In order to install Pax, you must first edit the Makefile and the
42 config.h file according to the directions in each of the files.
43 These two files provide the configuration information for most
44 commonly available machines. Please be sure to read through all
45 the directions in each of these files before attempting to compile
46 Pax.
47
48
49Portability
50
51 Pax is intended to run on as many systems as possible. If you have
52 problems getting Pax to compile or run on your system, please let me
53 know so that the source or the installation procedure can be modified.
54
55 Pax has been tested and appears to run correctly on the following
56 machines:
57
58 Machine Operating System/Release
59 ---------------------------------------------------
60 Altos 586 System III (2.3)
61 AT&T UNIX PC System V.2 (Release 3.51)
62 Convergent S/320 CTIX/68k 6.1, UNIX SysV 3.1
63 Cray 2 UNICOS
64 Encore CC 02.00.r088
65 HP 9000 HP/UX 6.0.1
66 IBM PC/AT Microport SV/AT V2.4
67 Mac II A/UX 1.0
68 NCR Tower System V.2
69 Pyramid AT&T and Berkeley universe
70 Sequent Symetry Dynix 3.0
71 SGI Iris 4D/60G UNIX 3.0
72 SGI Iris 4D/70G UNIX 3.0
73 SCO Xenix 386 2.3.2
74 SCO Unix 386 3.2
75 Sun 2 SunOS 3.4
76 Sun 2 SunOS 3.5
77 Sun 3 SunOS 3.4
78 Sun 3 SunOS 3.5
79 Sun 3 SunOS 4.0
80 Sun 4 SunOS 4.0
81 VAX 8750 BSD 4.3 (Mt. Xinu)
82 VAX 8650 BSD 4.3 (Mt. Xinu)
83 VAX 780 BSD 4.3 (Berkeley)
84 ---------------------------------------------------
85
86 In future releases, the source will be moving toward ANSI C and POSIX
87 compatibility. This should allow for portability over any system
88 supporting both ANSI and POSIX. In addition, POSIX/ANSI portability
89 library routines will be developed which will allow the code to run on
90 the standard machines available now.
91
92
93Credit Where Credit is Due
94
95 Parts of the code which makes up Pax were gleaned from a number of
96 different sources: the directory access routines in paxdir.h are
97 modified copies of Doug Gwyn's dirent library; the regular expression
98 matching routines in regexp.c are from Henry Spencer, some of the tar
99 archive routines were initially written by John Gilmore for his PDTAR;
100 and finally afio, written by Mark Brukhartz at Lachman Associates, was
101 the basis for the buffering schemes used in pax.
102
103
104Licensing
105
106 Copyright (c) 1989 Mark H. Colburn.
107 All rights reserved.
108
109 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted
110 provided that the above copyright notice is duplicated in all such
111 forms and that any documentation, advertising materials, and other
112 materials related to such distribution and use acknowledge that the
113 software was developed by Mark H. Colburn and sponsored by The
114 USENIX Association.
115
116 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
117 IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
118 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
119
120Please report any bug or problems to:
121
122Mark Colburn
123Minnetech Consulting, Inc.
124117 Mackubin St., Suite 1
125St. Paul MN 55102
126mark@jhereg.MN.ORG
127