bin/81218: 5.4 dist archives not backwards compatible

[Wes Groleau]

>Number:         81218
>Category:       bin
>Synopsis:       5.4 dist archives not backwards compatible
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          maintainer-update
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed May 18 19:50:02 GMT 2005
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Wes Groleau
>Release:        4.11
>Organization:
Ain't no organization here!
>Environment:
I am not at the machine, but it has a Pentium Pro (i386)
>Description:
      i386/5.4-RELEASE split archives cammot be unpacked by a 4.11 installation.  Repeats: "Unknown file type 'x', extracted as normal file" until error count limit is reached.
(I had a 4.9 system, and due to various issues, am forced to use the method below to upgrade.  This method worked for 4.11, but 4.11 was not able to get 5.4)
>How-To-Repeat:
      Let /tmp/Download be a directory on a machine running FreeBSD 4.11
      This machine has no internet access.  On an iMac with dialup,<BR>
      NFS Mount the directory at /BSD <BR>
      cd /BSD <BR>
      wget --mirror --passive-ftp ftp://ftp2.freebsd.org/......../5.4-RELEASE <BR>

On the FreeBSD machine (it has two disks), dismount all partitions of the target disk, NOT the disk booted.  In my case /dev/ad1s1 was booted and ad1s0 is the one I want to upgrade
<BR> mkdir /UPGRADE
<BR> mount /dev/ad0s1a /UPGRADE
<BR> mount /dev/ad0s1e /UPGRADE/var
<BR> mount /dev/ad0s1f /UPGRADE/tmp
<BR> mount /dev/ad0s1g /UPGRADE/usr
<BR> cd /tmp/Download/......../5.4-RELEASE/base
<BR>Look in install.sh and copy the cat base.?? | tar (et cetera) command.  Use /UPGRADE for the destination.
<BR> Watch it fail.
>Fix:
      Include in the tools directory binary versions of tar that can execute on earlier O.S. installations but are capable of unpacking these archives.

Or document command-line options for making it work on earlier systems
(if possible)
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: