Possible 5.3-STABLE tar bug

[Michael L. Squires]

I have an NFS exported directory "/share" which contains "/share/Mac"; the 
"Mac" directory is itself exported vi netatalk, and contains several GB of 
Macintosh files.

If I execute

tar cf /dev/null Mac when "/share" is my current directory on the 4.10 box 
nothing happens, other than consuming a lot of machine cycles.

On a 5.3-STABLE box, where the /share directory is NFS-mounted, when I 
execute

tar cvf /dev/null Mac

when /share is my current directory I get

p4dc6# tar cf /dev/null Mac
archive_write_pax_header: 'x' header failed?!  This can't happen.
p4dc6#

This is reproducible, and happens after a specific file in an Apple 
network software installation directory.

There is nothing in /var/log/messages.

A Google search found only a reference to one message in the "perforce"
FreeBSD mailing list (change 66084) which appears to show that this 
error message was added on 11/30/2004.

dmesg header is (there are two physical CPUs, the kernel is SMP):

FreeBSD 5.3-STABLE #0: Sun Jan 23 21:24:20 EST 2005
     root at p4dc6.familysquires.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/XEON
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) XEON(TM) CPU 1.80GHz (1784.28-MHz 686-class CPU)
   Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0xf24  Stepping = 4

Features=0x3febfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,C
MOV,PAT,PSE36,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM>
   Hyperthreading: 2 logical CPUs

I can provide additional information, assuming that this is something as 
yet uncorrected.

Mike Squires