Read-only file system error on non-readonly destination file directory

Glenn McGrath bug1 at iinet.net.au
Tue Oct 4 22:11:00 UTC 2005


On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 16:26:23 -0400
"Mark Richards" <mark.richards at massmicro.com> wrote:

>   Busybox 1.0
>   Target system: cris-axis-linux-gnu (axis devboard 83)
>   Linux kernel: 2.4.26
> 
> Attempting to extract file /etc/etc.tar (which is a TAR of /etc/*)
> 
> Commands:
> 
>   cd /
>   tar -x -f etc/etc.tar 
> 
> The tar command will extract the files but following the operation it
> attempts, of course, to delete the archive file.
> 
> It then returns the message: 
> 
>   tar: Couldnt remove old file: Read-only file system
> 
> It is a readonly filesystem in parts, but /etc is not readonly.
> 
> It appears that tar is looking somewhere else (maybe in the directory in
> which it is invoked) to determine the filesystem type, instead of the
> directory where the tar file actually is.  (I have not looked at the code,
> but this makes some sense as a possibility).
> 
> I do the extraction from root since this is the relative destination from
> which it was created and I want to avoid the "removing / from member names"
> error.
> 
> Maybe I shouldn't?  But I think this might be a bug.

The only way tar should give that error is when its trying to extract
the cotnents of the tarball.

If you do tar -xvf etc/etc.tar it will list the files its trying to
extract as it goes, which should show which file its having problems
with.

My best guess is that /etc is in the tarball and busybox is trying to
overwrite your /etc directory... that is a guess though.


Glenn



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