cpio v2.5 won't copy links or devices

[iscove]

In Puppy 3.01 (frugal install on vfat fs), trying to extract initrd.gz to a directory:

# gunzip initrd.gz
# cd tempdir
# cpio -di < ../initrd

The above works, places folders and files in tempdir (vfat fs)
but with lots of error messages e.g. "cpio: bin/wc: Operation not permitted"
on all links to dirs (e.g. -> busybox) and on all /dev items

Anyone have any luck getting this to work?

[BarryK]

It works fine for me. I use 'cat', as per this page:
http://www.puppylinux.com/download/release-3.01.htm
...but I don't know why that would make any difference.

[iscove]

No luck with

# cat ../initrd | cpio -d -i

Same result, directory and subdirs created, but cpio returns
a long list of "not permitted" errors for links and devs.

I have not tried this on an ext2 partition, only on vfat.
I am assuming this can not possibly be related to privilege,
I should be root by default, and I get the same result when
explicitly logging on as root.

[Pizzasgood]

It's the fat partition that's causing your problem. They can't store the permissions and symlink data that Linux filesystems use.

If you put it in your save_file rather than out on the drive itself, it should work. I usually use /tmp.

This is one of the things I see as a big benefit of CPIO archives vs. the filesystem-image: There aren't any issues with using them inside your save-file, since you never mount them.

By the way, you can use zcat ../initrd.gz | cpio -i -d to skip the gunzip initrd.gz step.

[iscove]

thanks, that was it, /tmp works fine