Thanks Tim. It'll be a fun afternoon. :-) Thanks for your help, --Alice On Fri, Dec 16, 2022 at 10:21 AM Tim Kientzle <[email protected]> wrote:
> This appears to be a CPIO archive stored in the original cpio format > introduced as part of Programmer’s Work Bench (PWB), a variant of 6th > Edition UNIX. > > The PWB format differed from that used in 7th Edition Unix in how it > represented file types. > > The first file in this archive, for example, is stored with a file type of > octal 110644. In the PWB format, this indicated a regular file with IALLOC > and ILARG flags set (neither of which is relevant for cpio purposes). In > later 7th Edition, this is nonsense (a “regular file” that is also a “named > pipe”), which explains the errors you are seeing. > > In short, you’ll need to find or write a program that can extract the PWB > format. I’m not sure if GNU cpio can do this — it probably assumes “bin” > format is the 7th Edition Format. I don’t recall if bsdcpio can extract > this or not — I’d have to check the sources. > > Fortunately, cpio format is very easy to read. It has a fixed-layout > header for each entry, followed by the filename and file contents. So if > you know how to read binary data from one file and write it to another, you > can probably cobble up something workable in an afternoon. The header > details can be found online: https://man.archlinux.org/man/cpio.5.en > > Tim > > > > > > > On Dec 15, 2022, at 10:16 AM, Alice Lecinski <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thank you so very much for your response. > > Please find attached the results of: > > od -xv --address-radix=d FILE_001 > V00063_hexdump.txt > > > Thank you, > Alice > > > On Wed, Dec 14, 2022 at 7:10 PM Tim Kientzle <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Can you provide a hex dump of the first 128 or so bytes of the archive? >> >> Tim >> >> >> On Dec 14, 2022, at 12:40 PM, Alice Lecinski <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I have a very old cpio archive written in approximately 1990. >> It was most likely written on a VAX VMS (~linux) system. >> This is historical data and fairly important... >> >> When I attempt to get the files using: >> >> cpio -iv --no-absolute-filenames --force-local --format='bin' < FILE_001 >> >> >> I get the following output: >> >> cpio: ecl9w2: unknown file type >> ecl9w2 >> cpio: g: unknown file type >> g >> cpio: ssss: unknown file type >> ssss >> cpio: t: unknown file type >> t >> wwww >> 5480 blocks >> >> >> When I then do an 'ls', the 'wwww' file has been created. But none of >> the other files: >> >> 'ecl9w2', 'g', 't' >> >> exist. >> The 'wwww' file is ascii and readable. I know the 'ecl9w2' file is >> binary. >> >> Any suggestions? >> Thank you, >> Alice >> >> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> >> Alice Lecinski >> Associate Scientist IV >> High Altitude Observatory www2.hao.ucar.edu >> >> HAO is a division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, >> which is operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric >> Research under sponsorship of the National Science Foundation. >> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> >> >> >> <V00063_hexdump.txt> > > >
