This story highlights the dangers of incorrectly unpacking tar archives, with the author recounting a personal mishap during the installation process. Not realizing the file’s permissions and ownership, they extracted it as root, leading to a system crash due to directory structure changes. The advice given includes creating archives carefully to avoid current directory mishaps. Surprisingly, the author outlines alternative methods such as using cpio to handle POSIX tar archives effectively, preventing similar incidents. A cautionary tale filled with valuable lessons on proper archive handling, ensuring system security and stability.
https://vorakl.com/articles/tar-curdir/