The version of tar that comes with the release cannot use a remote tape drive via rsh. Attempts to recompile it myself achieved the same result. The version of tar from FreeBSD 1.1.5.1(RELEASE) works fine under the same circumstances. This is supposedly the same version of tar itself. Fix: Obtained tar executable from a FreeBSD 1.1.5.1(RELEASE) machine. This operated properly. [I haven't found any magical incantations for the tar sources to make them compile a working version.] How-To-Repeat: bash$ tar -cvf lowell@duras.epilogue.com:fubar *.info tar: can't open lowell@duras.epilogue.com:fubar : Input/output error bash$ ./tar.darth -cvf lowell@duras.epilogue.com:fubar *.info rsh: warning, using standard rsh: remote host doesn't support Kerberos. backup.info bash$
State Changed From-To: open->closed Among many other fixes (e.g. the /etc/rmt symlink), the latest change to the rmt utility to create new files with specific permission bits instead of random garbage seems to have killed the last show-stopper for this.