[Bug-cpio] 64 bit cpio format for RPM?

[Florian Festi]

Hi!

As you may know RPM is using the cpio format to store the files contents 
within the RPM packages. During the last couple of years a number of 
issues have popped up that root in the limitation to 32 bits in the 
integer data fields of the cpio format. It is just a question of time 
until this limitation will become unbearable for RPM. So at some point 
in the future we need to add support for another archive format.

As RPM contains a tool called rpm2cpio the cpio format is part of the 
user visible interface and switching over to a different format would 
break some use patterns. So having a 64 bit cpio format that is 
supported by the cpio executable would be a big win for us.

But growing file sizes, file system sizes and the spreading use of 64 
bit are not RPM specific issues. Are there already considerations of 
adding such a format or is the plan to keep cpio 32 bit only?

Thanks

    Florian Festi