diff -up cpio-2.6/src/copyin.c.safer_name_suffix cpio-2.6/src/copyin.c
--- cpio-2.6/src/copyin.c.safer_name_suffix	2007-10-24 17:27:52.000000000 +0200
+++ cpio-2.6/src/copyin.c	2007-11-01 15:59:39.000000000 +0100
@@ -1382,12 +1382,13 @@ safer_name_suffix (char const *file_name
 
   if (prefix_len)
     {
-      char *prefix = alloca (prefix_len + 1);
+      char *prefix = xmalloc (prefix_len + 1);
       memcpy (prefix, file_name, prefix_len);
       prefix[prefix_len] = '\0';
 
 
       error (0, 0, _("Removing leading `%s' from member names"), prefix);
+      free(prefix);
     }
 
   if (!*p)