The tar archive format and/or the command-line utility for working with tar files.
17
votes
2answers
791 views
What does .??* mean in a shell command?
The following command will tar all "dot" files and folders:
tar -zcvf dotfiles.tar.gz .??*
I am familiar with regular expressions, but I don't understand how to interpret .??*. I executed ls .??* ...
15
votes
2answers
4k views
tar cvf or tar -cvf ?
I have learned to use tar without '-' for options, like tar cvfz dir.tar.gz Directory/ but I recently came accross the slightly different tar -czvf syntax (I think the 'f' must be the last option in ...
13
votes
5answers
14k views
tar --exclude doesn't exclude. Why?
I have this very simple line in a bash script which executes successfully (i.e. producing the _data.tar file), except that it doesn't exclude the sub-directories it is told exclude via the --exclude ...
12
votes
3answers
1k views
Why use superflous dash (-) to pass option flags to tar?
To create a tar file for a directory, the tar command with compress, verbose and file options can be typed thus:
$ tar -cvf my.tar my_directory/
But it also works to do it this way:
$ tar cvf ...
11
votes
3answers
2k views
How to choose directory name during untarring
Say I have file named ugly_name.tar, which when extracted, becomes ugly_name directory. What command can I use such that the resulting directory name is pretty_name instead?
11
votes
7answers
4k views
What to use to backup files, preserving ACLs?
When using the tar utility to store files in backups one loses the extended ACLs.
Is there some commonly used and not hackish solution (like: create a script that will recrate the ACLs from scratch) ...
10
votes
3answers
3k views
Is there a parallel file archiver (like tar)?
Is there something out there for parallel archiving of files?
Tar is great, but I don't use tape archives, and it's more important to me that the archiving happens quickly (with compression like ...
10
votes
5answers
4k views
“tar: unrecognized option --warning” during 'apt-get install'
I just ran apt-get upgrade on my debian 5 vps and I got this error:
tar: unrecognized option `--warning=no-timestamp'
Now when I try to install other packages e.g: imagemagick I get the same ...
10
votes
2answers
545 views
Tar up all PDFs in a directory, retaining directory structure
I'm trying to create a compressed tarball that contains all PDF files that exist in one of my directories. The directory structure needs to be retained. Empty directories are not needed, but I really ...
9
votes
3answers
4k views
How to XZ a directory with TAR using maximum compression?
So I need to compress a directory with max compression.
How can I do it with xz? I mean I will need tar too because I can't compress a directory with only xz. Is there a oneliner to produce e.g. ...
9
votes
4answers
4k views
Create tar archive of a directory, except for hidden files?
Here's a newb question. I'm wanting to create a tar archive of a specific directory (with its subdirectories of course). But when I do it, using the tar command, I get a list of files that were ...
9
votes
6answers
4k views
tar + rsync + untar. Any speed benefit over just rsync?
I often find myself sending folders with 10K - 100K of files to a remote machine (within the same network on-campus).
I was just wondering if there are reasons to believe that,
tar + rsync + ...
9
votes
5answers
951 views
How to de-unzip, de-tar -xvf — de-unarchive in a messy folder?
Usually, I unarchive things by $ mkdir newFolder; $ mv *.zip newFolder; $ cd newFolder; $unzip *.zip but sometimes I get lazy and just do in an arbitrary folder $ unzip *.zip so time-to-time messing ...
9
votes
2answers
17k views
Add/update a file to an existing tar.gz archive?
Is there a way to add/update a file in a tar.gz archive? Basically, I have an archive which contains a file at /data/data/com.myapp.backup/./files/settings.txt and I'd like to pull that file from the ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
How to create a tar.gz file from a folder excluding a folder
How do I exclude a file or folder while creating a tar.gz file with tar command?
8
votes
2answers
672 views
What does “-” mean as an argument to a command?
I found this link on how to open tgz in one step.
gzip -dc target.tar.gz | tar xf -
What does the '-' mean?
8
votes
3answers
229 views
Universal extractors
With an increasing number of archive/compression file formats, is there a single free/open-source command line tool to rule them all? Perhaps something with a consistent / unified set of flags? (note ...
8
votes
2answers
1k views
Fastest way combine many files into one (tar czf is too slow)
Currently I'm running tar czf to combine backup files. The files are in a specific directory.
But the number of files is growing. Using tzr czf takes too much time (more than 20 minutes and ...
8
votes
2answers
498 views
Dereferencing hard links
In the manual page of tar command, an option for following hard links is listed.
-h, --dereference
follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to
--hard-dereference
follow ...
7
votes
5answers
4k views
How can I best copy large numbers of small files over scp?
I have a directory that's got several gigabytes and several thousand small files. I want to copy it over the network with scp more than once. CPU time on the source and destination machines is cheap, ...
7
votes
4answers
1k views
tar extraction depends on filename?
I often download tarballs with wget from sourceforge.net.
The downloaded files then are named, e.g ...
7
votes
3answers
733 views
How to truely install a tar.gz file on Linux - how to manage manually-installed (or standalone) applications?
I see all these links explaining packages and .debs... I know that... and there are many kludges to get tar.gz files working (eg: update-alternatives for Java or manually dropping the file in ...
7
votes
4answers
2k views
Rename directory inside of a tar archive
Is it possible to rename a directory inside of a tar archive? My use case is that I have an externally provided RPM spec file that assumes a tarball with a certain directory structure, and I have an ...
7
votes
1answer
146 views
Under what circumstances does gunzip & tar xf work but tar xzf fail?
To illustrate the point: I have downloaded the LEDA library from the company's website. Using tar -xzf on it fails:
$ tar -xzf LEDA-6.3-free-fedora-core-8-64-g++-4.1.2-mt.tar.gz
tar: This does not ...
7
votes
3answers
591 views
Untar only a certain number of files from a large tarball
I have a large tarball that is busy being FTP'd over from a remote system to our local system.
I want to know if it is possible to start untarring lets say 50 files at a time so that those files can ...
6
votes
3answers
168 views
How to convert tar file from gnu format to pax format
On the one hand I have a lot of tar files created with gnu format, and on the other hand I have a tool that only supports pax (aka posix) format. I am looking for an easy way to convert the existing ...
6
votes
1answer
6k views
How do you extract a single folder from a large tar.gz archive?
I am using this command on a 5GB archive
tar -zxvf archive.tar.gz /folder/in/archive
is this the correct way to do this? It seems to be taking forever with no command line output...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
howto inflate AND extract a .tar.bz2 using the 7-zip command line tool
I have a .tar.bz2 file that I want to be decompressed and extracted via the 7-zip commandline tool.
So basically I'm looking for the equivalent of
tar -xjf foo.tar.bz2
with 7-zip there is only the ...
6
votes
5answers
919 views
force copying a corrupted home directory
I have a home directory in a disk that has a lot of corrupted files. I am trying to save most files as possible. I am trying to create a backup of my home directory on an external drive using
tar ...
6
votes
1answer
1k views
How to check/test .tar.bz archives?
I've been using tar with its "--use-compress-prog=pbzip2" function to archive my files then compress them with pbzip2 to get an "*.tar.bz" archive.
Afterwards I checked the resulting file with ...
6
votes
1answer
131 views
tar: how can I exclude intermediate directories but include leaf directories?
I want to create a tar file suitable for extracting into /. I've created a work directory that represents the root of the file system, and it has all the stuff I want included in the tar underneath, ...
5
votes
3answers
404 views
Look at the tar log contents without extracting them
tar -tvf file.tar contains log files.
Is there anyway to do something like this
tar -tvf file.tar | head -1 | awk '{print $NF}' | xargs less {}
This would give file not found, but is there a way?
...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
Preventing tar from using too much CPU and disk (old laptop crashes if 100%)
I want to backup 1 terabyte of data to an external disk.
I am using this command: tar cf /media/MYDISK/backup.tar mydata
PROBLEM: My poor laptop freezes and crashes whenever I use 100% CPU or 100% ...
5
votes
5answers
4k views
How can i view the contents of a tar.gz file (filenames + filesize)
I cannot use tar -tz as the solaris version I'm using does not accept the -z option.
I tried something like gunzip file.tar.gz | tar -tv but that only gives:
tar: /dev/rmt/0: No such file or ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
tar with relative paths
I try to create an archive with tar using relative paths. I use the following command:
tar czf ~/files/wp/my-page-order.tar.gz -C ~/webapps/zers/wp-content/plugins/ ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
Can I automate tar's multi-volume-feature?
Ok, so I've just had a read through this page after a way to improve my current backup solution on my Debian server. Tar seems to be offering a quite nice multi-volume feature, although when I try it ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
How do you verify a tar archive that is already written?
I know that you can do -W when creating an archive, but how do you verify and already-created archive? tvWf says it's not a valid tar archive?
$ mkdir tmp
$ echo asdkfjh > tmp/a
$ echo qweroiu ...
5
votes
1answer
181 views
On the Fly Compression for a Directory
I have a directory that is always going to be storing text files that are rarely (think weekly) used. Naturally this is a great place to use compression. However, rather than having to use tar ever ...
5
votes
1answer
906 views
Cannot open: Input/output error with tar command in a shell script
I am trying to create a tar ball in a shell script (I have enabled set -x), but I get an error:
+ cd /home5/mysite/public_html
+ TAR_DUMP=gypo_2012-02-18-03:51:15.tar.gz
+ echo 'Tar name: ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
How do I use the Unix tar command with an implicit filepath?
I am using the tar -xvf command and it is taking the explicit path. However, the path is full.
Example:
tar -xvf 13.2.tar
It is taking the path of /mnt folder. The / folder is full.
How can I tar ...
4
votes
3answers
7k views
How do I extract with tar to a different directory?
This doesn't work:
tar xf /tmp/foo.tar.gz foo/bar
tar: foo/bar: Not found in archive
It's not obvious to me what would do this beyond extracting it in place and moving the files over.
4
votes
5answers
3k views
tar files only, no directories
I can probably write a shell script to find files only, then pass the list to tar, but I am wondering whether there already is a built-in feature in tar that allows doing just that, in a single ...
4
votes
3answers
426 views
What does the -f parameter do in the tar command
When using tar I always include -f in the parameters but I have no idea why.
I looked up the man and it said;
-f, --file [HOSTNAME:]F
use archive file or device F (default
"-", meaning ...
4
votes
2answers
742 views
Why doesn't tar ask before overwriting existing files?
I lost a couple hundred lines of a Vim plugin I wrote and continue back up every so often because I extracted a tar file containing an older version. I decided not to use source control management ...
4
votes
3answers
934 views
Why does tar --exclude=“.*” create an empty archive?
Everything I read says that to exclude .svn and .htaccess and other hidden files when creating a tar archive, use the --exclude=".*" pattern.
When I try, I get an empty archive. When I leave out the ...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
If I change permissions on a tar file, will that apply to the files inside it?
I have a script that runs regularly via cron, that creates a tar.gz file for the purpose of backing up a directory.
For reasons beyond my control, the only user who can execute the script via cron is ...
4
votes
2answers
499 views
Using files that have spaces in their name in pipes
I have folder named play which contains a file damn file (with space). When I use find and pipe the output to tar:
find play/ -name 'damn*' | tar cf archive.tar -T -
It works perfectly. Why does ...
4
votes
2answers
282 views
What do these commands (`tar`) actually do? Is there a better way?
I am going over some documentation from a former colleague of mine. This documentation pertains to creating a distro repo. However, I cannot understand exactly what this commands performs:
...
4
votes
3answers
125 views
Tar piped to split piped to scp
So I'm trying to transfer a bunch of files via SCP. Some of these are too large to be stored on the recipient (Android phone, 4GB file size limit).
The sender is almost out of space, so I can't ...
4
votes
1answer
190 views
Does tar -x Extract to Current Directory or Does it Extract to the Source of the Archive?
Does tar -x by default just extract to the current directory or does it try to reproduce the original directory structure including overwriting the original source? I know I can specify a folder to ...
