1 .\" Copyright (c) 2003-2007 Tim Kientzle
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25 .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/tar/bsdtar.1,v 1.46 2008/12/06 07:37:55 kientzle Exp $
32 .Nd manipulate tape archives
35 .Op Ar bundled-flags Ao args Ac
36 .Op Ao Ar file Ac | Ao Ar pattern Ac ...
40 .Op Ar files | Ar directories
45 .Op Ar files | Ar directories
52 creates and manipulates streaming archive files.
53 This implementation can extract from tar, pax, cpio, zip, jar, ar, xar,
54 rpm, 7-zip, and ISO 9660 cdrom images and can create tar, pax, cpio, ar, zip,
55 7-zip, and shar archives.
57 The first synopsis form shows a
60 This usage is provided for compatibility with historical implementations.
61 See COMPATIBILITY below for details.
63 The other synopsis forms show the preferred usage.
66 is a mode indicator from the following list:
67 .Bl -tag -compact -width indent
69 Create a new archive containing the specified items.
70 The long option form is
75 but new entries are appended to the archive.
76 Note that this only works on uncompressed archives stored in regular files.
80 The long option form is
83 List archive contents to stdout.
84 The long option form is
89 but new entries are added only if they have a modification date
90 newer than the corresponding entry in the archive.
91 Note that this only works on uncompressed archives stored in regular files.
98 Extract to disk from the archive.
99 If a file with the same name appears more than once in the archive,
100 each copy will be extracted, with later copies overwriting (replacing)
102 The long option form is
111 mode, each specified file or directory is added to the
112 archive in the order specified on the command line.
113 By default, the contents of each directory are also archived.
115 In extract or list mode, the entire command line
116 is read and parsed before the archive is opened.
117 The pathnames or patterns on the command line indicate
118 which items in the archive should be processed.
119 Patterns are shell-style globbing patterns as
123 Unless specifically stated otherwise, options are applicable in
125 .Bl -tag -width indent
126 .It Cm @ Ns Pa archive
128 The specified archive is opened and the entries
129 in it will be appended to the current archive.
131 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa - Pa newfile Cm @ Ns Pa original.tar
132 writes a new archive to standard output containing a file
134 and all of the entries from
137 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa - Pa newfile Pa original.tar
138 creates a new archive with only two entries.
140 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa - Fl Fl format Cm pax Cm @ Ns Pa -
141 reads an archive from standard input (whose format will be determined
142 automatically) and converts it into a gzip-compressed
143 pax-format archive on stdout.
146 can be used to convert archives from one format to another.
147 .It Fl B , Fl Fl read-full-blocks
148 Ignored for compatibility with other
151 .It Fl b Ar blocksize , Fl Fl block-size Ar blocksize
152 Specify the block size, in 512-byte records, for tape drive I/O.
153 As a rule, this argument is only needed when reading from or writing
154 to tape drives, and usually not even then as the default block size of
155 20 records (10240 bytes) is very common.
156 .It Fl C Ar directory , Fl Fl cd Ar directory , Fl Fl directory Ar directory
157 In c and r mode, this changes the directory before adding
159 In x mode, change directories after opening the archive
160 but before extracting entries from the archive.
164 to the current directory after processing any
166 options and before extracting any files.
167 .It Fl Fl disable-copyfile
171 .It Fl Fl exclude Ar pattern
172 Do not process files or directories that match the
174 Note that exclusions take precedence over patterns or filenames
175 specified on the command line.
176 .It Fl Fl format Ar format
178 Use the specified format for the created archive.
179 Supported formats include
185 Other formats may also be supported; see
186 .Xr libarchive-formats 5
187 for more information about currently-supported formats.
188 In r and u modes, when extending an existing archive, the format specified
189 here must be compatible with the format of the existing archive on disk.
190 .It Fl f Ar file , Fl Fl file Ar file
191 Read the archive from or write the archive to the specified file.
194 for standard input or standard output.
195 The default varies by system;
200 on Linux, the default is
203 Use the provided group id number.
204 On extract, this overrides the group id in the archive;
205 the group name in the archive will be ignored.
206 On create, this overrides the group id read from disk;
209 is not also specified, the group name will be set to
211 .It Fl Fl gname Ar name
212 Use the provided group name.
213 On extract, this overrides the group name in the archive;
214 if the provided group name does not exist on the system,
216 (from the archive or from the
219 will be used instead.
220 On create, this sets the group name that will be stored
222 the name will not be verified against the system group database.
225 Symbolic links named on the command line will be followed; the
226 target of the link will be archived, not the link itself.
236 .It Fl Fl include Ar pattern
237 Process only files or directories that match the specified pattern.
238 Note that exclusions specified with
240 take precedence over inclusions.
241 If no inclusions are explicitly specified, all entries are processed by
245 option is especially useful when filtering archives.
246 For example, the command
247 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa new.tar Fl Fl include='*foo*' Cm @ Ns Pa old.tgz
248 creates a new archive
250 containing only the entries from
252 containing the string
256 Compress the resulting archive with
258 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
259 Note that, unlike other
261 implementations, this implementation recognizes XZ compression
262 automatically when reading archives.
263 .It Fl j , Fl Fl bzip , Fl Fl bzip2 , Fl Fl bunzip2
265 Compress the resulting archive with
267 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
268 Note that, unlike other
270 implementations, this implementation recognizes bzip2 compression
271 automatically when reading archives.
272 .It Fl k , Fl Fl keep-old-files
274 Do not overwrite existing files.
275 In particular, if a file appears more than once in an archive,
276 later copies will not overwrite earlier copies.
277 .It Fl Fl keep-newer-files
279 Do not overwrite existing files that are newer than the
280 versions appearing in the archive being extracted.
281 .It Fl L , Fl Fl dereference
283 All symbolic links will be followed.
284 Normally, symbolic links are archived as such.
285 With this option, the target of the link will be archived instead.
286 .It Fl l , Fl Fl check-links
288 Issue a warning message unless all links to each file are archived.
290 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with the original LZMA algorithm.
291 Use of this option is discouraged and new archives should be created with
294 Note that, unlike other
296 implementations, this implementation recognizes LZMA compression
297 automatically when reading archives.
298 .It Fl m , Fl Fl modification-time
300 Do not extract modification time.
301 By default, the modification time is set to the time stored in the archive.
302 .It Fl n , Fl Fl norecurse , Fl Fl no-recursion
304 Do not recursively archive the contents of directories.
305 .It Fl Fl newer Ar date
307 Only include files and directories newer than the specified date.
308 This compares ctime entries.
309 .It Fl Fl newer-mtime Ar date
313 except it compares mtime entries instead of ctime entries.
314 .It Fl Fl newer-than Pa file
316 Only include files and directories newer than the specified file.
317 This compares ctime entries.
318 .It Fl Fl newer-mtime-than Pa file
322 except it compares mtime entries instead of ctime entries.
325 Honor the nodump file flag by skipping this file.
331 Filenames or patterns are separated by null characters,
333 This is often used to read filenames output by the
337 .It Fl Fl no-same-owner
339 Do not extract owner and group IDs.
340 This is the reverse of
342 and the default behavior if
345 .It Fl Fl no-same-permissions
347 Do not extract full permissions (SGID, SUID, sticky bit, ACLs,
348 extended attributes or extended file flags).
349 This is the reverse of
351 and the default behavior if
354 .It Fl Fl numeric-owner
355 This is equivalent to
360 On extract, it causes user and group names in the archive
361 to be ignored in favor of the numeric user and group ids.
362 On create, it causes user and group names to not be stored
364 .It Fl O , Fl Fl to-stdout
366 In extract (-x) mode, files will be written to standard out rather than
367 being extracted to disk.
368 In list (-t) mode, the file listing will be written to stderr rather than
372 Use the user and group of the user running the program rather
373 than those specified in the archive.
374 Note that this has no significance unless
376 is specified, and the program is being run by the root user.
377 In this case, the file modes and flags from
378 the archive will be restored, but ACLs or owner information in
379 the archive will be discarded.
383 .Fl Fl format Ar ustar
384 .It Fl Fl one-file-system
386 Do not cross mount points.
387 .It Fl Fl options Ar options
388 Select optional behaviors for particular modules.
389 The argument is a text string containing comma-separated
391 These are passed to the modules that handle particular
392 formats to control how those formats will behave.
393 Each option has one of the following forms:
394 .Bl -tag -compact -width indent
396 The key will be set to the specified value in every module that supports it.
397 Modules that do not support this key will ignore it.
399 The key will be enabled in every module that supports it.
400 This is equivalent to
403 The key will be disabled in every module that supports it.
404 .It Ar module:key=value , Ar module:key , Ar module:!key
405 As above, but the corresponding key and value will be provided
406 only to modules whose name matches
409 The currently supported modules and keys are:
410 .Bl -tag -compact -width indent
411 .It Cm iso9660:joliet
412 Support Joliet extensions.
413 This is enabled by default, use
418 .It Cm iso9660:rockridge
419 Support Rock Ridge extensions.
420 This is enabled by default, use
423 .Cm iso9660:!rockridge
425 .It Cm gzip:compression-level
426 A decimal integer from 0 to 9 specifying the gzip compression level.
427 .It Cm xz:compression-level
428 A decimal integer from 0 to 9 specifying the xz compression level.
429 .It Cm mtree: Ns Ar keyword
430 The mtree writer module allows you to specify which mtree keywords
431 will be included in the output.
432 Supported keywords include:
433 .Cm cksum , Cm device , Cm flags , Cm gid , Cm gname , Cm indent ,
434 .Cm link , Cm md5 , Cm mode , Cm nlink , Cm rmd160 , Cm sha1 , Cm sha256 ,
435 .Cm sha384 , Cm sha512 , Cm size , Cm time , Cm uid , Cm uname .
436 The default is equivalent to:
437 .Dq device, flags, gid, gname, link, mode, nlink, size, time, type, uid, uname .
439 Enables all of the above keywords.
442 to disable all keywords.
448 Produce human-readable output by indenting options and splitting lines
449 to fit into 80 columns.
450 .It Cm zip:compression Ns = Ns Ar type
453 as compression method.
454 Supported values are store (uncompressed) and deflate (gzip algorithm).
456 If a provided option is not supported by any module, that
458 .It Fl P , Fl Fl absolute-paths
460 By default, absolute pathnames (those that begin with a /
461 character) have the leading slash removed both when creating archives
462 and extracting from them.
465 will refuse to extract archive entries whose pathnames contain
467 or whose target directory would be altered by a symlink.
468 This option suppresses these behaviors.
469 .It Fl p , Fl Fl insecure , Fl Fl preserve-permissions
471 Preserve file permissions.
472 Attempt to restore the full permissions, including owner, file modes, file
473 flags and ACLs, if available, for each item extracted from the archive.
474 This is the default, if
476 is being run by root and can be overridden by also specifying
479 .Fl Fl no-same-permissions .
484 .It Fl q , Fl Fl fast-read
486 Extract or list only the first archive entry that matches each pattern
488 Exit as soon as each specified pattern or filename has been matched.
489 By default, the archive is always read to the very end, since
490 there can be multiple entries with the same name and, by convention,
491 later entries overwrite earlier entries.
492 This option is provided as a performance optimization.
495 Extract files as sparse files.
496 For every block on disk, check first if it contains only NULL bytes and seek
498 This works similar to the conv=sparse option of dd.
500 Modify file or archive member names according to
502 The pattern has the format
503 .Ar /old/new/ Ns Op ghHprRsS
506 is a basic regular expression,
508 is the replacement string of the matched part,
509 and the optional trailing letters modify
510 how the replacement is handled.
513 is not matched, the pattern is skipped.
516 ~ is substituted with the match, \e1 to \e9 with the content of
517 the corresponding captured group.
518 The optional trailing g specifies that matching should continue
519 after the matched part and stop on the first unmatched pattern.
520 The optional trailing s specifies that the pattern applies to the value
522 The optional trailing p specifies that after a successful substitution
523 the original path name and the new path name should be printed to
525 Optional trailing H, R, or S characters suppress substitutions
526 for hardlink targets, regular filenames, or symlink targets,
528 Optional trailing h, r, or s characters enable substitutions
529 for hardlink targets, regular filenames, or symlink targets,
533 which applies substitutions to all names.
534 In particular, it is never necessary to specify h, r, or s.
537 Extract owner and group IDs.
538 This is the reverse of
540 and the default behavior if
543 .It Fl Fl strip-components Ar count
544 Remove the specified number of leading path elements.
545 Pathnames with fewer elements will be silently skipped.
546 Note that the pathname is edited after checking inclusion/exclusion patterns
547 but before security checks.
548 .It Fl T Ar filename , Fl Fl files-from Ar filename
551 will read the list of names to be extracted from
555 will read names to be archived from
559 on a line by itself will cause the current directory to be changed to
560 the directory specified on the following line.
561 Names are terminated by newlines unless
566 also disables the special handling of lines containing
570 After archiving all files, print a summary to stderr.
571 .It Fl U , Fl Fl unlink , Fl Fl unlink-first
573 Unlink files before creating them.
574 This can be a minor performance optimization if most files
575 already exist, but can make things slower if most files
576 do not already exist.
577 This flag also causes
579 to remove intervening directory symlinks instead of
581 See the SECURITY section below for more details.
583 Use the provided user id number and ignore the user
584 name from the archive.
587 is not also specified, the user name will be set to
589 .It Fl Fl uname Ar name
590 Use the provided user name.
591 On extract, this overrides the user name in the archive;
592 if the provided user name does not exist on the system,
593 it will be ignored and the user id
594 (from the archive or from the
597 will be used instead.
598 On create, this sets the user name that will be stored
600 the name is not verified against the system user database.
601 .It Fl Fl use-compress-program Ar program
602 Pipe the input (in x or t mode) or the output (in c mode) through
604 instead of using the builtin compression support.
605 .It Fl v , Fl Fl verbose
606 Produce verbose output.
607 In create and extract modes,
609 will list each file name as it is read from or written to
613 will produce output similar to that of
617 options will provide additional detail.
624 .It Fl w , Fl Fl confirmation , Fl Fl interactive
625 Ask for confirmation for every action.
626 .It Fl X Ar filename , Fl Fl exclude-from Ar filename
627 Read a list of exclusion patterns from the specified file.
630 for more information about the handling of exclusions.
633 Compress the resulting archive with
635 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
636 Note that, unlike other
638 implementations, this implementation recognizes bzip2 compression
639 automatically when reading archives.
640 .It Fl Z , Fl Fl compress , Fl Fl uncompress
642 Compress the resulting archive with
644 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
645 Note that, unlike other
647 implementations, this implementation recognizes compress compression
648 automatically when reading archives.
649 .It Fl z , Fl Fl gunzip , Fl Fl gzip
651 Compress the resulting archive with
653 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
654 Note that, unlike other
656 implementations, this implementation recognizes gzip compression
657 automatically when reading archives.
660 The following environment variables affect the execution of
662 .Bl -tag -width ".Ev BLOCKSIZE"
667 for more information.
672 option overrides this.
673 Please see the description of the
675 option above for more details.
677 The timezone to use when displaying dates.
680 for more information.
685 The following creates a new archive
688 that contains two files
692 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa file.tar.gz Pa source.c Pa source.h
694 To view a detailed table of contents for this
696 .Dl Nm Fl tvf Pa file.tar.gz
698 To extract all entries from the archive on
699 the default tape drive:
702 To examine the contents of an ISO 9660 cdrom image:
703 .Dl Nm Fl tf Pa image.iso
705 To move file hierarchies, invoke
708 .Dl Nm Fl cf Pa - Fl C Pa srcdir\ . | Nm Fl xpf Pa - Fl C Pa destdir
709 or more traditionally
710 .Dl cd srcdir \&; Nm Fl cf Pa -\ . | ( cd destdir \&; Nm Fl xpf Pa - )
712 In create mode, the list of files and directories to be archived
713 can also include directory change instructions of the form
715 and archive inclusions of the form
716 .Cm @ Ns Pa archive-file .
717 For example, the command line
718 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa new.tar Pa foo1 Cm @ Ns Pa old.tgz Cm -C Ns Pa /tmp Pa foo2
719 will create a new archive
724 from the current directory and add it to the output archive.
725 It will then read each entry from
727 and add those entries to the output archive.
728 Finally, it will switch to the
732 to the output archive.
736 format can be used to create an output archive with arbitrary ownership,
737 permissions, or names that differ from existing data on disk:
739 .Dl $ cat input.mtree
741 .Dl usr/bin uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=dir
742 .Dl usr/bin/ls uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=file content=myls
743 .Dl $ tar -cvf output.tar @input.mtree
749 switches accept a variety of common date and time specifications, including
750 .Dq 12 Mar 2005 7:14:29pm ,
751 .Dq 2005-03-12 19:14 ,
754 .Dq 19:14 PST May 1 .
758 argument can be used to control various details of archive generation
760 For example, you can generate mtree output which only contains
765 .Dl Nm Fl cf Pa file.tar Fl Fl format=mtree Fl Fl options='!all,type,time,uid' Pa dir
766 or you can set the compression level used by gzip or xz compression:
767 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa file.tar Fl Fl options='compression-level=9' .
768 For more details, see the explanation of the
769 .Fn archive_read_set_options
771 .Fn archive_write_set_options
772 API calls that are described in
775 .Xr archive_write 3 .
777 The bundled-arguments format is supported for compatibility
778 with historic implementations.
779 It consists of an initial word (with no leading - character) in which
780 each character indicates an option.
781 Arguments follow as separate words.
782 The order of the arguments must match the order
783 of the corresponding characters in the bundled command word.
785 .Dl Nm Cm tbf 32 Pa file.tar
786 specifies three flags
795 flags both require arguments,
796 so there must be two additional items
800 is the argument to the
804 is the argument to the
808 The mode options c, r, t, u, and x and the options
809 b, f, l, m, o, v, and w comply with SUSv2.
811 For maximum portability, scripts that invoke
813 should use the bundled-argument format above, should limit
828 Additional long options are provided to improve compatibility with other
831 Certain security issues are common to many archiving programs, including
833 In particular, carefully-crafted archives can request that
835 extract files to locations outside of the target directory.
836 This can potentially be used to cause unwitting users to overwrite
837 files they did not intend to overwrite.
838 If the archive is being extracted by the superuser, any file
839 on the system can potentially be overwritten.
840 There are three ways this can happen.
843 has mechanisms to protect against each one,
844 savvy users should be aware of the implications:
845 .Bl -bullet -width indent
847 Archive entries can have absolute pathnames.
852 character from filenames before restoring them to guard against this problem.
854 Archive entries can have pathnames that include
859 will not extract files containing
861 components in their pathname.
863 Archive entries can exploit symbolic links to restore
864 files to other directories.
865 An archive can restore a symbolic link to another directory,
866 then use that link to restore a file into that directory.
867 To guard against this,
869 checks each extracted path for symlinks.
870 If the final path element is a symlink, it will be removed
871 and replaced with the archive entry.
874 is specified, any intermediate symlink will also be unconditionally removed.
881 will refuse to extract the entry.
883 To protect yourself, you should be wary of any archives that
884 come from untrusted sources.
885 You should examine the contents of an archive with
886 .Dl Nm Fl tf Pa filename
890 option to ensure that
892 will not overwrite any existing files or the
894 option to remove any pre-existing files.
895 You should generally not extract archives while running with super-user
901 disables the security checks above and allows you to extract
902 an archive while preserving any absolute pathnames,
904 components, or symlinks to other directories.
915 .Xr libarchive-formats 5 ,
918 There is no current POSIX standard for the tar command; it appeared
923 The options supported by this implementation were developed by surveying a
924 number of existing tar implementations as well as the old POSIX specification
925 for tar and the current POSIX specification for pax.
927 The ustar and pax interchange file formats are defined by
933 command appeared in Seventh Edition Unix, which was released in January, 1979.
934 There have been numerous other implementations,
935 many of which extended the file format.
938 public-domain implementation (circa November, 1987)
939 was quite influential, and formed the basis of GNU tar.
940 GNU tar was included as the standard system tar
946 This is a complete re-implementation based on the
949 It was first released with
955 for the definition of the
958 Note that GNU tar prior to version 1.15 treated
961 .Fl Fl one-file-system
966 option may differ from historic implementations.
968 All archive output is written in correctly-sized blocks, even
969 if the output is being compressed.
970 Whether or not the last output block is padded to a full
971 block size varies depending on the format and the
973 For tar and cpio formats, the last block of output is padded
974 to a full block size if the output is being
975 written to standard output or to a character or block device such as
977 If the output is being written to a regular file, the last block
979 Many compressors, including
983 complain about the null padding when decompressing an archive created by
985 although they still extract it correctly.
987 The compression and decompression is implemented internally, so
988 there may be insignificant differences between the compressed output
990 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa - file
991 and that generated by
992 .Dl Nm Fl cf Pa - file | Nm gzip
994 The default should be to read and write archives to the standard I/O paths,
995 but tradition (and POSIX) dictates otherwise.
1001 modes require that the archive be uncompressed
1002 and located in a regular file on disk.
1003 Other archives can be modified using
1009 To archive a file called
1013 you must specify it as
1019 In create mode, a leading
1024 is stripped unless the
1026 option is specified.
1028 There needs to be better support for file selection on both create
1031 There is not yet any support for multi-volume archives or for archiving
1034 Converting between dissimilar archive formats (such as tar and cpio) using the
1036 convention can cause hard link information to be lost.
1037 (This is a consequence of the incompatible ways that different archive
1038 formats store hardlink information.)