1 .\" Copyright (c) 2003-2007 Tim Kientzle
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25 .\" $FreeBSD: src/usr.bin/tar/bsdtar.1,v 1.43 2008/05/26 17:10:10 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 | directories
45 .Op Ar files | directories
52 creates and manipulates streaming archive files.
53 This implementation can extract from tar, pax, cpio, zip, jar, ar,
54 and ISO 9660 cdrom images and can create tar, pax, cpio, ar,
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.
73 but new entries are appended to the archive.
74 Note that this only works on uncompressed archives stored in regular files.
79 List archive contents to stdout.
83 but new entries are added only if they have a modification date
84 newer than the corresponding entry in the archive.
85 Note that this only works on uncompressed archives stored in regular files.
90 Extract to disk from the archive.
91 If a file with the same name appears more than once in the archive,
92 each copy will be extracted, with later copies overwriting (replacing)
101 mode, each specified file or directory is added to the
102 archive in the order specified on the command line.
103 By default, the contents of each directory are also archived.
105 In extract or list mode, the entire command line
106 is read and parsed before the archive is opened.
107 The pathnames or patterns on the command line indicate
108 which items in the archive should be processed.
109 Patterns are shell-style globbing patterns as
113 Unless specifically stated otherwise, options are applicable in
115 .Bl -tag -width indent
116 .It Cm @ Ns Pa archive
118 The specified archive is opened and the entries
119 in it will be appended to the current archive.
121 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa - Pa newfile Cm @ Ns Pa original.tar
122 writes a new archive to standard output containing a file
124 and all of the entries from
127 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa - Pa newfile Pa original.tar
128 creates a new archive with only two entries.
130 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa - Fl -format Cm pax Cm @ Ns Pa -
131 reads an archive from standard input (whose format will be determined
132 automatically) and converts it into a gzip-compressed
133 pax-format archive on stdout.
136 can be used to convert archives from one format to another.
137 .It Fl b Ar blocksize
138 Specify the block size, in 512-byte records, for tape drive I/O.
139 As a rule, this argument is only needed when reading from or writing
140 to tape drives, and usually not even then as the default block size of
141 20 records (10240 bytes) is very common.
142 .It Fl C Ar directory
143 In c and r mode, this changes the directory before adding
145 In x mode, change directories after opening the archive
146 but before extracting entries from the archive.
147 .It Fl -check-links ( Fl W Cm check-links )
149 Issue a warning message unless all links to each file are archived.
150 .It Fl -chroot ( Fl W Cm chroot )
153 to the current directory after processing any
155 options and before extracting any files.
156 .It Fl -exclude Ar pattern ( Fl W Cm exclude Ns = Ns Ar pattern )
157 Do not process files or directories that match the
159 Note that exclusions take precedence over patterns or filenames
160 specified on the command line.
161 .It Fl -format Ar format ( Fl W Cm format Ns = Ns Ar format )
163 Use the specified format for the created archive.
164 Supported formats include
170 Other formats may also be supported; see
171 .Xr libarchive-formats 5
172 for more information about currently-supported formats.
173 In r and u modes, when extending an existing archive, the format specified
174 here must be compatible with the format of the existing archive on disk.
176 Read the archive from or write the archive to the specified file.
179 for standard input or standard output.
180 If not specified, the default tape device will be used.
183 the default tape device is
187 Symbolic links named on the command line will be followed; the
188 target of the link will be archived, not the link itself.
196 .It Fl -include Ar pattern ( Fl W Cm include Ns = Ns Ar pattern )
197 Process only files or directories that match the specified pattern.
198 Note that exclusions specified with
200 take precedence over inclusions.
201 If no inclusions are explicitly specified, all entries are processed by
205 option is especially useful when filtering archives.
206 For example, the command
207 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa new.tar Fl -include='*foo*' Cm @ Ns Pa old.tgz
208 creates a new archive
210 containing only the entries from
212 containing the string
216 Compress the resulting archive with
218 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
219 Note that, unlike other
221 implementations, this implementation recognizes bzip2 compression
222 automatically when reading archives.
225 Do not overwrite existing files.
226 In particular, if a file appears more than once in an archive,
227 later copies will not overwrite earlier copies.
228 .It Fl -keep-newer-files ( Fl W Cm keep-newer-files )
230 Do not overwrite existing files that are newer than the
231 versions appearing in the archive being extracted.
234 All symbolic links will be followed.
235 Normally, symbolic links are archived as such.
236 With this option, the target of the link will be archived instead.
238 This is a synonym for the
243 Do not extract modification time.
244 By default, the modification time is set to the time stored in the archive.
247 Do not recursively archive the contents of directories.
248 .It Fl -newer Ar date ( Fl W Cm newer Ns = Ns Ar date )
250 Only include files and directories newer than the specified date.
251 This compares ctime entries.
252 .It Fl -newer-mtime Ar date ( Fl W Cm newer-mtime Ns = Ns Ar date )
256 except it compares mtime entries instead of ctime entries.
257 .It Fl -newer-than Pa file ( Fl W Cm newer-than Ns = Ns Pa file )
259 Only include files and directories newer than the specified file.
260 This compares ctime entries.
261 .It Fl -newer-mtime-than Pa file ( Fl W Cm newer-mtime-than Ns = Ns Pa file )
265 except it compares mtime entries instead of ctime entries.
266 .It Fl -nodump ( Fl W Cm nodump )
268 Honor the nodump file flag by skipping this file.
269 .It Fl -null ( Fl W Cm null )
275 Filenames or patterns are separated by null characters,
277 This is often used to read filenames output by the
281 .It Fl -numeric-owner
283 Ignore symbolic user and group names when restoring archives to disk,
284 only numeric uid and gid values will be obeyed.
287 In extract (-x) mode, files will be written to standard out rather than
288 being extracted to disk.
289 In list (-t) mode, the file listing will be written to stderr rather than
293 Use the user and group of the user running the program rather
294 than those specified in the archive.
295 Note that this has no significance unless
297 is specified, and the program is being run by the root user.
298 In this case, the file modes and flags from
299 the archive will be restored, but ACLs or owner information in
300 the archive will be discarded.
305 .It Fl -one-file-system ( Fl W Cm one-file-system )
307 Do not cross mount points.
310 By default, absolute pathnames (those that begin with a /
311 character) have the leading slash removed both when creating archives
312 and extracting from them.
315 will refuse to extract archive entries whose pathnames contain
317 or whose target directory would be altered by a symlink.
318 This option suppresses these behaviors.
321 Preserve file permissions.
322 Attempt to restore the full permissions, including owner, file modes, file
323 flags and ACLs, if available, for each item extracted from the archive.
324 By default, newly-created files are owned by the user running
326 the file mode is restored for newly-created regular files, and
327 all other types of entries receive default permissions.
330 is being run by root, the default is to restore the owner unless the
332 option is also specified.
333 .It Fl q ( Fl -fast-read )
335 Extract or list only the first archive entry that matches each pattern
337 Exit as soon as each specified pattern or filename has been matched.
338 By default, the archive is always read to the very end, since
339 there can be multiple entries with the same name and, by convention,
340 later entries overwrite earlier entries.
341 This option is provided as a performance optimization.
344 Extract files as sparse files.
345 For every block on disk, check first if it contains only NULL bytes and seek
347 This works similiar to the conv=sparse option of dd.
348 .It Fl -strip-components Ar count ( Fl W Cm strip-components Ns = Ns Ar count )
350 Remove the specified number of leading path elements.
351 Pathnames with fewer elements will be silently skipped.
352 Note that the pathname is edited after checking inclusion/exclusion patterns
353 but before security checks.
355 Modify file or archive member names according to
357 The pattern has the format /old/new/[gps].
358 old is a basic regular expression.
359 If it doesn't apply, the pattern is skipped.
360 new is the replacement string of the matched part.
361 ~ is substituted with the match, \1 to \9 with the content of
362 the corresponding captured group.
363 The optional trailing g specifies that matching should continue
364 after the matched part and stopped on the first unmatched pattern.
365 The optional trailing s specifies that the pattern applies to the value
367 The optional trailing p specifies that after a successful substitution
368 the original path name and the new path name should be printed to
373 will read the list of names to be extracted from
377 will read names to be archived from
381 on a line by itself will cause the current directory to be changed to
382 the directory specified on the following line.
383 Names are terminated by newlines unless
388 also disables the special handling of lines containing
392 Unlink files before creating them.
395 overwrites existing files, which preserves existing hardlinks.
396 With this option, existing hardlinks will be broken, as will any
397 symlink that would affect the location of an extracted file.
398 .It Fl -use-compress-program Ar program
399 Pipe the input (in x or t mode) or the output (in c mode) through
401 instead of using the builtin compression support.
403 Produce verbose output.
404 In create and extract modes,
406 will list each file name as it is read from or written to
410 will produce output similar to that of
414 options will provide additional detail.
415 .It Fl W Ar longopt=value
416 Long options (preceded by
418 are only supported directly on systems that have the
423 option can be used to access long options on systems that
424 do not support this function.
426 Ask for confirmation for every action.
428 Read a list of exclusion patterns from the specified file.
431 for more information about the handling of exclusions.
434 Compress the resulting archive with
436 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
437 Note that, unlike other
439 implementations, this implementation recognizes bzip2 compression
440 automatically when reading archives.
443 Compress the resulting archive with
445 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
446 Note that, unlike other
448 implementations, this implementation recognizes gzip compression
449 automatically when reading archives.
452 Compress the resulting archive with
454 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored.
455 Note that, unlike other
457 implementations, this implementation recognizes compress compression
458 automatically when reading archives.
461 The following environment variables affect the execution of
463 .Bl -tag -width ".Ev BLOCKSIZE"
468 for more information.
470 The default tape device.
473 option overrides this.
475 The timezone to use when displaying dates.
478 for more information.
481 .Bl -tag -width ".Ev BLOCKSIZE"
483 The default tape device, if not overridden by the
485 environment variable or the
492 The following creates a new archive
495 that contains two files
499 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa file.tar.gz Pa source.c Pa source.h
501 To view a detailed table of contents for this
503 .Dl Nm Fl tvf Pa file.tar.gz
505 To extract all entries from the archive on
506 the default tape drive:
509 To examine the contents of an ISO 9660 cdrom image:
510 .Dl Nm Fl tf Pa image.iso
512 To move file hierarchies, invoke
515 .Dl Nm Fl cf Pa - Fl C Pa srcdir\ . | Nm Fl xpf Pa - Fl C Pa destdir
516 or more traditionally
517 .Dl cd srcdir \&; Nm Fl cf Pa -\ . | ( cd destdir \&; Nm Fl xpf Pa - )
519 In create mode, the list of files and directories to be archived
520 can also include directory change instructions of the form
522 and archive inclusions of the form
523 .Cm @ Ns Pa archive-file .
524 For example, the command line
525 .Dl Nm Fl c Fl f Pa new.tar Pa foo1 Cm @ Ns Pa old.tgz Cm -C Ns Pa /tmp Pa foo2
526 will create a new archive
531 from the current directory and add it to the output archive.
532 It will then read each entry from
534 and add those entries to the output archive.
535 Finally, it will switch to the
539 to the output archive.
543 format can be used to create an output archive with arbitrary ownership,
544 permissions, or names that differ from existing data on disk:
546 .Dl $ cat input.mtree
547 .Dl usr/bin uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=dir
548 .Dl usr/bin/ls uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=file content=myls
549 .Dl $ tar -cvf output.tar @input.mtree
555 switches accept a variety of common date and time specifications, including
556 .Dq 12 Mar 2005 7:14:29pm ,
557 .Dq 2005-03-12 19:14 ,
560 .Dq 19:14 PST May 1 .
562 The bundled-arguments format is supported for compatibility
563 with historic implementations.
564 It consists of an initial word (with no leading - character) in which
565 each character indicates an option.
566 Arguments follow as separate words.
567 The order of the arguments must match the order
568 of the corresponding characters in the bundled command word.
570 .Dl Nm Cm tbf 32 Pa file.tar
571 specifies three flags
580 flags both require arguments,
581 so there must be two additional items
585 is the argument to the
589 is the argument to the
593 The mode options c, r, t, u, and x and the options
594 b, f, l, m, o, v, and w comply with SUSv2.
596 For maximum portability, scripts that invoke
598 should use the bundled-argument format above, should limit
613 On systems that support getopt_long(), additional long options
614 are available to improve compatibility with other tar implementations.
616 Certain security issues are common to many archiving programs, including
618 In particular, carefully-crafted archives can request that
620 extract files to locations outside of the target directory.
621 This can potentially be used to cause unwitting users to overwrite
622 files they did not intend to overwrite.
623 If the archive is being extracted by the superuser, any file
624 on the system can potentially be overwritten.
625 There are three ways this can happen.
628 has mechanisms to protect against each one,
629 savvy users should be aware of the implications:
630 .Bl -bullet -width indent
632 Archive entries can have absolute pathnames.
637 character from filenames before restoring them to guard against this problem.
639 Archive entries can have pathnames that include
644 will not extract files containing
646 components in their pathname.
648 Archive entries can exploit symbolic links to restore
649 files to other directories.
650 An archive can restore a symbolic link to another directory,
651 then use that link to restore a file into that directory.
652 To guard against this,
654 checks each extracted path for symlinks.
655 If the final path element is a symlink, it will be removed
656 and replaced with the archive entry.
659 is specified, any intermediate symlink will also be unconditionally removed.
666 will refuse to extract the entry.
668 To protect yourself, you should be wary of any archives that
669 come from untrusted sources.
670 You should examine the contents of an archive with
671 .Dl Nm Fl tf Pa filename
675 option to ensure that
677 will not overwrite any existing files or the
679 option to remove any pre-existing files.
680 You should generally not extract archives while running with super-user
686 disables the security checks above and allows you to extract
687 an archive while preserving any absolute pathnames,
689 components, or symlinks to other directories.
699 .Xr libarchive-formats 5 ,
702 There is no current POSIX standard for the tar command; it appeared
707 The options used by this implementation were developed by surveying a
708 number of existing tar implementations as well as the old POSIX specification
709 for tar and the current POSIX specification for pax.
711 The ustar and pax interchange file formats are defined by
717 command appeared in Seventh Edition Unix, which was released in January, 1979.
718 There have been numerous other implementations,
719 many of which extended the file format.
722 public-domain implementation (circa November, 1987)
723 was quite influential, and formed the basis of GNU tar.
724 GNU tar was included as the standard system tar
730 This is a complete re-implementation based on the
736 for the definition of the
739 Note that GNU tar prior to version 1.15 treated
747 option may differ from historic implementations.
749 All archive output is written in correctly-sized blocks, even
750 if the output is being compressed.
751 Whether or not the last output block is padded to a full
752 block size varies depending on the format and the
754 For tar and cpio formats, the last block of output is padded
755 to a full block size if the output is being
756 written to standard output or to a character or block device such as
758 If the output is being written to a regular file, the last block
760 Many compressors, including
764 complain about the null padding when decompressing an archive created by
766 although they still extract it correctly.
768 The compression and decompression is implemented internally, so
769 there may be insignificant differences between the compressed output
771 .Dl Nm Fl czf Pa - file
772 and that generated by
773 .Dl Nm Fl cf Pa - file | Nm gzip
775 The default should be to read and write archives to the standard I/O paths,
776 but tradition (and POSIX) dictates otherwise.
782 modes require that the archive be uncompressed
783 and located in a regular file on disk.
784 Other archives can be modified using
790 To archive a file called
794 you must specify it as
800 In create mode, a leading
805 is stripped unless the
809 There needs to be better support for file selection on both create
812 There is not yet any support for multi-volume archives or for archiving
815 Converting between dissimilar archive formats (such as tar and cpio) using the
817 convention can cause hard link information to be lost.
818 (This is a consequence of the incompatible ways that different archive
819 formats store hardlink information.)
821 There are alternative long options for many of the short options that
822 are deliberately not documented.