TAR(1)

NAME
tar - tape archiver

SYNOPSIS
tar [-]{crtux}[-befhjklmopqvwzHLOPXZ014578] [archive] [blocksize] [-C directory] [-T file] [-s replstr] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
The tar command creates, adds files to, or extracts files from an archive file in “tar” format. A tar archive is often stored on a magnetic tape, but can be stored equally well on a floppy, CD-ROM, or in a regular disk file.

One of the following flags must be present:

-c, --create
    Create new archive, or overwrite an existing archive, adding the specified files to it.

-r, --append
    Append the named new files to existing archive. Note that this will only work on media on which an end-of-file mark can be overwritten.

-t, --list
    List contents of archive. If any files are named on the command line, only those files will be listed.

-u, --update
    Alias for -r.

-x, --extract, --get
    Extract files from archive. If any files are named on the command line, only those files will be extracted from the archive. If more than one copy of a file exists in the archive, later copies will overwrite earlier copies during extraction. The file mode and modification time are preserved if possible. The file mode is subject to modification by the umask(2).

In addition to the flags mentioned above, any of the following flags may be used:

-b blocking factor, --block-size blocking factor
    Set blocking factor to use for the archive. tar uses 512 byte blocks. The default is 20, the maximum is 126. Archives with a blocking factor larger 63 violate the POSIX standard and will not be portable to all systems.

-e  Stop after first error.

-f archive, --file archive
    Filename where the archive is stored. Defaults to /dev/rst0. If the archive is of the form: [[user@]host:]file then the archive will be processed using rmt(8).

-h, --dereference
    Follow symbolic links as if they were normal files or directories.

-j, --bzip2, --bunzip2
    Use bzip2(1) for compression of the archive. This option is a GNU extension.

-k, --keep-old-files
    Keep existing files; don't overwrite them from archive.

-l, --one-file-system
    Do not cross filesystems.

-m, --modification-time
    Do not preserve modification time.

-O  Write old-style (non-POSIX) archives.

-o, --portability, --old-archive
    Don't write directory information that the older (V7) style tar is unable to decode. This implies the -O flag.

-p, --preserve-permissions, --preserve
    Preserve user and group ID as well as file mode regardless of the current umask(2). The setuid and setgid bits are only preserved if the user is the superuser. Only meaningful in conjunction with the -x flag.

-q, --fast-read
    Select the first archive member that matches each pattern operand. No more than one archive member is matched for each pattern. When members of type directory are matched, the file hierarchy rooted at that directory is also matched.

-s replstr
    Modify the file or archive member names specified by the pattern or file operands according to the substitution expression replstr, using the syntax of the ed(1) utility regular expressions. The format of these regular expressions are:
        /old/new/[gp]
    As in ed(1), old is a basic regular expression and new can contain an ampersand (), \n (where n is a digit) back-references, or subexpression matching. The old string may also contain <newline> characters. Any non-null character can be used as a delimiter (/ is shown here). Multiple -s expressions can be specified. The expressions are applied in the order they are specified on the command line, terminating with the first successful substitution. The optional trailing g continues to apply the substitution expression to the pathname substring which starts with the first character following the end of the last successful substitution. The first unsuccessful substitution stops the operation of the g option. The optional trailing p will cause the final result of a successful substitution to be written to standard error in the following format:
        original pathname new pathname
    File or archive member names that substitute to the empty string are not selected and will be skipped.

-v  Verbose operation mode.

-w, --interactive, --confirmation
    Interactively rename files. This option causes tar to prompt the user for the filename to use when storing or extracting files in an archive.

-z, --gzip, --gunzip
    Compress archive using gzip.

-B, --read-full-blocks
    Reassemble small reads into full blocks (For reading from 4.2BSD pipes).

-C directory, --directory directory
    This is a positional argument which sets the working directory for the following files. When extracting, files will be extracted into the specified directory; when creating, the specified files will be matched from the directory. This argument and its parameter may also appear in a file list specified by -T.

-H  Follow symlinks given on command line only.

-P, --absolute-paths
    Do not strip leading slashes (‘/’) from pathnames. The default is to strip leading slashes.

-T file, --files-from file
    Read the names of files to archive or extract from the given file, one per line. A line may also specify the positional argument “-C directory”.

-X file, --exclude-from file
    Exclude files listed in the given file.

-Z, --compress, --uncompress
    Compress archive using compress.

--strict
    Do not enable GNU tar extensions such as long filenames and long link names.

--atime-preserve
    Preserve file access times.

--unlink
    Remove files before creating them.

--use-compress-program program
    Use the named program as the program to decompress the input.

--force-local
    Do not interpret filenames that contain a ‘’: as remote files.

--insecure
    Normally tar ignores filenames that contain ‘..’ as a path component. With this option, files that contain ‘..’ can be processed.

The options [-014578] can be used to select one of the compiled-in backup devices, /dev/rstN.

FILES

/dev/rst0
    default archive name

DIAGNOSTICS
tar will exit with one of the following values:

0   All files were processed successfully.

1   An error occurred.

Whenever tar cannot create a file or a link when extracting an archive or cannot find a file while writing an archive, or cannot preserve the user ID, group ID, file mode, or access and modification times when the -p option is specified, a diagnostic message is written to standard error and a non-zero exit value will be returned, but processing will continue. In the case where tar cannot create a link to a file, tar will not create a second copy of the file.

If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or error, tar may have only partially extracted the file the user wanted. Additionally, the file modes of extracted files and directories may have incorrect file bits, and the modification and access times may be wrong.

If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or error, tar may have only partially created the archive which may violate the specific archive format specification.

SEE ALSO
cpio(1), pax(1)

HISTORY
A tar command first appeared in AT&T UNIX.

AUTHORS
Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego.