This is tar.info, produced by makeinfo version 5.9.93 from tar.texi. This manual is for GNU 'tar' (version 1.29, 14 April 2016), which creates and extracts files from archives. Copyright (C) 1992, 1994-1997, 1999-2001, 2003-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License", with the Front-Cover Texts being "A GNU Manual", and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual." INFO-DIR-SECTION Archiving START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * Tar: (tar). Making tape (or disk) archives. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY INFO-DIR-SECTION Individual utilities START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * tar: (tar)tar invocation. Invoking GNU 'tar'. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY  File: tar.info, Node: Top, Next: Introduction, Up: (dir) GNU tar: an archiver tool ************************* This manual is for GNU 'tar' (version 1.29, 14 April 2016), which creates and extracts files from archives. Copyright (C) 1992, 1994-1997, 1999-2001, 2003-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License", with the Front-Cover Texts being "A GNU Manual", and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You have the freedom to copy and modify this GNU manual." The first part of this master menu lists the major nodes in this Info document. The rest of the menu lists all the lower level nodes. * Menu: * Introduction:: * Tutorial:: * tar invocation:: * operations:: * Backups:: * Choosing:: * Date input formats:: * Formats:: * Media:: * Reliability and security:: Appendices * Changes:: * Configuring Help Summary:: * Fixing Snapshot Files:: * Tar Internals:: * Genfile:: * Free Software Needs Free Documentation:: * GNU Free Documentation License:: * Index of Command Line Options:: * Index:: -- The Detailed Node Listing -- Introduction * Book Contents:: What this Book Contains * Definitions:: Some Definitions * What tar Does:: What 'tar' Does * Naming tar Archives:: How 'tar' Archives are Named * Authors:: GNU 'tar' Authors * Reports:: Reporting bugs or suggestions Tutorial Introduction to 'tar' * assumptions:: * stylistic conventions:: * basic tar options:: Basic 'tar' Operations and Options * frequent operations:: * Two Frequent Options:: * create:: How to Create Archives * list:: How to List Archives * extract:: How to Extract Members from an Archive * going further:: Two Frequently Used Options * file tutorial:: * verbose tutorial:: * help tutorial:: How to Create Archives * prepare for examples:: * Creating the archive:: * create verbose:: * short create:: * create dir:: How to List Archives * list dir:: How to Extract Members from an Archive * extracting archives:: * extracting files:: * extract dir:: * extracting untrusted archives:: * failing commands:: Invoking GNU 'tar' * Synopsis:: * using tar options:: * Styles:: * All Options:: * help:: * defaults:: * verbose:: * checkpoints:: * warnings:: * interactive:: The Three Option Styles * Long Options:: Long Option Style * Short Options:: Short Option Style * Old Options:: Old Option Style * Mixing:: Mixing Option Styles All 'tar' Options * Operation Summary:: * Option Summary:: * Short Option Summary:: * Position-Sensitive Options:: GNU 'tar' Operations * Basic tar:: * Advanced tar:: * create options:: * extract options:: * backup:: * Applications:: * looking ahead:: Advanced GNU 'tar' Operations * Operations:: * append:: * update:: * concatenate:: * delete:: * compare:: How to Add Files to Existing Archives: '--append' * appending files:: Appending Files to an Archive * multiple:: Updating an Archive * how to update:: Options Used by '--create' * override:: Overriding File Metadata. * Extended File Attributes:: * Ignore Failed Read:: Options Used by '--extract' * Reading:: Options to Help Read Archives * Writing:: Changing How 'tar' Writes Files * Scarce:: Coping with Scarce Resources Options to Help Read Archives * read full records:: * Ignore Zeros:: Changing How 'tar' Writes Files * Dealing with Old Files:: * Overwrite Old Files:: * Keep Old Files:: * Keep Newer Files:: * Unlink First:: * Recursive Unlink:: * Data Modification Times:: * Setting Access Permissions:: * Directory Modification Times and Permissions:: * Writing to Standard Output:: * Writing to an External Program:: * remove files:: Coping with Scarce Resources * Starting File:: * Same Order:: Performing Backups and Restoring Files * Full Dumps:: Using 'tar' to Perform Full Dumps * Incremental Dumps:: Using 'tar' to Perform Incremental Dumps * Backup Levels:: Levels of Backups * Backup Parameters:: Setting Parameters for Backups and Restoration * Scripted Backups:: Using the Backup Scripts * Scripted Restoration:: Using the Restore Script Setting Parameters for Backups and Restoration * General-Purpose Variables:: * Magnetic Tape Control:: * User Hooks:: * backup-specs example:: An Example Text of 'Backup-specs' Choosing Files and Names for 'tar' * file:: Choosing the Archive's Name * Selecting Archive Members:: * files:: Reading Names from a File * exclude:: Excluding Some Files * wildcards:: Wildcards Patterns and Matching * quoting styles:: Ways of Quoting Special Characters in Names * transform:: Modifying File and Member Names * after:: Operating Only on New Files * recurse:: Descending into Directories * one:: Crossing File System Boundaries Reading Names from a File * nul:: Excluding Some Files * problems with exclude:: Wildcards Patterns and Matching * controlling pattern-matching:: Crossing File System Boundaries * directory:: Changing Directory * absolute:: Absolute File Names Date input formats * General date syntax:: Common rules. * Calendar date items:: 19 Dec 1994. * Time of day items:: 9:20pm. * Time zone items:: EST, PDT, GMT. * Day of week items:: Monday and others. * Relative items in date strings:: next tuesday, 2 years ago. * Pure numbers in date strings:: 19931219, 1440. * Seconds since the Epoch:: @1078100502. * Specifying time zone rules:: TZ="America/New_York", TZ="UTC0". * Authors of parse_datetime:: Bellovin, Eggert, Salz, Berets, et al. Controlling the Archive Format * Compression:: Using Less Space through Compression * Attributes:: Handling File Attributes * Portability:: Making 'tar' Archives More Portable * cpio:: Comparison of 'tar' and 'cpio' Using Less Space through Compression * gzip:: Creating and Reading Compressed Archives * sparse:: Archiving Sparse Files Creating and Reading Compressed Archives * lbzip2:: Using lbzip2 with GNU 'tar'. Making 'tar' Archives More Portable * Portable Names:: Portable Names * dereference:: Symbolic Links * hard links:: Hard Links * old:: Old V7 Archives * ustar:: Ustar Archives * gnu:: GNU and old GNU format archives. * posix:: POSIX archives * Checksumming:: Checksumming Problems * Large or Negative Values:: Large files, negative time stamps, etc. * Other Tars:: How to Extract GNU-Specific Data Using Other 'tar' Implementations GNU 'tar' and POSIX 'tar' * PAX keywords:: Controlling Extended Header Keywords. How to Extract GNU-Specific Data Using Other 'tar' Implementations * Split Recovery:: Members Split Between Volumes * Sparse Recovery:: Sparse Members Tapes and Other Archive Media * Device:: Device selection and switching * Remote Tape Server:: * Common Problems and Solutions:: * Blocking:: Blocking * Many:: Many archives on one tape * Using Multiple Tapes:: Using Multiple Tapes * label:: Including a Label in the Archive * verify:: * Write Protection:: Blocking * Format Variations:: Format Variations * Blocking Factor:: The Blocking Factor of an Archive Many Archives on One Tape * Tape Positioning:: Tape Positions and Tape Marks * mt:: The 'mt' Utility Using Multiple Tapes * Multi-Volume Archives:: Archives Longer than One Tape or Disk * Tape Files:: Tape Files * Tarcat:: Concatenate Volumes into a Single Archive Tar Internals * Standard:: Basic Tar Format * Extensions:: GNU Extensions to the Archive Format * Sparse Formats:: Storing Sparse Files * Snapshot Files:: * Dumpdir:: Storing Sparse Files * Old GNU Format:: * PAX 0:: PAX Format, Versions 0.0 and 0.1 * PAX 1:: PAX Format, Version 1.0 Genfile * Generate Mode:: File Generation Mode. * Status Mode:: File Status Mode. * Exec Mode:: Synchronous Execution mode. Copying This Manual * GNU Free Documentation License:: License for copying this manual  File: tar.info, Node: Introduction, Next: Tutorial, Prev: Top, Up: Top 1 Introduction ************** GNU 'tar' creates and manipulates "archives" which are actually collections of many other files; the program provides users with an organized and systematic method for controlling a large amount of data. The name "tar" originally came from the phrase "Tape ARchive", but archives need not (and these days, typically do not) reside on tapes. * Menu: * Book Contents:: What this Book Contains * Definitions:: Some Definitions * What tar Does:: What 'tar' Does * Naming tar Archives:: How 'tar' Archives are Named * Authors:: GNU 'tar' Authors * Reports:: Reporting bugs or suggestions  File: tar.info, Node: Book Contents, Next: Definitions, Up: Introduction 1.1 What this Book Contains =========================== The first part of this chapter introduces you to various terms that will recur throughout the book. It also tells you who has worked on GNU 'tar' and its documentation, and where you should send bug reports or comments. The second chapter is a tutorial (*note Tutorial::) which provides a gentle introduction for people who are new to using 'tar'. It is meant to be self-contained, not requiring any reading from subsequent chapters to make sense. It moves from topic to topic in a logical, progressive order, building on information already explained. Although the tutorial is paced and structured to allow beginners to learn how to use 'tar', it is not intended solely for beginners. The tutorial explains how to use the three most frequently used operations ('create', 'list', and 'extract') as well as two frequently used options ('file' and 'verbose'). The other chapters do not refer to the tutorial frequently; however, if a section discusses something which is a complex variant of a basic concept, there may be a cross-reference to that basic concept. (The entire book, including the tutorial, assumes that the reader understands some basic concepts of using a Unix-type operating system; *note Tutorial::.) The third chapter presents the remaining five operations, and information about using 'tar' options and option syntax. The other chapters are meant to be used as a reference. Each chapter presents everything that needs to be said about a specific topic. One of the chapters (*note Date input formats::) exists in its entirety in other GNU manuals, and is mostly self-contained. In addition, one section of this manual (*note Standard::) contains a big quote which is taken directly from 'tar' sources. In general, we give both long and short (abbreviated) option names at least once in each section where the relevant option is covered, so that novice readers will become familiar with both styles. (A few options have no short versions, and the relevant sections will indicate this.)  File: tar.info, Node: Definitions, Next: What tar Does, Prev: Book Contents, Up: Introduction 1.2 Some Definitions ==================== The 'tar' program is used to create and manipulate 'tar' archives. An "archive" is a single file which contains the contents of many files, while still identifying the names of the files, their owner(s), and so forth. (In addition, archives record access permissions, user and group, size in bytes, and data modification time. Some archives also record the file names in each archived directory, as well as other file and directory information.) You can use 'tar' to "create" a new archive in a specified directory. The files inside an archive are called "members". Within this manual, we use the term "file" to refer only to files accessible in the normal ways (by 'ls', 'cat', and so forth), and the term "member" to refer only to the members of an archive. Similarly, a "file name" is the name of a file, as it resides in the file system, and a "member name" is the name of an archive member within the archive. The term "extraction" refers to the process of copying an archive member (or multiple members) into a file in the file system. Extracting all the members of an archive is often called "extracting the archive". The term "unpack" can also be used to refer to the extraction of many or all the members of an archive. Extracting an archive does not destroy the archive's structure, just as creating an archive does not destroy the copies of the files that exist outside of the archive. You may also "list" the members in a given archive (this is often thought of as "printing" them to the standard output, or the command line), or "append" members to a pre-existing archive. All of these operations can be performed using 'tar'.  File: tar.info, Node: What tar Does, Next: Naming tar Archives, Prev: Definitions, Up: Introduction 1.3 What 'tar' Does =================== The 'tar' program provides the ability to create 'tar' archives, as well as various other kinds of manipulation. For example, you can use 'tar' on previously created archives to extract files, to store additional files, or to update or list files which were already stored. Initially, 'tar' archives were used to store files conveniently on magnetic tape. The name 'tar' comes from this use; it stands for 't'ape 'ar'chiver. Despite the utility's name, 'tar' can direct its output to available devices, files, or other programs (using pipes). 'tar' may even access remote devices or files (as archives). You can use 'tar' archives in many ways. We want to stress a few of them: storage, backup, and transportation. Storage Often, 'tar' archives are used to store related files for convenient file transfer over a network. For example, the GNU Project distributes its software bundled into 'tar' archives, so that all the files relating to a particular program (or set of related programs) can be transferred as a single unit. A magnetic tape can store several files in sequence. However, the tape has no names for these files; it only knows their relative position on the tape. One way to store several files on one tape and retain their names is by creating a 'tar' archive. Even when the basic transfer mechanism can keep track of names, as FTP can, the nuisance of handling multiple files, directories, and multiple links makes 'tar' archives useful. Archive files are also used for long-term storage. You can think of this as transportation from the present into the future. (It is a science-fiction idiom that you can move through time as well as in space; the idea here is that 'tar' can be used to move archives in all dimensions, even time!) Backup Because the archive created by 'tar' is capable of preserving file information and directory structure, 'tar' is commonly used for performing full and incremental backups of disks. A backup puts a collection of files (possibly pertaining to many users and projects) together on a disk or a tape. This guards against accidental destruction of the information in those files. GNU 'tar' has special features that allow it to be used to make incremental and full dumps of all the files in a file system. Transportation You can create an archive on one system, transfer it to another system, and extract the contents there. This allows you to transport a group of files from one system to another.  File: tar.info, Node: Naming tar Archives, Next: Authors, Prev: What tar Does, Up: Introduction 1.4 How 'tar' Archives are Named ================================ Conventionally, 'tar' archives are given names ending with '.tar'. This is not necessary for 'tar' to operate properly, but this manual follows that convention in order to accustom readers to it and to make examples more clear. Often, people refer to 'tar' archives as "'tar' files," and archive members as "files" or "entries". For people familiar with the operation of 'tar', this causes no difficulty. However, in this manual, we consistently refer to "archives" and "archive members" to make learning to use 'tar' easier for novice users.  File: tar.info, Node: Authors, Next: Reports, Prev: Naming tar Archives, Up: Introduction 1.5 GNU 'tar' Authors ===================== GNU 'tar' was originally written by John Gilmore, and modified by many people. The GNU enhancements were written by Jay Fenlason, then Joy Kendall, and the whole package has been further maintained by Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG, Franc,ois Pinard, Paul Eggert, and finally Sergey Poznyakoff with the help of numerous and kind users. We wish to stress that 'tar' is a collective work, and owes much to all those people who reported problems, offered solutions and other insights, or shared their thoughts and suggestions. An impressive, yet partial list of those contributors can be found in the 'THANKS' file from the GNU 'tar' distribution. Jay Fenlason put together a draft of a GNU 'tar' manual, borrowing notes from the original man page from John Gilmore. This was withdrawn in version 1.11. Thomas Bushnell, n/BSG and Amy Gorin worked on a tutorial and manual for GNU 'tar'. Franc,ois Pinard put version 1.11.8 of the manual together by taking information from all these sources and merging them. Melissa Weisshaus finally edited and redesigned the book to create version 1.12. The book for versions from 1.14 up to 1.29 were edited by the current maintainer, Sergey Poznyakoff. For version 1.12, Daniel Hagerty contributed a great deal of technical consulting. In particular, he is the primary author of *note Backups::. In July, 2003 GNU 'tar' was put on CVS at savannah.gnu.org (see ), and active development and maintenance work has started again. Currently GNU 'tar' is being maintained by Paul Eggert, Sergey Poznyakoff and Jeff Bailey. Support for POSIX archives was added by Sergey Poznyakoff.  File: tar.info, Node: Reports, Prev: Authors, Up: Introduction 1.6 Reporting bugs or suggestions ================================= If you find problems or have suggestions about this program or manual, please report them to 'bug-tar@gnu.org'. When reporting a bug, please be sure to include as much detail as possible, in order to reproduce it.  File: tar.info, Node: Tutorial, Next: tar invocation, Prev: Introduction, Up: Top 2 Tutorial Introduction to 'tar' ******************************** This chapter guides you through some basic examples of three 'tar' operations: '--create', '--list', and '--extract'. If you already know how to use some other version of 'tar', then you may not need to read this chapter. This chapter omits most complicated details about how 'tar' works. * Menu: * assumptions:: * stylistic conventions:: * basic tar options:: Basic 'tar' Operations and Options * frequent operations:: * Two Frequent Options:: * create:: How to Create Archives * list:: How to List Archives * extract:: How to Extract Members from an Archive * going further::  File: tar.info, Node: assumptions, Next: stylistic conventions, Up: Tutorial 2.1 Assumptions this Tutorial Makes =================================== This chapter is paced to allow beginners to learn about 'tar' slowly. At the same time, we will try to cover all the basic aspects of these three operations. In order to accomplish both of these tasks, we have made certain assumptions about your knowledge before reading this manual, and the hardware you will be using: * Before you start to work through this tutorial, you should understand what the terms "archive" and "archive member" mean (*note Definitions::). In addition, you should understand something about how Unix-type operating systems work, and you should know how to use some basic utilities. For example, you should know how to create, list, copy, rename, edit, and delete files and directories; how to change between directories; and how to figure out where you are in the file system. You should have some basic understanding of directory structure and how files are named according to which directory they are in. You should understand concepts such as standard output and standard input, what various definitions of the term 'argument' mean, and the differences between relative and absolute file names. * This manual assumes that you are working from your own home directory (unless we state otherwise). In this tutorial, you will create a directory to practice 'tar' commands in. When we show file names, we will assume that those names are relative to your home directory. For example, my home directory is '/home/fsf/melissa'. All of my examples are in a subdirectory of the directory named by that file name; the subdirectory is called 'practice'. * In general, we show examples of archives which exist on (or can be written to, or worked with from) a directory on a hard disk. In most cases, you could write those archives to, or work with them on any other device, such as a tape drive. However, some of the later examples in the tutorial and next chapter will not work on tape drives. Additionally, working with tapes is much more complicated than working with hard disks. For these reasons, the tutorial does not cover working with tape drives. *Note Media::, for complete information on using 'tar' archives with tape drives.  File: tar.info, Node: stylistic conventions, Next: basic tar options, Prev: assumptions, Up: Tutorial 2.2 Stylistic Conventions ========================= In the examples, '$' represents a typical shell prompt. It precedes lines you should type; to make this more clear, those lines are shown in 'this font', as opposed to lines which represent the computer's response; those lines are shown in 'this font', or sometimes 'like this'.  File: tar.info, Node: basic tar options, Next: frequent operations, Prev: stylistic conventions, Up: Tutorial 2.3 Basic 'tar' Operations and Options ====================================== 'tar' can take a wide variety of arguments which specify and define the actions it will have on the particular set of files or the archive. The main types of arguments to 'tar' fall into one of two classes: operations, and options. Some arguments fall into a class called "operations"; exactly one of these is both allowed and required for any instance of using 'tar'; you may _not_ specify more than one. People sometimes speak of "operating modes". You are in a particular operating mode when you have specified the operation which specifies it; there are eight operations in total, and thus there are eight operating modes. The other arguments fall into the class known as "options". You are not required to specify any options, and you are allowed to specify more than one at a time (depending on the way you are using 'tar' at that time). Some options are used so frequently, and are so useful for helping you type commands more carefully that they are effectively "required". We will discuss them in this chapter. You can write most of the 'tar' operations and options in any of three forms: long (mnemonic) form, short form, and old style. Some of the operations and options have no short or "old" forms; however, the operations and options which we will cover in this tutorial have corresponding abbreviations. We will indicate those abbreviations appropriately to get you used to seeing them. Note, that the "old style" option forms exist in GNU 'tar' for compatibility with Unix 'tar'. In this book we present a full discussion of this way of writing options and operations (*note Old Options::), and we discuss the other two styles of writing options (*Note Long Options::, and *note Short Options::). In the examples and in the text of this tutorial, we usually use the long forms of operations and options; but the "short" forms produce the same result and can make typing long 'tar' commands easier. For example, instead of typing tar --create --verbose --file=afiles.tar apple angst aspic you can type tar -c -v -f afiles.tar apple angst aspic or even tar -cvf afiles.tar apple angst aspic For more information on option syntax, see *note Advanced tar::. In discussions in the text, when we name an option by its long form, we also give the corresponding short option in parentheses. The term, "option", can be confusing at times, since "operations" are often lumped in with the actual, _optional_ "options" in certain general class statements. For example, we just talked about "short and long forms of options and operations". However, experienced 'tar' users often refer to these by shorthand terms such as, "short and long options". This term assumes that the "operations" are included, also. Context will help you determine which definition of "options" to use. Similarly, the term "command" can be confusing, as it is often used in two different ways. People sometimes refer to 'tar' "commands". A 'tar' "command" is the entire command line of user input which tells 'tar' what to do -- including the operation, options, and any arguments (file names, pipes, other commands, etc.). However, you will also sometimes hear the term "the 'tar' command". When the word "command" is used specifically like this, a person is usually referring to the 'tar' _operation_, not the whole line. Again, use context to figure out which of the meanings the speaker intends.  File: tar.info, Node: frequent operations, Next: Two Frequent Options, Prev: basic tar options, Up: Tutorial 2.4 The Three Most Frequently Used Operations ============================================= Here are the three most frequently used operations (both short and long forms), as well as a brief description of their meanings. The rest of this chapter will cover how to use these operations in detail. We will present the rest of the operations in the next chapter. '--create' '-c' Create a new 'tar' archive. '--list' '-t' List the contents of an archive. '--extract' '-x' Extract one or more members from an archive.  File: tar.info, Node: Two Frequent Options, Next: create, Prev: frequent operations, Up: Tutorial 2.5 Two Frequently Used Options =============================== To understand how to run 'tar' in the three operating modes listed previously, you also need to understand how to use two of the options to 'tar': '--file' (which takes an archive file as an argument) and '--verbose'. (You are usually not _required_ to specify either of these options when you run 'tar', but they can be very useful in making things more clear and helping you avoid errors.) * Menu: * file tutorial:: * verbose tutorial:: * help tutorial::  File: tar.info, Node: file tutorial, Next: verbose tutorial, Up: Two Frequent Options The '--file' Option ------------------- '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' '-f ARCHIVE-NAME' Specify the name of an archive file. You can specify an argument for the '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') option whenever you use 'tar'; this option determines the name of the archive file that 'tar' will work on. If you don't specify this argument, then 'tar' will examine the environment variable 'TAPE'. If it is set, its value will be used as the archive name. Otherwise, 'tar' will use the default archive, determined at compile time. Usually it is standard output or some physical tape drive attached to your machine (you can verify what the default is by running 'tar --show-defaults', *note defaults::). If there is no tape drive attached, or the default is not meaningful, then 'tar' will print an error message. The error message might look roughly like one of the following: tar: can't open /dev/rmt8 : No such device or address tar: can't open /dev/rsmt0 : I/O error To avoid confusion, we recommend that you always specify an archive file name by using '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') when writing your 'tar' commands. For more information on using the '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') option, see *note file::.  File: tar.info, Node: verbose tutorial, Next: help tutorial, Prev: file tutorial, Up: Two Frequent Options The '--verbose' Option ---------------------- '--verbose' '-v' Show the files being worked on as 'tar' is running. '--verbose' ('-v') shows details about the results of running 'tar'. This can be especially useful when the results might not be obvious. For example, if you want to see the progress of 'tar' as it writes files into the archive, you can use the '--verbose' option. In the beginning, you may find it useful to use '--verbose' at all times; when you are more accustomed to 'tar', you will likely want to use it at certain times but not at others. We will use '--verbose' at times to help make something clear, and we will give many examples both using and not using '--verbose' to show the differences. Each instance of '--verbose' on the command line increases the verbosity level by one, so if you need more details on the output, specify it twice. When reading archives ('--list', '--extract', '--diff'), 'tar' by default prints only the names of the members being extracted. Using '--verbose' will show a full, 'ls' style member listing. In contrast, when writing archives ('--create', '--append', '--update'), 'tar' does not print file names by default. So, a single '--verbose' option shows the file names being added to the archive, while two '--verbose' options enable the full listing. For example, to create an archive in verbose mode: $ tar -cvf afiles.tar apple angst aspic apple angst aspic Creating the same archive with the verbosity level 2 could give: $ tar -cvvf afiles.tar apple angst aspic -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 62373 2006-06-09 12:06 apple -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 11481 2006-06-09 12:06 angst -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 23152 2006-06-09 12:06 aspic This works equally well using short or long forms of options. Using long forms, you would simply write out the mnemonic form of the option twice, like this: $ tar --create --verbose --verbose ... Note that you must double the hyphens properly each time. Later in the tutorial, we will give examples using '--verbose --verbose'. The full output consists of six fields: * File type and permissions in symbolic form. These are displayed in the same format as the first column of 'ls -l' output (*note format=verbose: (fileutils)What information is listed.). * Owner name and group separated by a slash character. If these data are not available (for example, when listing a 'v7' format archive), numeric ID values are printed instead. * Size of the file, in bytes. * File modification date in ISO 8601 format. * File modification time. * File name. If the name contains any special characters (white space, newlines, etc.) these are displayed in an unambiguous form using so called "quoting style". For the detailed discussion of available styles and on how to use them, see *note quoting styles::. Depending on the file type, the name can be followed by some additional information, described in the following table: '-> LINK-NAME' The file or archive member is a "symbolic link" and LINK-NAME is the name of file it links to. 'link to LINK-NAME' The file or archive member is a "hard link" and LINK-NAME is the name of file it links to. '--Long Link--' The archive member is an old GNU format long link. You will normally not encounter this. '--Long Name--' The archive member is an old GNU format long name. You will normally not encounter this. '--Volume Header--' The archive member is a GNU "volume header" (*note Tape Files::). '--Continued at byte N--' Encountered only at the beginning of a multi-volume archive (*note Using Multiple Tapes::). This archive member is a continuation from the previous volume. The number N gives the offset where the original file was split. 'unknown file type C' An archive member of unknown type. C is the type character from the archive header. If you encounter such a message, it means that either your archive contains proprietary member types GNU 'tar' is not able to handle, or the archive is corrupted. For example, here is an archive listing containing most of the special suffixes explained above: V--------- 0/0 1536 2006-06-09 13:07 MyVolume--Volume Header-- -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 456783 2006-06-09 12:06 aspic--Continued at byte 32456-- -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 62373 2006-06-09 12:06 apple lrwxrwxrwx gray/staff 0 2006-06-09 13:01 angst -> apple -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 35793 2006-06-09 12:06 blues hrw-r--r-- gray/staff 0 2006-06-09 12:06 music link to blues  File: tar.info, Node: help tutorial, Prev: verbose tutorial, Up: Two Frequent Options Getting Help: Using the '--help' Option --------------------------------------- '--help' The '--help' option to 'tar' prints out a very brief list of all operations and option available for the current version of 'tar' available on your system.  File: tar.info, Node: create, Next: list, Prev: Two Frequent Options, Up: Tutorial 2.6 How to Create Archives ========================== One of the basic operations of 'tar' is '--create' ('-c'), which you use to create a 'tar' archive. We will explain '--create' first because, in order to learn about the other operations, you will find it useful to have an archive available to practice on. To make this easier, in this section you will first create a directory containing three files. Then, we will show you how to create an _archive_ (inside the new directory). Both the directory, and the archive are specifically for you to practice on. The rest of this chapter and the next chapter will show many examples using this directory and the files you will create: some of those files may be other directories and other archives. The three files you will archive in this example are called 'blues', 'folk', and 'jazz'. The archive is called 'collection.tar'. This section will proceed slowly, detailing how to use '--create' in 'verbose' mode, and showing examples using both short and long forms. In the rest of the tutorial, and in the examples in the next chapter, we will proceed at a slightly quicker pace. This section moves more slowly to allow beginning users to understand how 'tar' works. * Menu: * prepare for examples:: * Creating the archive:: * create verbose:: * short create:: * create dir::  File: tar.info, Node: prepare for examples, Next: Creating the archive, Up: create 2.6.1 Preparing a Practice Directory for Examples ------------------------------------------------- To follow along with this and future examples, create a new directory called 'practice' containing files called 'blues', 'folk' and 'jazz'. The files can contain any information you like: ideally, they should contain information which relates to their names, and be of different lengths. Our examples assume that 'practice' is a subdirectory of your home directory. Now 'cd' to the directory named 'practice'; 'practice' is now your "working directory". (_Please note_: Although the full file name of this directory is '/HOMEDIR/practice', in our examples we will refer to this directory as 'practice'; the HOMEDIR is presumed.) In general, you should check that the files to be archived exist where you think they do (in the working directory) by running 'ls'. Because you just created the directory and the files and have changed to that directory, you probably don't need to do that this time. It is very important to make sure there isn't already a file in the working directory with the archive name you intend to use (in this case, 'collection.tar'), or that you don't care about its contents. Whenever you use 'create', 'tar' will erase the current contents of the file named by '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') if it exists. 'tar' will not tell you if you are about to overwrite an archive unless you specify an option which does this (*note backup::, for the information on how to do so). To add files to an existing archive, you need to use a different option, such as '--append' ('-r'); see *note append:: for information on how to do this.  File: tar.info, Node: Creating the archive, Next: create verbose, Prev: prepare for examples, Up: create 2.6.2 Creating the Archive -------------------------- To place the files 'blues', 'folk', and 'jazz' into an archive named 'collection.tar', use the following command: $ tar --create --file=collection.tar blues folk jazz The order of the arguments is not very important, _when using long option forms_, however you should always remember to use option as the first argument to tar. For example, the following is wrong: $ tar blues -c folk -f collection.tar jazz tar: -c: Invalid blocking factor Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information. The error message is produced because 'tar' always treats its first argument as an option (or cluster of options), even if it does not start with dash. This is "traditional" or "old option" style, called so because all implementations of 'tar' have used it since the very inception of the tar archiver in 1970s. This option style will be explained later (*note Old Options::), for now just remember to always place option as the first argument. That being said, you could issue the following command: $ tar --create folk blues --file=collection.tar jazz However, you can see that this order is harder to understand; this is why we will list the arguments in the order that makes the commands easiest to understand (and we encourage you to do the same when you use 'tar', to avoid errors). Note that the sequence '--file=collection.tar' is considered to be _one_ argument. If you substituted any other string of characters for 'collection.tar', then that string would become the name of the archive file you create. The order of the options becomes more important when you begin to use short forms. With short forms, if you type commands in the wrong order (even if you type them correctly in all other ways), you may end up with results you don't expect. For this reason, it is a good idea to get into the habit of typing options in the order that makes inherent sense. *Note short create::, for more information on this. In this example, you type the command as shown above: '--create' is the operation which creates the new archive ('collection.tar'), and '--file' is the option which lets you give it the name you chose. The files, 'blues', 'folk', and 'jazz', are now members of the archive, 'collection.tar' (they are "file name arguments" to the '--create' operation. *Note Choosing::, for the detailed discussion on these.) Now that they are in the archive, they are called _archive members_, not files. (*note members: Definitions.). When you create an archive, you _must_ specify which files you want placed in the archive. If you do not specify any archive members, GNU 'tar' will complain. If you now list the contents of the working directory ('ls'), you will find the archive file listed as well as the files you saw previously: blues folk jazz collection.tar Creating the archive 'collection.tar' did not destroy the copies of the files in the directory. Keep in mind that if you don't indicate an operation, 'tar' will not run and will prompt you for one. If you don't name any files, 'tar' will complain. You must have write access to the working directory, or else you will not be able to create an archive in that directory. _Caution_: Do not attempt to use '--create' ('-c') to add files to an existing archive; it will delete the archive and write a new one. Use '--append' ('-r') instead. *Note append::.  File: tar.info, Node: create verbose, Next: short create, Prev: Creating the archive, Up: create 2.6.3 Running '--create' with '--verbose' ----------------------------------------- If you include the '--verbose' ('-v') option on the command line, 'tar' will list the files it is acting on as it is working. In verbose mode, the 'create' example above would appear as: $ tar --create --verbose --file=collection.tar blues folk jazz blues folk jazz This example is just like the example we showed which did not use '--verbose', except that 'tar' generated the remaining lines. In the rest of the examples in this chapter, we will frequently use 'verbose' mode so we can show actions or 'tar' responses that you would otherwise not see, and which are important for you to understand.  File: tar.info, Node: short create, Next: create dir, Prev: create verbose, Up: create 2.6.4 Short Forms with 'create' ------------------------------- As we said before, the '--create' ('-c') operation is one of the most basic uses of 'tar', and you will use it countless times. Eventually, you will probably want to use abbreviated (or "short") forms of options. A full discussion of the three different forms that options can take appears in *note Styles::; for now, here is what the previous example (including the '--verbose' ('-v') option) looks like using short option forms: $ tar -cvf collection.tar blues folk jazz blues folk jazz As you can see, the system responds the same no matter whether you use long or short option forms. One difference between using short and long option forms is that, although the exact placement of arguments following options is no more specific when using short forms, it is easier to become confused and make a mistake when using short forms. For example, suppose you attempted the above example in the following way: $ tar -cfv collection.tar blues folk jazz In this case, 'tar' will make an archive file called 'v', containing the files 'blues', 'folk', and 'jazz', because the 'v' is the closest "file name" to the '-f' option, and is thus taken to be the chosen archive file name. 'tar' will try to add a file called 'collection.tar' to the 'v' archive file; if the file 'collection.tar' did not already exist, 'tar' will report an error indicating that this file does not exist. If the file 'collection.tar' does already exist (e.g., from a previous command you may have run), then 'tar' will add this file to the archive. Because the '-v' option did not get registered, 'tar' will not run under 'verbose' mode, and will not report its progress. The end result is that you may be quite confused about what happened, and possibly overwrite a file. To illustrate this further, we will show you how an example we showed previously would look using short forms. This example, $ tar --create folk blues --file=collection.tar jazz is confusing as it is. It becomes even more so when using short forms: $ tar -c folk blues -f collection.tar jazz It would be very easy to put the wrong string of characters immediately following the '-f', but doing that could sacrifice valuable data. For this reason, we recommend that you pay very careful attention to the order of options and placement of file and archive names, especially when using short option forms. Not having the option name written out mnemonically can affect how well you remember which option does what, and therefore where different names have to be placed.  File: tar.info, Node: create dir, Prev: short create, Up: create 2.6.5 Archiving Directories --------------------------- You can archive a directory by specifying its directory name as a file name argument to 'tar'. The files in the directory will be archived relative to the working directory, and the directory will be re-created along with its contents when the archive is extracted. To archive a directory, first move to its superior directory. If you have followed the previous instructions in this tutorial, you should type: $ cd .. $ This will put you into the directory which contains 'practice', i.e., your home directory. Once in the superior directory, you can specify the subdirectory, 'practice', as a file name argument. To store 'practice' in the new archive file 'music.tar', type: $ tar --create --verbose --file=music.tar practice 'tar' should output: practice/ practice/blues practice/folk practice/jazz practice/collection.tar Note that the archive thus created is not in the subdirectory 'practice', but rather in the current working directory--the directory from which 'tar' was invoked. Before trying to archive a directory from its superior directory, you should make sure you have write access to the superior directory itself, not only the directory you are trying archive with 'tar'. For example, you will probably not be able to store your home directory in an archive by invoking 'tar' from the root directory; *Note absolute::. (Note also that 'collection.tar', the original archive file, has itself been archived. 'tar' will accept any file as a file to be archived, regardless of its content. When 'music.tar' is extracted, the archive file 'collection.tar' will be re-written into the file system). If you give 'tar' a command such as $ tar --create --file=foo.tar . 'tar' will report 'tar: ./foo.tar is the archive; not dumped'. This happens because 'tar' creates the archive 'foo.tar' in the current directory before putting any files into it. Then, when 'tar' attempts to add all the files in the directory '.' to the archive, it notices that the file './foo.tar' is the same as the archive 'foo.tar', and skips it. (It makes no sense to put an archive into itself.) GNU 'tar' will continue in this case, and create the archive normally, except for the exclusion of that one file. (_Please note:_ Other implementations of 'tar' may not be so clever; they will enter an infinite loop when this happens, so you should not depend on this behavior unless you are certain you are running GNU 'tar'. In general, it is wise to always place the archive outside of the directory being dumped.)  File: tar.info, Node: list, Next: extract, Prev: create, Up: Tutorial 2.7 How to List Archives ======================== Frequently, you will find yourself wanting to determine exactly what a particular archive contains. You can use the '--list' ('-t') operation to get the member names as they currently appear in the archive, as well as various attributes of the files at the time they were archived. For example, assuming 'practice' is your working directory, you can examine the archive 'collection.tar' that you created in the last section with the command, $ tar --list --file=collection.tar The output of 'tar' would then be: blues folk jazz Be sure to use a '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') option just as with '--create' ('-c') to specify the name of the archive. You can specify one or more individual member names as arguments when using 'list'. In this case, 'tar' will only list the names of members you identify. For example, 'tar --list --file=collection.tar folk' would only print 'folk': $ tar --list --file=collection.tar folk folk If you use the '--verbose' ('-v') option with '--list', then 'tar' will print out a listing reminiscent of 'ls -l', showing owner, file size, and so forth. This output is described in detail in *note verbose member listing::. If you had used '--verbose' ('-v') mode, the example above would look like: $ tar --list --verbose --file=collection.tar folk -rw-r--r-- myself/user 62 1990-05-23 10:55 folk It is important to notice that the output of 'tar --list --verbose' does not necessarily match that produced by 'tar --create --verbose' while creating the archive. It is because GNU 'tar', unless told explicitly not to do so, removes some directory prefixes from file names before storing them in the archive (*Note absolute::, for more information). In other words, in verbose mode GNU 'tar' shows "file names" when creating an archive and "member names" when listing it. Consider this example, run from your home directory: $ tar --create --verbose --file practice.tar ~/practice tar: Removing leading '/' from member names /home/myself/practice/ /home/myself/practice/blues /home/myself/practice/folk /home/myself/practice/jazz /home/myself/practice/collection.tar $ tar --test --file practice.tar home/myself/practice/ home/myself/practice/blues home/myself/practice/folk home/myself/practice/jazz home/myself/practice/collection.tar This default behavior can sometimes be inconvenient. You can force GNU 'tar' show member names when creating archive by supplying '--show-stored-names' option. '--show-stored-names' Print member (as opposed to _file_) names when creating the archive. With this option, both commands produce the same output: $ tar --create --verbose --show-stored-names \ --file practice.tar ~/practice tar: Removing leading '/' from member names home/myself/practice/ home/myself/practice/blues home/myself/practice/folk home/myself/practice/jazz home/myself/practice/collection.tar $ tar --test --file practice.tar home/myself/practice/ home/myself/practice/blues home/myself/practice/folk home/myself/practice/jazz home/myself/practice/collection.tar Since 'tar' preserves file names, those you wish to list must be specified as they appear in the archive (i.e., relative to the directory from which the archive was created). Continuing the example above: $ tar --list --file=practice.tar folk tar: folk: Not found in archive tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors the error message is produced because there is no member named 'folk', only one named 'home/myself/folk'. If you are not sure of the exact file name, use "globbing patterns", for example: $ tar --list --file=practice.tar --wildcards '*/folk' home/myself/practice/folk *Note wildcards::, for a detailed discussion of globbing patterns and related 'tar' command line options. * Menu: * list dir::  File: tar.info, Node: list dir, Up: list Listing the Contents of a Stored Directory ------------------------------------------ To get information about the contents of an archived directory, use the directory name as a file name argument in conjunction with '--list' ('-t'). To find out file attributes, include the '--verbose' ('-v') option. For example, to find out about files in the directory 'practice', in the archive file 'music.tar', type: $ tar --list --verbose --file=music.tar practice 'tar' responds: drwxrwxrwx myself/user 0 1990-05-31 21:49 practice/ -rw-r--r-- myself/user 42 1990-05-21 13:29 practice/blues -rw-r--r-- myself/user 62 1990-05-23 10:55 practice/folk -rw-r--r-- myself/user 40 1990-05-21 13:30 practice/jazz -rw-r--r-- myself/user 10240 1990-05-31 21:49 practice/collection.tar When you use a directory name as a file name argument, 'tar' acts on all the files (including sub-directories) in that directory.  File: tar.info, Node: extract, Next: going further, Prev: list, Up: Tutorial 2.8 How to Extract Members from an Archive ========================================== Creating an archive is only half the job--there is no point in storing files in an archive if you can't retrieve them. The act of retrieving members from an archive so they can be used and manipulated as unarchived files again is called "extraction". To extract files from an archive, use the '--extract' ('--get' or '-x') operation. As with '--create', specify the name of the archive with '--file' ('-f') option. Extracting an archive does not modify the archive in any way; you can extract it multiple times if you want or need to. Using '--extract', you can extract an entire archive, or specific files. The files can be directories containing other files, or not. As with '--create' ('-c') and '--list' ('-t'), you may use the short or the long form of the operation without affecting the performance. * Menu: * extracting archives:: * extracting files:: * extract dir:: * extracting untrusted archives:: * failing commands::  File: tar.info, Node: extracting archives, Next: extracting files, Up: extract 2.8.1 Extracting an Entire Archive ---------------------------------- To extract an entire archive, specify the archive file name only, with no individual file names as arguments. For example, $ tar -xvf collection.tar produces this: -rw-r--r-- myself/user 28 1996-10-18 16:31 jazz -rw-r--r-- myself/user 21 1996-09-23 16:44 blues -rw-r--r-- myself/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 folk  File: tar.info, Node: extracting files, Next: extract dir, Prev: extracting archives, Up: extract 2.8.2 Extracting Specific Files ------------------------------- To extract specific archive members, give their exact member names as arguments, as printed by '--list' ('-t'). If you had mistakenly deleted one of the files you had placed in the archive 'collection.tar' earlier (say, 'blues'), you can extract it from the archive without changing the archive's structure. Its contents will be identical to the original file 'blues' that you deleted. First, make sure you are in the 'practice' directory, and list the files in the directory. Now, delete the file, 'blues', and list the files in the directory again. You can now extract the member 'blues' from the archive file 'collection.tar' like this: $ tar --extract --file=collection.tar blues If you list the files in the directory again, you will see that the file 'blues' has been restored, with its original permissions, data modification times, and owner.(1) (These parameters will be identical to those which the file had when you originally placed it in the archive; any changes you may have made before deleting the file from the file system, however, will _not_ have been made to the archive member.) The archive file, 'collection.tar', is the same as it was before you extracted 'blues'. You can confirm this by running 'tar' with '--list' ('-t'). Remember that as with other operations, specifying the exact member name is important (*Note failing commands::, for more examples). You can extract a file to standard output by combining the above options with the '--to-stdout' ('-O') option (*note Writing to Standard Output::). If you give the '--verbose' option, then '--extract' will print the names of the archive members as it extracts them. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) This is only accidentally true, but not in general. Whereas modification times are always restored, in most cases, one has to be root for restoring the owner, and use a special option for restoring permissions. Here, it just happens that the restoring user is also the owner of the archived members, and that the current 'umask' is compatible with original permissions.  File: tar.info, Node: extract dir, Next: extracting untrusted archives, Prev: extracting files, Up: extract 2.8.3 Extracting Files that are Directories ------------------------------------------- Extracting directories which are members of an archive is similar to extracting other files. The main difference to be aware of is that if the extracted directory has the same name as any directory already in the working directory, then files in the extracted directory will be placed into the directory of the same name. Likewise, if there are files in the pre-existing directory with the same names as the members which you extract, the files from the extracted archive will replace the files already in the working directory (and possible subdirectories). This will happen regardless of whether or not the files in the working directory were more recent than those extracted (there exist, however, special options that alter this behavior *note Writing::). However, if a file was stored with a directory name as part of its file name, and that directory does not exist under the working directory when the file is extracted, 'tar' will create the directory. We can demonstrate how to use '--extract' to extract a directory file with an example. Change to the 'practice' directory if you weren't there, and remove the files 'folk' and 'jazz'. Then, go back to the parent directory and extract the archive 'music.tar'. You may either extract the entire archive, or you may extract only the files you just deleted. To extract the entire archive, don't give any file names as arguments after the archive name 'music.tar'. To extract only the files you deleted, use the following command: $ tar -xvf music.tar practice/folk practice/jazz practice/folk practice/jazz If you were to specify two '--verbose' ('-v') options, 'tar' would have displayed more detail about the extracted files, as shown in the example below: $ tar -xvvf music.tar practice/folk practice/jazz -rw-r--r-- me/user 28 1996-10-18 16:31 practice/jazz -rw-r--r-- me/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 practice/folk Because you created the directory with 'practice' as part of the file names of each of the files by archiving the 'practice' directory as 'practice', you must give 'practice' as part of the file names when you extract those files from the archive.  File: tar.info, Node: extracting untrusted archives, Next: failing commands, Prev: extract dir, Up: extract 2.8.4 Extracting Archives from Untrusted Sources ------------------------------------------------ Extracting files from archives can overwrite files that already exist. If you receive an archive from an untrusted source, you should make a new directory and extract into that directory, so that you don't have to worry about the extraction overwriting one of your existing files. For example, if 'untrusted.tar' came from somewhere else on the Internet, and you don't necessarily trust its contents, you can extract it as follows: $ mkdir newdir $ cd newdir $ tar -xvf ../untrusted.tar It is also a good practice to examine contents of the archive before extracting it, using '--list' ('-t') option, possibly combined with '--verbose' ('-v').  File: tar.info, Node: failing commands, Prev: extracting untrusted archives, Up: extract 2.8.5 Commands That Will Fail ----------------------------- Here are some sample commands you might try which will not work, and why they won't work. If you try to use this command, $ tar -xvf music.tar folk jazz you will get the following response: tar: folk: Not found in archive tar: jazz: Not found in archive This is because these files were not originally _in_ the parent directory '..', where the archive is located; they were in the 'practice' directory, and their file names reflect this: $ tar -tvf music.tar practice/blues practice/folk practice/jazz Likewise, if you try to use this command, $ tar -tvf music.tar folk jazz you would get a similar response. Members with those names are not in the archive. You must use the correct member names, or wildcards, in order to extract the files from the archive. If you have forgotten the correct names of the files in the archive, use 'tar --list --verbose' to list them correctly. To extract the member named 'practice/folk', you must specify $ tar --extract --file=music.tar practice/folk Notice also, that as explained above, the 'practice' directory will be created, if it didn't already exist. There are options that allow you to strip away a certain number of leading directory components (*note transform::). For example, $ tar --extract --file=music.tar --strip-components=1 folk will extract the file 'folk' into the current working directory.  File: tar.info, Node: going further, Prev: extract, Up: Tutorial 2.9 Going Further Ahead in this Manual ====================================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_  File: tar.info, Node: tar invocation, Next: operations, Prev: Tutorial, Up: Top 3 Invoking GNU 'tar' ******************** This chapter is about how one invokes the GNU 'tar' command, from the command synopsis (*note Synopsis::). There are numerous options, and many styles for writing them. One mandatory option specifies the operation 'tar' should perform (*note Operation Summary::), other options are meant to detail how this operation should be performed (*note Option Summary::). Non-option arguments are not always interpreted the same way, depending on what the operation is. You will find in this chapter everything about option styles and rules for writing them (*note Styles::). On the other hand, operations and options are fully described elsewhere, in other chapters. Here, you will find only synthetic descriptions for operations and options, together with pointers to other parts of the 'tar' manual. Some options are so special they are fully described right in this chapter. They have the effect of inhibiting the normal operation of 'tar' or else, they globally alter the amount of feedback the user receives about what is going on. These are the '--help' and '--version' (*note help::), '--verbose' (*note verbose::) and '--interactive' options (*note interactive::). * Menu: * Synopsis:: * using tar options:: * Styles:: * All Options:: All 'tar' Options. * help:: Where to Get Help. * defaults:: What are the Default Values. * verbose:: Checking 'tar' progress. * checkpoints:: Checkpoints. * warnings:: Controlling Warning Messages. * interactive:: Asking for Confirmation During Operations. * external:: Running External Commands.  File: tar.info, Node: Synopsis, Next: using tar options, Up: tar invocation 3.1 General Synopsis of 'tar' ============================= The GNU 'tar' program is invoked as either one of: tar OPTION... [NAME]... tar LETTER... [ARGUMENT]... [OPTION]... [NAME]... The second form is for when old options are being used. You can use 'tar' to store files in an archive, to extract them from an archive, and to do other types of archive manipulation. The primary argument to 'tar', which is called the "operation", specifies which action to take. The other arguments to 'tar' are either "options", which change the way 'tar' performs an operation, or file names or archive members, which specify the files or members 'tar' is to act on. You can actually type in arguments in any order, even if in this manual the options always precede the other arguments, to make examples easier to understand. Further, the option stating the main operation mode (the 'tar' main command) is usually given first. Each NAME in the synopsis above is interpreted as an archive member name when the main command is one of '--compare' ('--diff', '-d'), '--delete', '--extract' ('--get', '-x'), '--list' ('-t') or '--update' ('-u'). When naming archive members, you must give the exact name of the member in the archive, as it is printed by '--list'. For '--append' ('-r') and '--create' ('-c'), these NAME arguments specify the names of either files or directory hierarchies to place in the archive. These files or hierarchies should already exist in the file system, prior to the execution of the 'tar' command. 'tar' interprets relative file names as being relative to the working directory. 'tar' will make all file names relative (by removing leading slashes when archiving or restoring files), unless you specify otherwise (using the '--absolute-names' option). *Note absolute::, for more information about '--absolute-names'. If you give the name of a directory as either a file name or a member name, then 'tar' acts recursively on all the files and directories beneath that directory. For example, the name '/' identifies all the files in the file system to 'tar'. The distinction between file names and archive member names is especially important when shell globbing is used, and sometimes a source of confusion for newcomers. *Note wildcards::, for more information about globbing. The problem is that shells may only glob using existing files in the file system. Only 'tar' itself may glob on archive members, so when needed, you must ensure that wildcard characters reach 'tar' without being interpreted by the shell first. Using a backslash before '*' or '?', or putting the whole argument between quotes, is usually sufficient for this. Even if NAMEs are often specified on the command line, they can also be read from a text file in the file system, using the '--files-from=FILE-OF-NAMES' ('-T FILE-OF-NAMES') option. If you don't use any file name arguments, '--append' ('-r'), '--delete' and '--concatenate' ('--catenate', '-A') will do nothing, while '--create' ('-c') will usually yield a diagnostic and inhibit 'tar' execution. The other operations of 'tar' ('--list', '--extract', '--compare', and '--update') will act on the entire contents of the archive. Besides successful exits, GNU 'tar' may fail for many reasons. Some reasons correspond to bad usage, that is, when the 'tar' command line is improperly written. Errors may be encountered later, while processing the archive or the files. Some errors are recoverable, in which case the failure is delayed until 'tar' has completed all its work. Some errors are such that it would be not meaningful, or at least risky, to continue processing: 'tar' then aborts processing immediately. All abnormal exits, whether immediate or delayed, should always be clearly diagnosed on 'stderr', after a line stating the nature of the error. Possible exit codes of GNU 'tar' are summarized in the following table: 0 'Successful termination'. 1 'Some files differ'. If tar was invoked with '--compare' ('--diff', '-d') command line option, this means that some files in the archive differ from their disk counterparts (*note compare::). If tar was given '--create', '--append' or '--update' option, this exit code means that some files were changed while being archived and so the resulting archive does not contain the exact copy of the file set. 2 'Fatal error'. This means that some fatal, unrecoverable error occurred. If 'tar' has invoked a subprocess and that subprocess exited with a nonzero exit code, 'tar' exits with that code as well. This can happen, for example, if 'tar' was given some compression option (*note gzip::) and the external compressor program failed. Another example is 'rmt' failure during backup to the remote device (*note Remote Tape Server::).  File: tar.info, Node: using tar options, Next: Styles, Prev: Synopsis, Up: tar invocation 3.2 Using 'tar' Options ======================= GNU 'tar' has a total of eight operating modes which allow you to perform a variety of tasks. You are required to choose one operating mode each time you employ the 'tar' program by specifying one, and only one operation as an argument to the 'tar' command (the corresponding options may be found at *note frequent operations:: and *note Operations::). Depending on circumstances, you may also wish to customize how the chosen operating mode behaves. For example, you may wish to change the way the output looks, or the format of the files that you wish to archive may require you to do something special in order to make the archive look right. You can customize and control 'tar''s performance by running 'tar' with one or more options (such as '--verbose' ('-v'), which we used in the tutorial). As we said in the tutorial, "options" are arguments to 'tar' which are (as their name suggests) optional. Depending on the operating mode, you may specify one or more options. Different options will have different effects, but in general they all change details of the operation, such as archive format, archive name, or level of user interaction. Some options make sense with all operating modes, while others are meaningful only with particular modes. You will likely use some options frequently, while you will only use others infrequently, or not at all. (A full list of options is available in *note All Options::.) The 'TAR_OPTIONS' environment variable specifies default options to be placed in front of any explicit options. For example, if 'TAR_OPTIONS' is '-v --unlink-first', 'tar' behaves as if the two options '-v' and '--unlink-first' had been specified before any explicit options. Option specifications are separated by whitespace. A backslash escapes the next character, so it can be used to specify an option containing whitespace or a backslash. Note that 'tar' options are case sensitive. For example, the options '-T' and '-t' are different; the first requires an argument for stating the name of a file providing a list of NAMEs, while the second does not require an argument and is another way to write '--list' ('-t'). In addition to the eight operations, there are many options to 'tar', and three different styles for writing both: long (mnemonic) form, short form, and old style. These styles are discussed below. Both the options and the operations can be written in any of these three styles.  File: tar.info, Node: Styles, Next: All Options, Prev: using tar options, Up: tar invocation 3.3 The Three Option Styles =========================== There are three styles for writing operations and options to the command line invoking 'tar'. The different styles were developed at different times during the history of 'tar'. These styles will be presented below, from the most recent to the oldest. Some options must take an argument(1). Where you _place_ the arguments generally depends on which style of options you choose. We will detail specific information relevant to each option style in the sections on the different option styles, below. The differences are subtle, yet can often be very important; incorrect option placement can cause you to overwrite a number of important files. We urge you to note these differences, and only use the option style(s) which makes the most sense to you until you feel comfortable with the others. Some options _may_ take an argument. Such options may have at most long and short forms, they do not have old style equivalent. The rules for specifying an argument for such options are stricter than those for specifying mandatory arguments. Please, pay special attention to them. * Menu: * Long Options:: Long Option Style * Short Options:: Short Option Style * Old Options:: Old Option Style * Mixing:: Mixing Option Styles ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) For example, '--file' ('-f') takes the name of an archive file as an argument. If you do not supply an archive file name, 'tar' will use a default, but this can be confusing; thus, we recommend that you always supply a specific archive file name.  File: tar.info, Node: Long Options, Next: Short Options, Up: Styles 3.3.1 Long Option Style ----------------------- Each option has at least one "long" (or "mnemonic") name starting with two dashes in a row, e.g., '--list'. The long names are more clear than their corresponding short or old names. It sometimes happens that a single long option has many different names which are synonymous, such as '--compare' and '--diff'. In addition, long option names can be given unique abbreviations. For example, '--cre' can be used in place of '--create' because there is no other long option which begins with 'cre'. (One way to find this out is by trying it and seeing what happens; if a particular abbreviation could represent more than one option, 'tar' will tell you that that abbreviation is ambiguous and you'll know that that abbreviation won't work. You may also choose to run 'tar --help' to see a list of options. Be aware that if you run 'tar' with a unique abbreviation for the long name of an option you didn't want to use, you are stuck; 'tar' will perform the command as ordered.) Long options are meant to be obvious and easy to remember, and their meanings are generally easier to discern than those of their corresponding short options (see below). For example: $ tar --create --verbose --blocking-factor=20 --file=/dev/rmt0 gives a fairly good set of hints about what the command does, even for those not fully acquainted with 'tar'. Long options which require arguments take those arguments immediately following the option name. There are two ways of specifying a mandatory argument. It can be separated from the option name either by an equal sign, or by any amount of white space characters. For example, the '--file' option (which tells the name of the 'tar' archive) is given a file such as 'archive.tar' as argument by using any of the following notations: '--file=archive.tar' or '--file archive.tar'. In contrast, optional arguments must always be introduced using an equal sign. For example, the '--backup' option takes an optional argument specifying backup type. It must be used as '--backup=BACKUP-TYPE'.  File: tar.info, Node: Short Options, Next: Old Options, Prev: Long Options, Up: Styles 3.3.2 Short Option Style ------------------------ Most options also have a "short option" name. Short options start with a single dash, and are followed by a single character, e.g., '-t' (which is equivalent to '--list'). The forms are absolutely identical in function; they are interchangeable. The short option names are faster to type than long option names. Short options which require arguments take their arguments immediately following the option, usually separated by white space. It is also possible to stick the argument right after the short option name, using no intervening space. For example, you might write '-f archive.tar' or '-farchive.tar' instead of using '--file=archive.tar'. Both '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' and '-f ARCHIVE-NAME' denote the option which indicates a specific archive, here named 'archive.tar'. Short options which take optional arguments take their arguments immediately following the option letter, _without any intervening white space characters_. Short options' letters may be clumped together, but you are not required to do this (as compared to old options; see below). When short options are clumped as a set, use one (single) dash for them all, e.g., ''tar' -cvf'. Only the last option in such a set is allowed to have an argument(1). When the options are separated, the argument for each option which requires an argument directly follows that option, as is usual for Unix programs. For example: $ tar -c -v -b 20 -f /dev/rmt0 If you reorder short options' locations, be sure to move any arguments that belong to them. If you do not move the arguments properly, you may end up overwriting files. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Clustering many options, the last of which has an argument, is a rather opaque way to write options. Some wonder if GNU 'getopt' should not even be made helpful enough for considering such usages as invalid.  File: tar.info, Node: Old Options, Next: Mixing, Prev: Short Options, Up: Styles 3.3.3 Old Option Style ---------------------- As far as we know, all 'tar' programs, GNU and non-GNU, support "old options": that is, if the first argument does not start with '-', it is assumed to specify option letters. GNU 'tar' supports old options not only for historical reasons, but also because many people are used to them. If the first argument does not start with a dash, you are announcing the old option style instead of the short option style; old options are decoded differently. Like short options, old options are single letters. However, old options must be written together as a single clumped set, without spaces separating them or dashes preceding them. This set of letters must be the first to appear on the command line, after the 'tar' program name and some white space; old options cannot appear anywhere else. The letter of an old option is exactly the same letter as the corresponding short option. For example, the old option 't' is the same as the short option '-t', and consequently, the same as the long option '--list'. So for example, the command 'tar cv' specifies the option '-v' in addition to the operation '-c'. When options that need arguments are given together with the command, all the associated arguments follow, in the same order as the options. Thus, the example given previously could also be written in the old style as follows: $ tar cvbf 20 /dev/rmt0 Here, '20' is the argument of '-b' and '/dev/rmt0' is the argument of '-f'. The old style syntax can make it difficult to match option letters with their corresponding arguments, and is often confusing. In the command 'tar cvbf 20 /dev/rmt0', for example, '20' is the argument for '-b', '/dev/rmt0' is the argument for '-f', and '-v' does not have a corresponding argument. Even using short options like in 'tar -c -v -b 20 -f /dev/rmt0' is clearer, putting all arguments next to the option they pertain to. If you want to reorder the letters in the old option argument, be sure to reorder any corresponding argument appropriately. This old way of writing 'tar' options can surprise even experienced users. For example, the two commands: tar cfz archive.tar.gz file tar -cfz archive.tar.gz file are quite different. The first example uses 'archive.tar.gz' as the value for option 'f' and recognizes the option 'z'. The second example, however, uses 'z' as the value for option 'f' -- probably not what was intended. This second example could be corrected in many ways, among which the following are equivalent: tar -czf archive.tar.gz file tar -cf archive.tar.gz -z file tar cf archive.tar.gz -z file  File: tar.info, Node: Mixing, Prev: Old Options, Up: Styles 3.3.4 Mixing Option Styles -------------------------- All three styles may be intermixed in a single 'tar' command, so long as the rules for each style are fully respected(1). Old style options and either of the modern styles of options may be mixed within a single 'tar' command. However, old style options must be introduced as the first arguments only, following the rule for old options (old options must appear directly after the 'tar' command and some white space). Modern options may be given only after all arguments to the old options have been collected. If this rule is not respected, a modern option might be falsely interpreted as the value of the argument to one of the old style options. For example, all the following commands are wholly equivalent, and illustrate the many combinations and orderings of option styles. tar --create --file=archive.tar tar --create -f archive.tar tar --create -farchive.tar tar --file=archive.tar --create tar --file=archive.tar -c tar -c --file=archive.tar tar -c -f archive.tar tar -c -farchive.tar tar -cf archive.tar tar -cfarchive.tar tar -f archive.tar --create tar -f archive.tar -c tar -farchive.tar --create tar -farchive.tar -c tar c --file=archive.tar tar c -f archive.tar tar c -farchive.tar tar cf archive.tar tar f archive.tar --create tar f archive.tar -c tar fc archive.tar On the other hand, the following commands are _not_ equivalent to the previous set: tar -f -c archive.tar tar -fc archive.tar tar -fcarchive.tar tar -farchive.tarc tar cfarchive.tar These last examples mean something completely different from what the user intended (judging based on the example in the previous set which uses long options, whose intent is therefore very clear). The first four specify that the 'tar' archive would be a file named '-c', 'c', 'carchive.tar' or 'archive.tarc', respectively. The first two examples also specify a single non-option, NAME argument having the value 'archive.tar'. The last example contains only old style option letters (repeating option 'c' twice), not all of which are meaningful (eg., '.', 'h', or 'i'), with no argument value. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Before GNU 'tar' version 1.11.6, a bug prevented intermixing old style options with long options in some cases.  File: tar.info, Node: All Options, Next: help, Prev: Styles, Up: tar invocation 3.4 All 'tar' Options ===================== The coming manual sections contain an alphabetical listing of all 'tar' operations and options, with brief descriptions and cross-references to more in-depth explanations in the body of the manual. They also contain an alphabetically arranged table of the short option forms with their corresponding long option. You can use this table as a reference for deciphering 'tar' commands in scripts. * Menu: * Operation Summary:: * Option Summary:: * Short Option Summary:: * Position-Sensitive Options::  File: tar.info, Node: Operation Summary, Next: Option Summary, Up: All Options 3.4.1 Operations ---------------- '--append' '-r' Appends files to the end of the archive. *Note append::. '--catenate' '-A' Same as '--concatenate'. *Note concatenate::. '--compare' '-d' Compares archive members with their counterparts in the file system, and reports differences in file size, mode, owner, modification date and contents. *Note compare::. '--concatenate' '-A' Appends other 'tar' archives to the end of the archive. *Note concatenate::. '--create' '-c' Creates a new 'tar' archive. *Note create::. '--delete' Deletes members from the archive. Don't try this on an archive on a tape! *Note delete::. '--diff' '-d' Same '--compare'. *Note compare::. '--extract' '-x' Extracts members from the archive into the file system. *Note extract::. '--get' '-x' Same as '--extract'. *Note extract::. '--list' '-t' Lists the members in an archive. *Note list::. '--update' '-u' Adds files to the end of the archive, but only if they are newer than their counterparts already in the archive, or if they do not already exist in the archive. *Note update::.  File: tar.info, Node: Option Summary, Next: Short Option Summary, Prev: Operation Summary, Up: All Options 3.4.2 'tar' Options ------------------- '--absolute-names' '-P' Normally when creating an archive, 'tar' strips an initial '/' from member names, and when extracting from an archive 'tar' treats names specially if they have initial '/' or internal '..'. This option disables that behavior. *Note absolute::. '--acls' Enable POSIX ACLs support. *Note acls: Extended File Attributes. '--after-date' (See '--newer', *note after::) '--anchored' A pattern must match an initial subsequence of the name's components. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--atime-preserve' '--atime-preserve=replace' '--atime-preserve=system' Attempt to preserve the access time of files when reading them. This option currently is effective only on files that you own, unless you have superuser privileges. '--atime-preserve=replace' remembers the access time of a file before reading it, and then restores the access time afterwards. This may cause problems if other programs are reading the file at the same time, as the times of their accesses will be lost. On most platforms restoring the access time also requires 'tar' to restore the data modification time too, so this option may also cause problems if other programs are writing the file at the same time ('tar' attempts to detect this situation, but cannot do so reliably due to race conditions). Worse, on most platforms restoring the access time also updates the status change time, which means that this option is incompatible with incremental backups. '--atime-preserve=system' avoids changing time stamps on files, without interfering with time stamp updates caused by other programs, so it works better with incremental backups. However, it requires a special 'O_NOATIME' option from the underlying operating and file system implementation, and it also requires that searching directories does not update their access times. As of this writing (November 2005) this works only with Linux, and only with Linux kernels 2.6.8 and later. Worse, there is currently no reliable way to know whether this feature actually works. Sometimes 'tar' knows that it does not work, and if you use '--atime-preserve=system' then 'tar' complains and exits right away. But other times 'tar' might think that the option works when it actually does not. Currently '--atime-preserve' with no operand defaults to '--atime-preserve=replace', but this may change in the future as support for '--atime-preserve=system' improves. If your operating or file system does not support '--atime-preserve=system', you might be able to preserve access times reliably by using the 'mount' command. For example, you can mount the file system read-only, or access the file system via a read-only loopback mount, or use the 'noatime' mount option available on some systems. However, mounting typically requires superuser privileges and can be a pain to manage. '--auto-compress' '-a' During a '--create' operation, enables automatic compressed format recognition based on the archive suffix. The effect of this option is cancelled by '--no-auto-compress'. *Note gzip::. '--backup=BACKUP-TYPE' Rather than deleting files from the file system, 'tar' will back them up using simple or numbered backups, depending upon BACKUP-TYPE. *Note backup::. '--block-number' '-R' With this option present, 'tar' prints error messages for read errors with the block number in the archive file. *Note block-number::. '--blocking-factor=BLOCKING' '-b BLOCKING' Sets the blocking factor 'tar' uses to BLOCKING x 512 bytes per record. *Note Blocking Factor::. '--bzip2' '-j' This option tells 'tar' to read or write archives through 'bzip2'. *Note gzip::. '--check-device' Check device numbers when creating a list of modified files for incremental archiving. This is the default. *Note device numbers::, for a detailed description. '--checkpoint[=NUMBER]' This option directs 'tar' to print periodic checkpoint messages as it reads through the archive. It is intended for when you want a visual indication that 'tar' is still running, but don't want to see '--verbose' output. You can also instruct 'tar' to execute a list of actions on each checkpoint, see '--checkpoint-action' below. For a detailed description, see *note checkpoints::. '--checkpoint-action=ACTION' Instruct 'tar' to execute an action upon hitting a breakpoint. Here we give only a brief outline. *Note checkpoints::, for a complete description. The ACTION argument can be one of the following: bell Produce an audible bell on the console. dot . Print a single dot on the standard listing stream. echo Display a textual message on the standard error, with the status and number of the checkpoint. This is the default. echo=STRING Display STRING on the standard error. Before output, the string is subject to meta-character expansion. exec=COMMAND Execute the given COMMAND. sleep=TIME Wait for TIME seconds. ttyout=STRING Output STRING on the current console ('/dev/tty'). Several '--checkpoint-action' options can be specified. The supplied actions will be executed in order of their appearance in the command line. Using '--checkpoint-action' without '--checkpoint' assumes default checkpoint frequency of one checkpoint per 10 records. '--check-links' '-l' If this option was given, 'tar' will check the number of links dumped for each processed file. If this number does not match the total number of hard links for the file, a warning message will be output (1). *Note hard links::. '--compress' '--uncompress' '-Z' 'tar' will use the 'compress' program when reading or writing the archive. This allows you to directly act on archives while saving space. *Note gzip::. '--clamp-mtime' (See '--mtime'.) '--confirmation' (See '--interactive'.) *Note interactive::. '--delay-directory-restore' Delay setting modification times and permissions of extracted directories until the end of extraction. *Note Directory Modification Times and Permissions::. '--dereference' '-h' When reading or writing a file to be archived, 'tar' accesses the file that a symbolic link points to, rather than the symlink itself. *Note dereference::. '--directory=DIR' '-C DIR' When this option is specified, 'tar' will change its current directory to DIR before performing any operations. When this option is used during archive creation, it is order sensitive. *Note directory::. '--exclude=PATTERN' When performing operations, 'tar' will skip files that match PATTERN. *Note exclude::. '--exclude-backups' Exclude backup and lock files. *Note exclude-backups: exclude. '--exclude-from=FILE' '-X FILE' Similar to '--exclude', except 'tar' will use the list of patterns in the file FILE. *Note exclude::. '--exclude-caches' Exclude from dump any directory containing a valid cache directory tag file, but still dump the directory node and the tag file itself. *Note exclude-caches: exclude. '--exclude-caches-under' Exclude from dump any directory containing a valid cache directory tag file, but still dump the directory node itself. *Note exclude::. '--exclude-caches-all' Exclude from dump any directory containing a valid cache directory tag file. *Note exclude::. '--exclude-ignore=FILE' Before dumping a directory, 'tar' checks if it contains FILE. If so, exclusion patterns are read from this file. The patterns affect only the directory itself. *Note exclude::. '--exclude-ignore-recursive=FILE' Before dumping a directory, 'tar' checks if it contains FILE. If so, exclusion patterns are read from this file. The patterns affect the directory and all itssubdirectories. *Note exclude::. '--exclude-tag=FILE' Exclude from dump any directory containing file named FILE, but dump the directory node and FILE itself. *Note exclude-tag: exclude. '--exclude-tag-under=FILE' Exclude from dump the contents of any directory containing file named FILE, but dump the directory node itself. *Note exclude-tag-under: exclude. '--exclude-tag-all=FILE' Exclude from dump any directory containing file named FILE. *Note exclude-tag-all: exclude. '--exclude-vcs' Exclude from dump directories and files, that are internal for some widely used version control systems. *Note exclude-vcs::. '--exclude-vcs-ignores' Exclude files that match patterns read from VCS-specific ignore files. Supported files are: '.cvsignore', '.gitignore', '.bzrignore', and '.hgignore'. The semantics of each file is the same as for the corresponding VCS, e.g. patterns read from '.gitignore' affect the directory and all its subdirectories. *Note exclude-vcs-ignores::. '--file=ARCHIVE' '-f ARCHIVE' 'tar' will use the file ARCHIVE as the 'tar' archive it performs operations on, rather than 'tar''s compilation dependent default. *Note file tutorial::. '--files-from=FILE' '-T FILE' 'tar' will use the contents of FILE as a list of archive members or files to operate on, in addition to those specified on the command-line. *Note files::. '--force-local' Forces 'tar' to interpret the file name given to '--file' as a local file, even if it looks like a remote tape drive name. *Note local and remote archives::. '--format=FORMAT' '-H FORMAT' Selects output archive format. FORMAT may be one of the following: 'v7' Creates an archive that is compatible with Unix V7 'tar'. 'oldgnu' Creates an archive that is compatible with GNU 'tar' version 1.12 or earlier. 'gnu' Creates archive in GNU tar 1.13 format. Basically it is the same as 'oldgnu' with the only difference in the way it handles long numeric fields. 'ustar' Creates a POSIX.1-1988 compatible archive. 'posix' Creates a POSIX.1-2001 archive. *Note Formats::, for a detailed discussion of these formats. '--full-time' This option instructs 'tar' to print file times to their full resolution. Usually this means 1-second resolution, but that depends on the underlying file system. The '--full-time' option takes effect only when detailed output (verbosity level 2 or higher) has been requested using the '--verbose' option, e.g., when listing or extracting archives: $ tar -t -v --full-time -f archive.tar or, when creating an archive: $ tar -c -vv --full-time -f archive.tar . Notice, thar when creating the archive you need to specify '--verbose' twice to get a detailed output (*note verbose tutorial::). '--group=GROUP' Files added to the 'tar' archive will have a group ID of GROUP, rather than the group from the source file. GROUP can specify a symbolic name, or a numeric ID, or both as NAME:ID. *Note override::. Also see the '--group-map' option and comments for the '--owner=USER' option. '--group-map=FILE' Read owner group translation map from FILE. This option allows to translate only certain group names and/or UIDs. *Note override::, for a detailed description. When used together with '--group' option, the latter affects only those files whose owner group is not listed in the FILE. This option does not affect extraction from archives. '--gzip' '--gunzip' '--ungzip' '-z' This option tells 'tar' to read or write archives through 'gzip', allowing 'tar' to directly operate on several kinds of compressed archives transparently. *Note gzip::. '--hard-dereference' When creating an archive, dereference hard links and store the files they refer to, instead of creating usual hard link members. *Note hard links::. '--help' '-?' 'tar' will print out a short message summarizing the operations and options to 'tar' and exit. *Note help::. '--hole-detection=METHOD' Use METHOD to detect holes in sparse files. This option implies '--sparse'. Valid methods are 'seek' and 'raw'. Default is 'seek' with fallback to 'raw' when not applicable. *Note sparse::. '--ignore-case' Ignore case when matching member or file names with patterns. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--ignore-command-error' Ignore exit codes of subprocesses. *Note Writing to an External Program::. '--ignore-failed-read' Do not exit unsuccessfully merely because an unreadable file was encountered. *Note Ignore Failed Read::. '--ignore-zeros' '-i' With this option, 'tar' will ignore zeroed blocks in the archive, which normally signals EOF. *Note Reading::. '--incremental' '-G' Informs 'tar' that it is working with an old GNU-format incremental backup archive. It is intended primarily for backwards compatibility only. *Note Incremental Dumps::, for a detailed discussion of incremental archives. '--index-file=FILE' Send verbose output to FILE instead of to standard output. '--info-script=COMMAND' '--new-volume-script=COMMAND' '-F COMMAND' When 'tar' is performing multi-tape backups, COMMAND is run at the end of each tape. If it exits with nonzero status, 'tar' fails immediately. *Note info-script::, for a detailed discussion of this feature. '--interactive' '--confirmation' '-w' Specifies that 'tar' should ask the user for confirmation before performing potentially destructive options, such as overwriting files. *Note interactive::. '--keep-directory-symlink' This option changes the behavior of tar when it encounters a symlink with the same name as the directory that it is about to extract. By default, in this case tar would first remove the symlink and then proceed extracting the directory. The '--keep-directory-symlink' option disables this behavior and instructs tar to follow symlinks to directories when extracting from the archive. It is mainly intended to provide compatibility with the Slackware installation scripts. '--keep-newer-files' Do not replace existing files that are newer than their archive copies when extracting files from an archive. '--keep-old-files' '-k' Do not overwrite existing files when extracting files from an archive. Return error if such files exist. See also *note --skip-old-files::. *Note Keep Old Files::. '--label=NAME' '-V NAME' When creating an archive, instructs 'tar' to write NAME as a name record in the archive. When extracting or listing archives, 'tar' will only operate on archives that have a label matching the pattern specified in NAME. *Note Tape Files::. '--level=N' Force incremental backup of level N. As of GNU 'tar' version 1.29, the option '--level=0' truncates the snapshot file, thereby forcing the level 0 dump. Other values of N are effectively ignored. *Note --level=0::, for details and examples. The use of this option is valid only in conjunction with the '--listed-incremental' option. *Note Incremental Dumps::, for a detailed description. '--listed-incremental=SNAPSHOT-FILE' '-g SNAPSHOT-FILE' During a '--create' operation, specifies that the archive that 'tar' creates is a new GNU-format incremental backup, using SNAPSHOT-FILE to determine which files to backup. With other operations, informs 'tar' that the archive is in incremental format. *Note Incremental Dumps::. '--lzip' This option tells 'tar' to read or write archives through 'lzip'. *Note gzip::. '--lzma' This option tells 'tar' to read or write archives through 'lzma'. *Note gzip::. '--lzop' This option tells 'tar' to read or write archives through 'lzop'. *Note gzip::. '--mode=PERMISSIONS' When adding files to an archive, 'tar' will use PERMISSIONS for the archive members, rather than the permissions from the files. PERMISSIONS can be specified either as an octal number or as symbolic permissions, like with 'chmod'. *Note override::. '--mtime=DATE' When adding files to an archive, 'tar' will use DATE as the modification time of members when creating archives, instead of their actual modification times. The value of DATE can be either a textual date representation (*note Date input formats::) or a name of the existing file, starting with '/' or '.'. In the latter case, the modification time of that file is used. *Note override::. When '--clamp-mtime' is also specified, files with modification times earlier than DATE will retain their actual modification times, and DATE will only be used for files whose modification times are later than DATE. '--multi-volume' '-M' Informs 'tar' that it should create or otherwise operate on a multi-volume 'tar' archive. *Note Using Multiple Tapes::. '--new-volume-script' (see '--info-script') '--newer=DATE' '--after-date=DATE' '-N' When creating an archive, 'tar' will only add files that have changed since DATE. If DATE begins with '/' or '.', it is taken to be the name of a file whose data modification time specifies the date. *Note after::. '--newer-mtime=DATE' Like '--newer', but add only files whose contents have changed (as opposed to just '--newer', which will also back up files for which any status information has changed). *Note after::. '--no-acls' Disable the POSIX ACLs support. *Note acls: Extended File Attributes. '--no-anchored' An exclude pattern can match any subsequence of the name's components. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--no-auto-compress' Disables automatic compressed format recognition based on the archive suffix. *Note --auto-compress::. *Note gzip::. '--no-check-device' Do not check device numbers when creating a list of modified files for incremental archiving. *Note device numbers::, for a detailed description. '--no-delay-directory-restore' Modification times and permissions of extracted directories are set when all files from this directory have been extracted. This is the default. *Note Directory Modification Times and Permissions::. '--no-ignore-case' Use case-sensitive matching. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--no-ignore-command-error' Print warnings about subprocesses that terminated with a nonzero exit code. *Note Writing to an External Program::. '--no-null' If the '--null' option was given previously, this option cancels its effect, so that any following '--files-from' options will expect their file lists to be newline-terminated. '--no-overwrite-dir' Preserve metadata of existing directories when extracting files from an archive. *Note Overwrite Old Files::. '--no-quote-chars=STRING' Remove characters listed in STRING from the list of quoted characters set by the previous '--quote-chars' option (*note quoting styles::). '--no-recursion' With this option, 'tar' will not recurse into directories. *Note recurse::. '--no-same-owner' '-o' When extracting an archive, do not attempt to preserve the owner specified in the 'tar' archive. This the default behavior for ordinary users. '--no-same-permissions' When extracting an archive, subtract the user's umask from files from the permissions specified in the archive. This is the default behavior for ordinary users. '--no-seek' The archive media does not support seeks to arbitrary locations. Usually 'tar' determines automatically whether the archive can be seeked or not. Use this option to disable this mechanism. '--no-selinux' Disable SELinux context support. *Note SELinux: Extended File Attributes. '--no-unquote' Treat all input file or member names literally, do not interpret escape sequences. *Note input name quoting::. '--no-verbatim-files-from' Instructs GNU 'tar' to treat each line read from a file list as if it were supplied in the command line. I.e., leading and trailing whitespace is removed and, if the result begins with a dash, it is treated as a GNU 'tar' command line option. This is default behavior. This option is provided as a way to restore it after '--verbatim-files-from' option. It is implied by the '--no-null' option. *Note no-verbatim-files-from::. '--no-wildcards' Do not use wildcards. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--no-wildcards-match-slash' Wildcards do not match '/'. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--no-xattrs' Disable extended attributes support. *Note xattrs: Extended File Attributes. '--null' When 'tar' is using the '--files-from' option, this option instructs 'tar' to expect file names terminated with NUL, and to process file names verbatim. This means that 'tar' correctly works with file names that contain newlines or begin with a dash. *Note nul::. See also *note verbatim-files-from::. '--numeric-owner' This option will notify 'tar' that it should use numeric user and group IDs when creating a 'tar' file, rather than names. *Note Attributes::. '-o' The function of this option depends on the action 'tar' is performing. When extracting files, '-o' is a synonym for '--no-same-owner', i.e., it prevents 'tar' from restoring ownership of files being extracted. When creating an archive, it is a synonym for '--old-archive'. This behavior is for compatibility with previous versions of GNU 'tar', and will be removed in future releases. *Note Changes::, for more information. '--occurrence[=NUMBER]' This option can be used in conjunction with one of the subcommands '--delete', '--diff', '--extract' or '--list' when a list of files is given either on the command line or via '-T' option. This option instructs 'tar' to process only the NUMBERth occurrence of each named file. NUMBER defaults to 1, so tar -x -f archive.tar --occurrence filename will extract the first occurrence of the member 'filename' from 'archive.tar' and will terminate without scanning to the end of the archive. '--old-archive' Synonym for '--format=v7'. '--one-file-system' Used when creating an archive. Prevents 'tar' from recursing into directories that are on different file systems from the current directory. '--one-top-level[=DIR]' Tells 'tar' to create a new directory beneath the extraction directory (or the one passed to '-C') and use it to guard against tarbombs. In the absence of DIR argument, the name of the new directory will be equal to the base name of the archive (file name minus the archive suffix, if recognized). Any member names that do not begin with that directory name (after transformations from '--transform' and '--strip-components') will be prefixed with it. Recognized file name suffixes are '.tar', and any compression suffixes recognizable by *Note --auto-compress::. '--overwrite' Overwrite existing files and directory metadata when extracting files from an archive. *Note Overwrite Old Files::. '--overwrite-dir' Overwrite the metadata of existing directories when extracting files from an archive. *Note Overwrite Old Files::. '--owner=USER' Specifies that 'tar' should use USER as the owner of members when creating archives, instead of the user associated with the source file. USER can specify a symbolic name, or a numeric ID, or both as NAME:ID. *Note override::. This option does not affect extraction from archives. See also '--owner-map', below. '--owner-map=FILE' Read owner translation map from FILE. This option allows to translate only certain owner names or UIDs. *Note override::, for a detailed description. When used together with '--owner' option, the latter affects only those files whose owner is not listed in the FILE. This option does not affect extraction from archives. '--pax-option=KEYWORD-LIST' This option enables creation of the archive in POSIX.1-2001 format (*note posix::) and modifies the way 'tar' handles the extended header keywords. KEYWORD-LIST is a comma-separated list of keyword options. *Note PAX keywords::, for a detailed discussion. '--portability' '--old-archive' Synonym for '--format=v7'. '--posix' Same as '--format=posix'. '--preserve-order' (See '--same-order'; *note Reading::.) '--preserve-permissions' '--same-permissions' '-p' When 'tar' is extracting an archive, it normally subtracts the users' umask from the permissions specified in the archive and uses that number as the permissions to create the destination file. Specifying this option instructs 'tar' that it should use the permissions directly from the archive. *Note Setting Access Permissions::. '--quote-chars=STRING' Always quote characters from STRING, even if the selected quoting style would not quote them (*note quoting styles::). '--quoting-style=STYLE' Set quoting style to use when printing member and file names (*note quoting styles::). Valid STYLE values are: 'literal', 'shell', 'shell-always', 'c', 'escape', 'locale', and 'clocale'. Default quoting style is 'escape', unless overridden while configuring the package. '--read-full-records' '-B' Specifies that 'tar' should reblock its input, for reading from pipes on systems with buggy implementations. *Note Reading::. '--record-size=SIZE[SUF]' Instructs 'tar' to use SIZE bytes per record when accessing the archive. The argument can be suffixed with a "size suffix", e.g. '--record-size=10K' for 10 Kilobytes. *Note Table 9.1: size-suffixes, for a list of valid suffixes. *Note Blocking Factor::, for a detailed description of this option. '--recursion' With this option, 'tar' recurses into directories (default). *Note recurse::. '--recursive-unlink' Remove existing directory hierarchies before extracting directories of the same name from the archive. *Note Recursive Unlink::. '--remove-files' Directs 'tar' to remove the source file from the file system after appending it to an archive. *Note remove files::. '--restrict' Disable use of some potentially harmful 'tar' options. Currently this option disables shell invocation from multi-volume menu (*note Using Multiple Tapes::). '--rmt-command=CMD' Notifies 'tar' that it should use CMD instead of the default '/usr/libexec/rmt' (*note Remote Tape Server::). '--rsh-command=CMD' Notifies 'tar' that is should use CMD to communicate with remote devices. *Note Device::. '--same-order' '--preserve-order' '-s' This option is an optimization for 'tar' when running on machines with small amounts of memory. It informs 'tar' that the list of file arguments has already been sorted to match the order of files in the archive. *Note Reading::. '--same-owner' When extracting an archive, 'tar' will attempt to preserve the owner specified in the 'tar' archive with this option present. This is the default behavior for the superuser; this option has an effect only for ordinary users. *Note Attributes::. '--same-permissions' (See '--preserve-permissions'; *note Setting Access Permissions::.) '--seek' '-n' Assume that the archive media supports seeks to arbitrary locations. Usually 'tar' determines automatically whether the archive can be seeked or not. This option is intended for use in cases when such recognition fails. It takes effect only if the archive is open for reading (e.g. with '--list' or '--extract' options). '--selinux' Enable the SELinux context support. *Note selinux: Extended File Attributes. '--show-defaults' Displays the default options used by 'tar' and exits successfully. This option is intended for use in shell scripts. Here is an example of what you can see using this option: $ tar --show-defaults --format=gnu -f- -b20 --quoting-style=escape --rmt-command=/usr/libexec/rmt --rsh-command=/usr/bin/rsh Notice, that this option outputs only one line. The example output above has been split to fit page boundaries. *Note defaults::. '--show-omitted-dirs' Instructs 'tar' to mention the directories it is skipping when operating on a 'tar' archive. *Note show-omitted-dirs::. '--show-snapshot-field-ranges' Displays the range of values allowed by this version of 'tar' for each field in the snapshot file, then exits successfully. *Note Snapshot Files::. '--show-transformed-names' '--show-stored-names' Display file or member names after applying any transformations (*note transform::). In particular, when used in conjunction with one of the archive creation operations it instructs 'tar' to list the member names stored in the archive, as opposed to the actual file names. *Note listing member and file names::. '--skip-old-files' Do not overwrite existing files when extracting files from an archive. *Note Keep Old Files::. This option differs from '--keep-old-files' in that it does not treat such files as an error, instead it just silently avoids overwriting them. The '--warning=existing-file' option can be used together with this option to produce warning messages about existing old files (*note warnings::). '--sort=ORDER' Specify the directory sorting order when reading directories. ORDER may be one of the following: 'none' No directory sorting is performed. This is the default. 'name' Sort the directory entries on name. The operating system may deliver directory entries in a more or less random order, and sorting them makes archive creation reproducible. 'inode' Sort the directory entries on inode number. Sorting directories on inode number may reduce the amount of disk seek operations when creating an archive for some file systems. '--sparse' '-S' Invokes a GNU extension when adding files to an archive that handles sparse files efficiently. *Note sparse::. '--sparse-version=VERSION' Specifies the "format version" to use when archiving sparse files. Implies '--sparse'. *Note sparse::. For the description of the supported sparse formats, *Note Sparse Formats::. '--starting-file=NAME' '-K NAME' This option affects extraction only; 'tar' will skip extracting files in the archive until it finds one that matches NAME. *Note Scarce::. '--strip-components=NUMBER' Strip given NUMBER of leading components from file names before extraction. For example, if archive 'archive.tar' contained '/some/file/name', then running tar --extract --file archive.tar --strip-components=2 would extract this file to file 'name'. *Note transform::. '--suffix=SUFFIX' Alters the suffix 'tar' uses when backing up files from the default '~'. *Note backup::. '--tape-length=NUM[SUF]' '-L NUM[SUF]' Specifies the length of tapes that 'tar' is writing as being NUM x 1024 bytes long. If optional SUF is given, it specifies a multiplicative factor to be used instead of 1024. For example, '-L2M' means 2 megabytes. *Note Table 9.1: size-suffixes, for a list of allowed suffixes. *Note Using Multiple Tapes::, for a detailed discussion of this option. '--test-label' Reads the volume label. If an argument is specified, test whether it matches the volume label. *Note --test-label option::. '--to-command=COMMAND' During extraction 'tar' will pipe extracted files to the standard input of COMMAND. *Note Writing to an External Program::. '--to-stdout' '-O' During extraction, 'tar' will extract files to stdout rather than to the file system. *Note Writing to Standard Output::. '--totals[=SIGNO]' Displays the total number of bytes transferred when processing an archive. If an argument is given, these data are displayed on request, when signal SIGNO is delivered to 'tar'. *Note totals::. '--touch' '-m' Sets the data modification time of extracted files to the extraction time, rather than the data modification time stored in the archive. *Note Data Modification Times::. '--transform=SED-EXPR' '--xform=SED-EXPR' Transform file or member names using 'sed' replacement expression SED-EXPR. For example, $ tar cf archive.tar --transform 's,^\./,usr/,' . will add to 'archive' files from the current working directory, replacing initial './' prefix with 'usr/'. For the detailed discussion, *Note transform::. To see transformed member names in verbose listings, use '--show-transformed-names' option (*note show-transformed-names::). '--uncompress' (See '--compress', *note gzip::) '--ungzip' (See '--gzip', *note gzip::) '--unlink-first' '-U' Directs 'tar' to remove the corresponding file from the file system before extracting it from the archive. *Note Unlink First::. '--unquote' Enable unquoting input file or member names (default). *Note input name quoting::. '--use-compress-program=PROG' '-I=PROG' Instructs 'tar' to access the archive through PROG, which is presumed to be a compression program of some sort. *Note gzip::. '--utc' Display file modification dates in UTC. This option implies '--verbose'. '--verbatim-files-from' Instructs GNU 'tar' to treat each line read from a file list as a file name, even if it starts with a dash. File lists are supplied with the '--files-from' ('-T') option. By default, each line read from a file list is first trimmed off the leading and trailing whitespace and, if the result begins with a dash, it is treated as a GNU 'tar' command line option. Use the '--verbatim-files-from' option to disable this special handling. This facilitates the use of 'tar' with file lists created by 'file' command. This option affects all '--files-from' options that occur after it in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the '--no-verbatim-files-from' option. This option is implied by the '--null' option. *Note verbatim-files-from::. '--verbose' '-v' Specifies that 'tar' should be more verbose about the operations it is performing. This option can be specified multiple times for some operations to increase the amount of information displayed. *Note verbose::. '--verify' '-W' Verifies that the archive was correctly written when creating an archive. *Note verify::. '--version' Print information about the program's name, version, origin and legal status, all on standard output, and then exit successfully. *Note help::. '--volno-file=FILE' Used in conjunction with '--multi-volume'. 'tar' will keep track of which volume of a multi-volume archive it is working in FILE. *Note volno-file::. '--warning=KEYWORD' Enable or disable warning messages identified by KEYWORD. The messages are suppressed if KEYWORD is prefixed with 'no-'. *Note warnings::. '--wildcards' Use wildcards when matching member names with patterns. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--wildcards-match-slash' Wildcards match '/'. *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--xattrs' Enable extended attributes support. *Note xattrs: Extended File Attributes. '--xattrs-exclude=PATTERN' Specify exclude pattern for xattr keys. *Note xattrs-exclude: Extended File Attributes. '--xattrs-include=PATTERN.' Specify include pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a POSIX regular expression, e.g. '--xattrs-exclude='^user\.'' to include only attributes from the user namespace. *Note xattrs-include: Extended File Attributes. '--xz' '-J' Use 'xz' for compressing or decompressing the archives. *Note gzip::. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Earlier versions of GNU 'tar' understood '-l' as a synonym for '--one-file-system'. The current semantics, which complies to UNIX98, was introduced with version 1.15.91. *Note Changes::, for more information.  File: tar.info, Node: Short Option Summary, Next: Position-Sensitive Options, Prev: Option Summary, Up: All Options 3.4.3 Short Options Cross Reference ----------------------------------- Here is an alphabetized list of all of the short option forms, matching them with the equivalent long option. Short Option Reference -------------------------------------------------------------------------- -A *note --concatenate::. -B *note --read-full-records::. -C *note --directory::. -F *note --info-script::. -G *note --incremental::. -J *note --xz::. -K *note --starting-file::. -L *note --tape-length::. -M *note --multi-volume::. -N *note --newer::. -O *note --to-stdout::. -P *note --absolute-names::. -R *note --block-number::. -S *note --sparse::. -T *note --files-from::. -U *note --unlink-first::. -V *note --label::. -W *note --verify::. -X *note --exclude-from::. -Z *note --compress::. -b *note --blocking-factor::. -c *note --create::. -d *note --compare::. -f *note --file::. -g *note --listed-incremental::. -h *note --dereference::. -i *note --ignore-zeros::. -j *note --bzip2::. -k *note --keep-old-files::. -l *note --check-links::. -m *note --touch::. -o When creating, *note --no-same-owner::, when extracting -- *note --portability::. The latter usage is deprecated. It is retained for compatibility with the earlier versions of GNU 'tar'. In future releases '-o' will be equivalent to '--no-same-owner' only. -p *note --preserve-permissions::. -r *note --append::. -s *note --same-order::. -t *note --list::. -u *note --update::. -v *note --verbose::. -w *note --interactive::. -x *note --extract::. -z *note --gzip::.  File: tar.info, Node: Position-Sensitive Options, Prev: Short Option Summary, Up: All Options 3.4.4 Position-Sensitive Options -------------------------------- Some GNU 'tar' options can be used multiple times in the same invocation and affect all arguments that appear after them. These are options that control how file names are selected and what kind of pattern matching is used. The most obvious example is the '-C' option. It instructs 'tar' to change to the directory given as its argument prior to processing the rest of command line (*note directory::). Thus, in the following command: tar -c -f a.tar -C /etc passwd -C /var log spool the file 'passwd' will be searched in the directory '/etc', and files 'log' and 'spool' - in '/var'. These options can also be used in a file list supplied with the '--files-from' ('-T') option (*note files::). In that case they affect all files (patterns) appearing in that file after them and remain in effect for any arguments processed after that file. For example, if the file 'list.txt' contained: README -C src main.c and 'tar' were invoked as follows: tar -c -f a.tar -T list.txt Makefile then the file 'README' would be looked up in the current working directory, and files 'main.c' and 'Makefile' would be looked up in the directory 'src'. Many options can be prefixed with '--no-' to cancel the effect of the original option. For example, the '--recursion' option controls whether to recurse in the subdirectories. It's counterpart '--no-recursion' disables this. Consider the command below. It will store in the archive the directory '/usr' with all files and directories that are located in it as well as any files and directories in '/var', without recursing into them(1): tar -cf a.tar --recursion /usr --no-recursion /var/* The following table summarizes all position-sensitive options. '--directory=DIR' '-C DIR' *Note directory::. '--null' '--no-null' *Note nul::. '--unquote' '--no-unquote' *Note input name quoting::. '--verbatim-files-from' '--no-verbatim-files-from' *Note verbatim-files-from::. '--recursion' '--no-recursion' *Note recurse::. '--anchored' '--no-anchored' *Note anchored patterns::. '--ignore-case' '--no-ignore-case' *Note case-insensitive matches::. '--wildcards' '--no-wildcards' *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--wildcards-match-slash' '--no-wildcards-match-slash' *Note controlling pattern-matching::. '--exclude' *Note exclude::. '--exclude-from' '-X' '--exclude-caches' '--exclude-caches-under' '--exclude-caches-all' '--exclude-tag' '--exclude-ignore' '--exclude-ignore-recursive' '--exclude-tag-under' '--exclude-tag-all' '--exclude-vcs' '--exclude-vcs-ignores' '--exclude-backups' *Note exclude::. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) The '--recursion' option is the default and is used here for clarity. The same example can be written as: tar -cf a.tar /usr --no-recursion /var/*  File: tar.info, Node: help, Next: defaults, Prev: All Options, Up: tar invocation 3.5 GNU 'tar' documentation =========================== Being careful, the first thing is really checking that you are using GNU 'tar', indeed. The '--version' option causes 'tar' to print information about its name, version, origin and legal status, all on standard output, and then exit successfully. For example, 'tar --version' might print: tar (GNU tar) 1.29 Copyright (C) 2013-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later . This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason. The first occurrence of 'tar' in the result above is the program name in the package (for example, 'rmt' is another program), while the second occurrence of 'tar' is the name of the package itself, containing possibly many programs. The package is currently named 'tar', after the name of the main program it contains(1). Another thing you might want to do is checking the spelling or meaning of some particular 'tar' option, without resorting to this manual, for once you have carefully read it. GNU 'tar' has a short help feature, triggerable through the '--help' option. By using this option, 'tar' will print a usage message listing all available options on standard output, then exit successfully, without doing anything else and ignoring all other options. Even if this is only a brief summary, it may be several screens long. So, if you are not using some kind of scrollable window, you might prefer to use something like: $ tar --help | less presuming, here, that you like using 'less' for a pager. Other popular pagers are 'more' and 'pg'. If you know about some KEYWORD which interests you and do not want to read all the '--help' output, another common idiom is doing: tar --help | grep KEYWORD for getting only the pertinent lines. Notice, however, that some 'tar' options have long description lines and the above command will list only the first of them. The exact look of the option summary displayed by 'tar --help' is configurable. *Note Configuring Help Summary::, for a detailed description. If you only wish to check the spelling of an option, running 'tar --usage' may be a better choice. This will display a terse list of 'tar' options without accompanying explanations. The short help output is quite succinct, and you might have to get back to the full documentation for precise points. If you are reading this paragraph, you already have the 'tar' manual in some form. This manual is available in a variety of forms from . It may be printed out of the GNU 'tar' distribution, provided you have TeX already installed somewhere, and a laser printer around. Just configure the distribution, execute the command 'make dvi', then print 'doc/tar.dvi' the usual way (contact your local guru to know how). If GNU 'tar' has been conveniently installed at your place, this manual is also available in interactive, hypertextual form as an Info file. Just call 'info tar' or, if you do not have the 'info' program handy, use the Info reader provided within GNU Emacs, calling 'tar' from the main Info menu. There is currently no 'man' page for GNU 'tar'. If you observe such a 'man' page on the system you are running, either it does not belong to GNU 'tar', or it has not been produced by GNU. Some package maintainers convert 'tar --help' output to a man page, using 'help2man'. In any case, please bear in mind that the authoritative source of information about GNU 'tar' is this Texinfo documentation. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) There are plans to merge the 'cpio' and 'tar' packages into a single one which would be called 'paxutils'. So, who knows if, one of this days, the '--version' would not output 'tar (GNU paxutils) 3.2'.  File: tar.info, Node: defaults, Next: verbose, Prev: help, Up: tar invocation 3.6 Obtaining GNU 'tar' default values ====================================== GNU 'tar' has some predefined defaults that are used when you do not explicitly specify another values. To obtain a list of such defaults, use '--show-defaults' option. This will output the values in the form of 'tar' command line options: $ tar --show-defaults --format=gnu -f- -b20 --quoting-style=escape --rmt-command=/etc/rmt --rsh-command=/usr/bin/rsh Notice, that this option outputs only one line. The example output above has been split to fit page boundaries. The above output shows that this version of GNU 'tar' defaults to using 'gnu' archive format (*note Formats::), it uses standard output as the archive, if no '--file' option has been given (*note file tutorial::), the default blocking factor is 20 (*note Blocking Factor::). It also shows the default locations where 'tar' will look for 'rmt' and 'rsh' binaries.  File: tar.info, Node: verbose, Next: checkpoints, Prev: defaults, Up: tar invocation 3.7 Checking 'tar' progress =========================== Typically, 'tar' performs most operations without reporting any information to the user except error messages. When using 'tar' with many options, particularly ones with complicated or difficult-to-predict behavior, it is possible to make serious mistakes. 'tar' provides several options that make observing 'tar' easier. These options cause 'tar' to print information as it progresses in its job, and you might want to use them just for being more careful about what is going on, or merely for entertaining yourself. If you have encountered a problem when operating on an archive, however, you may need more information than just an error message in order to solve the problem. The following options can be helpful diagnostic tools. Normally, the '--list' ('-t') command to list an archive prints just the file names (one per line) and the other commands are silent. When used with most operations, the '--verbose' ('-v') option causes 'tar' to print the name of each file or archive member as it is processed. This and the other options which make 'tar' print status information can be useful in monitoring 'tar'. With '--create' or '--extract', '--verbose' used once just prints the names of the files or members as they are processed. Using it twice causes 'tar' to print a longer listing (*Note verbose member listing::, for the description) for each member. Since '--list' already prints the names of the members, '--verbose' used once with '--list' causes 'tar' to print an 'ls -l' type listing of the files in the archive. The following examples both extract members with long list output: $ tar --extract --file=archive.tar --verbose --verbose $ tar xvvf archive.tar Verbose output appears on the standard output except when an archive is being written to the standard output, as with 'tar --create --file=- --verbose' ('tar cvf -', or even 'tar cv'--if the installer let standard output be the default archive). In that case 'tar' writes verbose output to the standard error stream. If '--index-file=FILE' is specified, 'tar' sends verbose output to FILE rather than to standard output or standard error. The '--totals' option causes 'tar' to print on the standard error the total amount of bytes transferred when processing an archive. When creating or appending to an archive, this option prints the number of bytes written to the archive and the average speed at which they have been written, e.g.: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --totals /home Total bytes written: 7924664320 (7.4GiB, 85MiB/s) When reading an archive, this option displays the number of bytes read: $ tar -x -f archive.tar --totals Total bytes read: 7924664320 (7.4GiB, 95MiB/s) Finally, when deleting from an archive, the '--totals' option displays both numbers plus number of bytes removed from the archive: $ tar --delete -f foo.tar --totals --wildcards '*~' Total bytes read: 9543680 (9.2MiB, 201MiB/s) Total bytes written: 3829760 (3.7MiB, 81MiB/s) Total bytes deleted: 1474048 You can also obtain this information on request. When '--totals' is used with an argument, this argument is interpreted as a symbolic name of a signal, upon delivery of which the statistics is to be printed: '--totals=SIGNO' Print statistics upon delivery of signal SIGNO. Valid arguments are: 'SIGHUP', 'SIGQUIT', 'SIGINT', 'SIGUSR1' and 'SIGUSR2'. Shortened names without 'SIG' prefix are also accepted. Both forms of '--totals' option can be used simultaneously. Thus, 'tar -x --totals --totals=USR1' instructs 'tar' to extract all members from its default archive and print statistics after finishing the extraction, as well as when receiving signal 'SIGUSR1'. The '--checkpoint' option prints an occasional message as 'tar' reads or writes the archive. It is designed for those who don't need the more detailed (and voluminous) output of '--block-number' ('-R'), but do want visual confirmation that 'tar' is actually making forward progress. By default it prints a message each 10 records read or written. This can be changed by giving it a numeric argument after an equal sign: $ tar -c --checkpoint=1000 /var tar: Write checkpoint 1000 tar: Write checkpoint 2000 tar: Write checkpoint 3000 This example shows the default checkpoint message used by 'tar'. If you place a dot immediately after the equal sign, it will print a '.' at each checkpoint(1). For example: $ tar -c --checkpoint=.1000 /var ... The '--checkpoint' option provides a flexible mechanism for executing arbitrary actions upon hitting checkpoints, see the next section (*note checkpoints::), for more information on it. The '--show-omitted-dirs' option, when reading an archive--with '--list' or '--extract', for example--causes a message to be printed for each directory in the archive which is skipped. This happens regardless of the reason for skipping: the directory might not have been named on the command line (implicitly or explicitly), it might be excluded by the use of the '--exclude=PATTERN' option, or some other reason. If '--block-number' ('-R') is used, 'tar' prints, along with every message it would normally produce, the block number within the archive where the message was triggered. Also, supplementary messages are triggered when reading blocks full of NULs, or when hitting end of file on the archive. As of now, if the archive is properly terminated with a NUL block, the reading of the file may stop before end of file is met, so the position of end of file will not usually show when '--block-number' ('-R') is used. Note that GNU 'tar' drains the archive before exiting when reading the archive from a pipe. This option is especially useful when reading damaged archives, since it helps pinpoint the damaged sections. It can also be used with '--list' ('-t') when listing a file-system backup tape, allowing you to choose among several backup tapes when retrieving a file later, in favor of the tape where the file appears earliest (closest to the front of the tape). *Note backup::. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) This is actually a shortcut for '--checkpoint=N --checkpoint-action=dot'. *Note dot: checkpoints.  File: tar.info, Node: checkpoints, Next: warnings, Prev: verbose, Up: tar invocation 3.8 Checkpoints =============== A "checkpoint" is a moment of time before writing Nth record to the archive (a "write checkpoint"), or before reading Nth record from the archive (a "read checkpoint"). Checkpoints allow to periodically execute arbitrary actions. The checkpoint facility is enabled using the following option: '--checkpoint[=N]' Schedule checkpoints before writing or reading each Nth record. The default value for N is 10. A list of arbitrary "actions" can be executed at each checkpoint. These actions include: pausing, displaying textual messages, and executing arbitrary external programs. Actions are defined using the '--checkpoint-action' option. '--checkpoint-action=ACTION' Execute an ACTION at each checkpoint. The simplest value of ACTION is 'echo'. It instructs 'tar' to display the default message on the standard error stream upon arriving at each checkpoint. The default message is (in POSIX locale) 'Write checkpoint N', for write checkpoints, and 'Read checkpoint N', for read checkpoints. Here, N represents ordinal number of the checkpoint. In another locales, translated versions of this message are used. This is the default action, so running: $ tar -c --checkpoint=1000 --checkpoint-action=echo /var is equivalent to: $ tar -c --checkpoint=1000 /var The 'echo' action also allows to supply a customized message. You do so by placing an equals sign and the message right after it, e.g.: --checkpoint-action="echo=Hit %s checkpoint #%u" The '%s' and '%u' in the above example are "format specifiers". The '%s' specifier is replaced with the "type" of the checkpoint: 'write' or 'read' (or a corresponding translated version in locales other than POSIX). The '%u' specifier is replaced with the ordinal number of the checkpoint. Thus, the above example could produce the following output when used with the '--create' option: tar: Hit write checkpoint #10 tar: Hit write checkpoint #20 tar: Hit write checkpoint #30 The complete list of available format specifiers follows. Some of them can take optional arguments. These arguments, if given, are supplied in curly braces between the percent sign and the specifier letter. '%s' Print type of the checkpoint ('write' or 'read'). '%u' Print number of the checkpoint. '%{r,w,d}T' Print number of bytes transferred so far and approximate transfer speed. Optional arguments supply prefixes to be used before number of bytes read, written and deleted, correspondingly. If absent, they default to 'R'. 'W', 'D'. Any or all of them can be omitted, so, that e.g. '%{}T' means to print corresponding statistics without any prefixes. Any surplus arguments, if present, are silently ignored. $ tar --delete -f f.tar --checkpoint-action=echo="#%u: %T" main.c tar: #1: R: 0 (0B, 0B/s),W: 0 (0B, 0B/s),D: 0 tar: #2: R: 10240 (10KiB, 19MiB/s),W: 0 (0B, 0B/s),D: 10240 See also the 'totals' action, described below. '%{FMT}t' Output current local time using FMT as format for 'strftime' (*note strftime: (strftime(3))strftime.). The '{FMT}' part is optional. If not present, the default format is '%c', i.e. the preferred date and time representation for the current locale. '%{N}*' Pad output with spaces to the Nth column. If the '{N}' part is omitted, the current screen width is assumed. '%c' This is a shortcut for '%{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}t: %ds, %{read,wrote}T%*\r', intended mainly for use with 'ttyout' action (see below). Aside from format expansion, the message string is subject to "unquoting", during which the backslash "escape sequences" are replaced with their corresponding ASCII characters (*note escape sequences::). E.g. the following action will produce an audible bell and the message described above at each checkpoint: --checkpoint-action='echo=\aHit %s checkpoint #%u' There is also a special action which produces an audible signal: 'bell'. It is not equivalent to 'echo='\a'', because 'bell' sends the bell directly to the console ('/dev/tty'), whereas 'echo='\a'' sends it to the standard error. The 'ttyout=STRING' action outputs STRING to '/dev/tty', so it can be used even if the standard output is redirected elsewhere. The STRING is subject to the same modifications as with 'echo' action. In contrast to the latter, 'ttyout' does not prepend 'tar' executable name to the string, nor does it output a newline after it. For example, the following action will print the checkpoint message at the same screen line, overwriting any previous message: --checkpoint-action="ttyout=Hit %s checkpoint #%u%*\r" Notice the use of '%*' specifier to clear out any eventual remains of the prior output line. As as more complex example, consider this: --checkpoint-action=ttyout='%{%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}t (%d sec): #%u, %T%*\r' This prints the current local time, number of seconds expired since tar was started, the checkpoint ordinal number, transferred bytes and average computed I/O speed. Another available checkpoint action is 'dot' (or '.'). It instructs 'tar' to print a single dot on the standard listing stream, e.g.: $ tar -c --checkpoint=1000 --checkpoint-action=dot /var ... For compatibility with previous GNU 'tar' versions, this action can be abbreviated by placing a dot in front of the checkpoint frequency, as shown in the previous section. The 'totals' action prints the total number of bytes transferred so far. The format of the data is the same as for the '--totals' option (*note totals::). See also '%T' format specifier of the 'echo' or 'ttyout' action. Yet another action, 'sleep', pauses 'tar' for a specified amount of seconds. The following example will stop for 30 seconds at each checkpoint: $ tar -c --checkpoint=1000 --checkpoint-action=sleep=30 Finally, the 'exec' action executes a given external command. For example: $ tar -c --checkpoint=1000 --checkpoint-action=exec=/sbin/cpoint The supplied command can be any valid command invocation, with or without additional command line arguments. If it does contain arguments, don't forget to quote it to prevent it from being split by the shell. *Note Running External Commands: external, for more detail. The command gets a copy of 'tar''s environment plus the following variables: 'TAR_VERSION' GNU 'tar' version number. 'TAR_ARCHIVE' The name of the archive 'tar' is processing. 'TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR' Current blocking factor (*note Blocking::). 'TAR_CHECKPOINT' Number of the checkpoint. 'TAR_SUBCOMMAND' A short option describing the operation 'tar' is executing. *Note Operations::, for a complete list of subcommand options. 'TAR_FORMAT' Format of the archive being processed. *Note Formats::, for a complete list of archive format names. These environment variables can also be passed as arguments to the command, provided that they are properly escaped, for example: tar -c -f arc.tar \ --checkpoint-action='exec=/sbin/cpoint $TAR_CHECKPOINT' Notice single quotes to prevent variable names from being expanded by the shell when invoking 'tar'. Any number of actions can be defined, by supplying several '--checkpoint-action' options in the command line. For example, the command below displays two messages, pauses execution for 30 seconds and executes the '/sbin/cpoint' script: $ tar -c -f arc.tar \ --checkpoint-action='\aecho=Hit %s checkpoint #%u' \ --checkpoint-action='echo=Sleeping for 30 seconds' \ --checkpoint-action='sleep=30' \ --checkpoint-action='exec=/sbin/cpoint' This example also illustrates the fact that '--checkpoint-action' can be used without '--checkpoint'. In this case, the default checkpoint frequency (at each 10th record) is assumed.  File: tar.info, Node: warnings, Next: interactive, Prev: checkpoints, Up: tar invocation 3.9 Controlling Warning Messages ================================ Sometimes, while performing the requested task, GNU 'tar' notices some conditions that are not exactly errors, but which the user should be aware of. When this happens, 'tar' issues a "warning message" describing the condition. Warning messages are output to the standard error and they do not affect the exit code of 'tar' command. GNU 'tar' allows the user to suppress some or all of its warning messages: '--warning=KEYWORD' Control display of the warning messages identified by KEYWORD. If KEYWORD starts with the prefix 'no-', such messages are suppressed. Otherwise, they are enabled. Multiple '--warning' messages accumulate. The tables below list allowed values for KEYWORD along with the warning messages they control. Keywords controlling 'tar' operation ------------------------------------ all Enable all warning messages. This is the default. none Disable all warning messages. filename-with-nuls '%s: file name read contains nul character' alone-zero-block 'A lone zero block at %s' Keywords applicable for 'tar --create' -------------------------------------- cachedir '%s: contains a cache directory tag %s; %s' file-shrank '%s: File shrank by %s bytes; padding with zeros' xdev '%s: file is on a different filesystem; not dumped' file-ignored '%s: Unknown file type; file ignored' '%s: socket ignored' '%s: door ignored' file-unchanged '%s: file is unchanged; not dumped' ignore-archive '%s: file is the archive; not dumped' file-removed '%s: File removed before we read it' file-changed '%s: file changed as we read it' Keywords applicable for 'tar --extract' --------------------------------------- existing-file '%s: skipping existing file' timestamp '%s: implausibly old time stamp %s' '%s: time stamp %s is %s s in the future' contiguous-cast 'Extracting contiguous files as regular files' symlink-cast 'Attempting extraction of symbolic links as hard links' unknown-cast '%s: Unknown file type '%c', extracted as normal file' ignore-newer 'Current %s is newer or same age' unknown-keyword 'Ignoring unknown extended header keyword '%s'' decompress-program Controls verbose description of failures occurring when trying to run alternative decompressor programs (*note alternative decompression programs::). This warning is disabled by default (unless '--verbose' is used). A common example of what you can get when using this warning is: $ tar --warning=decompress-program -x -f archive.Z tar (child): cannot run compress: No such file or directory tar (child): trying gzip This means that 'tar' first tried to decompress 'archive.Z' using 'compress', and, when that failed, switched to 'gzip'. record-size 'Record size = %lu blocks' Keywords controlling incremental extraction: -------------------------------------------- rename-directory '%s: Directory has been renamed from %s' '%s: Directory has been renamed' new-directory '%s: Directory is new' xdev '%s: directory is on a different device: not purging' bad-dumpdir 'Malformed dumpdir: 'X' never used'  File: tar.info, Node: interactive, Next: external, Prev: warnings, Up: tar invocation 3.10 Asking for Confirmation During Operations ============================================== Typically, 'tar' carries out a command without stopping for further instructions. In some situations however, you may want to exclude some files and archive members from the operation (for instance if disk or storage space is tight). You can do this by excluding certain files automatically (*note Choosing::), or by performing an operation interactively, using the '--interactive' ('-w') option. 'tar' also accepts '--confirmation' for this option. When the '--interactive' ('-w') option is specified, before reading, writing, or deleting files, 'tar' first prints a message for each such file, telling what operation it intends to take, then asks for confirmation on the terminal. The actions which require confirmation include adding a file to the archive, extracting a file from the archive, deleting a file from the archive, and deleting a file from disk. To confirm the action, you must type a line of input beginning with 'y'. If your input line begins with anything other than 'y', 'tar' skips that file. If 'tar' is reading the archive from the standard input, 'tar' opens the file '/dev/tty' to support the interactive communications. Verbose output is normally sent to standard output, separate from other error messages. However, if the archive is produced directly on standard output, then verbose output is mixed with errors on 'stderr'. Producing the archive on standard output may be used as a way to avoid using disk space, when the archive is soon to be consumed by another process reading it, say. Some people felt the need of producing an archive on stdout, still willing to segregate between verbose output and error output. A possible approach would be using a named pipe to receive the archive, and having the consumer process to read from that named pipe. This has the advantage of letting standard output free to receive verbose output, all separate from errors.  File: tar.info, Node: external, Prev: interactive, Up: tar invocation 3.11 Running External Commands ============================== Certain GNU 'tar' operations imply running external commands that you supply on the command line. One of such operations is checkpointing, described above (*note checkpoint exec::). Another example of this feature is the '-I' option, which allows you to supply the program to use for compressing or decompressing the archive (*note use-compress-program::). Whenever such operation is requested, 'tar' first splits the supplied command into words much like the shell does. It then treats the first word as the name of the program or the shell script to execute and the rest of words as its command line arguments. The program, unless given as an absolute file name, is searched in the shell's 'PATH'. Any additional information is normally supplied to external commands in environment variables, specific to each particular operation. For example, the '--checkpoint-action=exec' option, defines the 'TAR_ARCHIVE' variable to the name of the archive being worked upon. You can, should the need be, use these variables in the command line of the external command. For example: $ tar -x -f archive.tar \ --checkpoint-action=exec='printf "%04d in %32s\r" $TAR_CHECKPOINT $TAR_ARCHIVE' This command prints for each checkpoint its number and the name of the archive, using the same output line on the screen. Notice the use of single quotes to prevent variable names from being expanded by the shell when invoking 'tar'.  File: tar.info, Node: operations, Next: Backups, Prev: tar invocation, Up: Top 4 GNU 'tar' Operations ********************** * Menu: * Basic tar:: * Advanced tar:: * create options:: * extract options:: * backup:: * Applications:: * looking ahead::  File: tar.info, Node: Basic tar, Next: Advanced tar, Up: operations 4.1 Basic GNU 'tar' Operations ============================== The basic 'tar' operations, '--create' ('-c'), '--list' ('-t') and '--extract' ('--get', '-x'), are currently presented and described in the tutorial chapter of this manual. This section provides some complementary notes for these operations. '--create' '-c' Creating an empty archive would have some kind of elegance. One can initialize an empty archive and later use '--append' ('-r') for adding all members. Some applications would not welcome making an exception in the way of adding the first archive member. On the other hand, many people reported that it is dangerously too easy for 'tar' to destroy a magnetic tape with an empty archive(1). The two most common errors are: 1. Mistakingly using 'create' instead of 'extract', when the intent was to extract the full contents of an archive. This error is likely: keys 'c' and 'x' are right next to each other on the QWERTY keyboard. Instead of being unpacked, the archive then gets wholly destroyed. When users speak about "exploding" an archive, they usually mean something else :-). 2. Forgetting the argument to 'file', when the intent was to create an archive with a single file in it. This error is likely because a tired user can easily add the 'f' key to the cluster of option letters, by the mere force of habit, without realizing the full consequence of doing so. The usual consequence is that the single file, which was meant to be saved, is rather destroyed. So, recognizing the likelihood and the catastrophic nature of these errors, GNU 'tar' now takes some distance from elegance, and cowardly refuses to create an archive when '--create' option is given, there are no arguments besides options, and '--files-from' ('-T') option is _not_ used. To get around the cautiousness of GNU 'tar' and nevertheless create an archive with nothing in it, one may still use, as the value for the '--files-from' option, a file with no names in it, as shown in the following commands: tar --create --file=empty-archive.tar --files-from=/dev/null tar -cf empty-archive.tar -T /dev/null '--extract' '--get' '-x' A socket is stored, within a GNU 'tar' archive, as a pipe. '--list (-t)' GNU 'tar' now shows dates as '1996-08-30', while it used to show them as 'Aug 30 1996'. Preferably, people should get used to ISO 8601 dates. Local American dates should be made available again with full date localization support, once ready. In the meantime, programs not being localizable for dates should prefer international dates, that's really the way to go. Look up if you are curious, it contains a detailed explanation of the ISO 8601 standard. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) This is well described in 'Unix-haters Handbook', by Simson Garfinkel, Daniel Weise & Steven Strassmann, IDG Books, ISBN 1-56884-203-1.  File: tar.info, Node: Advanced tar, Next: create options, Prev: Basic tar, Up: operations 4.2 Advanced GNU 'tar' Operations ================================= Now that you have learned the basics of using GNU 'tar', you may want to learn about further ways in which 'tar' can help you. This chapter presents five, more advanced operations which you probably won't use on a daily basis, but which serve more specialized functions. We also explain the different styles of options and why you might want to use one or another, or a combination of them in your 'tar' commands. Additionally, this chapter includes options which allow you to define the output from 'tar' more carefully, and provide help and error correction in special circumstances. * Menu: * Operations:: * append:: * update:: * concatenate:: * delete:: * compare::  File: tar.info, Node: Operations, Next: append, Up: Advanced tar 4.2.1 The Five Advanced 'tar' Operations ---------------------------------------- In the last chapter, you learned about the first three operations to 'tar'. This chapter presents the remaining five operations to 'tar': '--append', '--update', '--concatenate', '--delete', and '--compare'. You are not likely to use these operations as frequently as those covered in the last chapter; however, since they perform specialized functions, they are quite useful when you do need to use them. We will give examples using the same directory and files that you created in the last chapter. As you may recall, the directory is called 'practice', the files are 'jazz', 'blues', 'folk', and the two archive files you created are 'collection.tar' and 'music.tar'. We will also use the archive files 'afiles.tar' and 'bfiles.tar'. The archive 'afiles.tar' contains the members 'apple', 'angst', and 'aspic'; 'bfiles.tar' contains the members './birds', 'baboon', and './box'. Unless we state otherwise, all practicing you do and examples you follow in this chapter will take place in the 'practice' directory that you created in the previous chapter; see *note prepare for examples::. (Below in this section, we will remind you of the state of the examples where the last chapter left them.) The five operations that we will cover in this chapter are: '--append' '-r' Add new entries to an archive that already exists. '--update' '-u' Add more recent copies of archive members to the end of an archive, if they exist. '--concatenate' '--catenate' '-A' Add one or more pre-existing archives to the end of another archive. '--delete' Delete items from an archive (does not work on tapes). '--compare' '--diff' '-d' Compare archive members to their counterparts in the file system.  File: tar.info, Node: append, Next: update, Prev: Operations, Up: Advanced tar 4.2.2 How to Add Files to Existing Archives: '--append' ------------------------------------------------------- If you want to add files to an existing archive, you don't need to create a new archive; you can use '--append' ('-r'). The archive must already exist in order to use '--append'. (A related operation is the '--update' operation; you can use this to add newer versions of archive members to an existing archive. To learn how to do this with '--update', *note update::.) If you use '--append' to add a file that has the same name as an archive member to an archive containing that archive member, then the old member is not deleted. What does happen, however, is somewhat complex. 'tar' _allows_ you to have infinite number of files with the same name. Some operations treat these same-named members no differently than any other set of archive members: for example, if you view an archive with '--list' ('-t'), you will see all of those members listed, with their data modification times, owners, etc. Other operations don't deal with these members as perfectly as you might prefer; if you were to use '--extract' to extract the archive, only the most recently added copy of a member with the same name as other members would end up in the working directory. This is because '--extract' extracts an archive in the order the members appeared in the archive; the most recently archived members will be extracted last. Additionally, an extracted member will _replace_ a file of the same name which existed in the directory already, and 'tar' will not prompt you about this(1). Thus, only the most recently archived member will end up being extracted, as it will replace the one extracted before it, and so on. There exists a special option that allows you to get around this behavior and extract (or list) only a particular copy of the file. This is '--occurrence' option. If you run 'tar' with this option, it will extract only the first copy of the file. You may also give this option an argument specifying the number of copy to be extracted. Thus, for example if the archive 'archive.tar' contained three copies of file 'myfile', then the command tar --extract --file archive.tar --occurrence=2 myfile would extract only the second copy. *Note --occurrence: Option Summary, for the description of '--occurrence' option. If you want to replace an archive member, use '--delete' to delete the member you want to remove from the archive, and then use '--append' to add the member you want to be in the archive. Note that you can not change the order of the archive; the most recently added member will still appear last. In this sense, you cannot truly "replace" one member with another. (Replacing one member with another will not work on certain types of media, such as tapes; see *note delete:: and *note Media::, for more information.) * Menu: * appending files:: Appending Files to an Archive * multiple:: ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Unless you give it '--keep-old-files' (or '--skip-old-files') option, or the disk copy is newer than the one in the archive and you invoke 'tar' with '--keep-newer-files' option.  File: tar.info, Node: appending files, Next: multiple, Up: append 4.2.2.1 Appending Files to an Archive ..................................... The simplest way to add a file to an already existing archive is the '--append' ('-r') operation, which writes specified files into the archive whether or not they are already among the archived files. When you use '--append', you _must_ specify file name arguments, as there is no default. If you specify a file that already exists in the archive, another copy of the file will be added to the end of the archive. As with other operations, the member names of the newly added files will be exactly the same as their names given on the command line. The '--verbose' ('-v') option will print out the names of the files as they are written into the archive. '--append' cannot be performed on some tape drives, unfortunately, due to deficiencies in the formats those tape drives use. The archive must be a valid 'tar' archive, or else the results of using this operation will be unpredictable. *Note Media::. To demonstrate using '--append' to add a file to an archive, create a file called 'rock' in the 'practice' directory. Make sure you are in the 'practice' directory. Then, run the following 'tar' command to add 'rock' to 'collection.tar': $ tar --append --file=collection.tar rock If you now use the '--list' ('-t') operation, you will see that 'rock' has been added to the archive: $ tar --list --file=collection.tar -rw-r--r-- me/user 28 1996-10-18 16:31 jazz -rw-r--r-- me/user 21 1996-09-23 16:44 blues -rw-r--r-- me/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 folk -rw-r--r-- me/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 rock  File: tar.info, Node: multiple, Prev: appending files, Up: append 4.2.2.2 Multiple Members with the Same Name ........................................... You can use '--append' ('-r') to add copies of files which have been updated since the archive was created. (However, we do not recommend doing this since there is another 'tar' option called '--update'; *Note update::, for more information. We describe this use of '--append' here for the sake of completeness.) When you extract the archive, the older version will be effectively lost. This works because files are extracted from an archive in the order in which they were archived. Thus, when the archive is extracted, a file archived later in time will replace a file of the same name which was archived earlier, even though the older version of the file will remain in the archive unless you delete all versions of the file. Supposing you change the file 'blues' and then append the changed version to 'collection.tar'. As you saw above, the original 'blues' is in the archive 'collection.tar'. If you change the file and append the new version of the file to the archive, there will be two copies in the archive. When you extract the archive, the older version of the file will be extracted first, and then replaced by the newer version when it is extracted. You can append the new, changed copy of the file 'blues' to the archive in this way: $ tar --append --verbose --file=collection.tar blues blues Because you specified the '--verbose' option, 'tar' has printed the name of the file being appended as it was acted on. Now list the contents of the archive: $ tar --list --verbose --file=collection.tar -rw-r--r-- me/user 28 1996-10-18 16:31 jazz -rw-r--r-- me/user 21 1996-09-23 16:44 blues -rw-r--r-- me/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 folk -rw-r--r-- me/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 rock -rw-r--r-- me/user 58 1996-10-24 18:30 blues The newest version of 'blues' is now at the end of the archive (note the different creation dates and file sizes). If you extract the archive, the older version of the file 'blues' will be replaced by the newer version. You can confirm this by extracting the archive and running 'ls' on the directory. If you wish to extract the first occurrence of the file 'blues' from the archive, use '--occurrence' option, as shown in the following example: $ tar --extract -vv --occurrence --file=collection.tar blues -rw-r--r-- me/user 21 1996-09-23 16:44 blues *Note Writing::, for more information on '--extract' and see *note -occurrence: Option Summary, for a description of '--occurrence' option.  File: tar.info, Node: update, Next: concatenate, Prev: append, Up: Advanced tar 4.2.3 Updating an Archive ------------------------- In the previous section, you learned how to use '--append' to add a file to an existing archive. A related operation is '--update' ('-u'). The '--update' operation updates a 'tar' archive by comparing the date of the specified archive members against the date of the file with the same name. If the file has been modified more recently than the archive member, then the newer version of the file is added to the archive (as with '--append'). Unfortunately, you cannot use '--update' with magnetic tape drives. The operation will fail. Both '--update' and '--append' work by adding to the end of the archive. When you extract a file from the archive, only the version stored last will wind up in the file system, unless you use the '--backup' option. *Note multiple::, for a detailed discussion. * Menu: * how to update::  File: tar.info, Node: how to update, Up: update 4.2.3.1 How to Update an Archive Using '--update' ................................................. You must use file name arguments with the '--update' ('-u') operation. If you don't specify any files, 'tar' won't act on any files and won't tell you that it didn't do anything (which may end up confusing you). To see the '--update' option at work, create a new file, 'classical', in your practice directory, and some extra text to the file 'blues', using any text editor. Then invoke 'tar' with the 'update' operation and the '--verbose' ('-v') option specified, using the names of all the files in the 'practice' directory as file name arguments: $ tar --update -v -f collection.tar blues folk rock classical blues classical $ Because we have specified verbose mode, 'tar' prints out the names of the files it is working on, which in this case are the names of the files that needed to be updated. If you run 'tar --list' and look at the archive, you will see 'blues' and 'classical' at its end. There will be a total of two versions of the member 'blues'; the one at the end will be newer and larger, since you added text before updating it. The reason 'tar' does not overwrite the older file when updating it is because writing to the middle of a section of tape is a difficult process. Tapes are not designed to go backward. *Note Media::, for more information about tapes. '--update' ('-u') is not suitable for performing backups for two reasons: it does not change directory content entries, and it lengthens the archive every time it is used. The GNU 'tar' options intended specifically for backups are more efficient. If you need to run backups, please consult *note Backups::.  File: tar.info, Node: concatenate, Next: delete, Prev: update, Up: Advanced tar 4.2.4 Combining Archives with '--concatenate' --------------------------------------------- Sometimes it may be convenient to add a second archive onto the end of an archive rather than adding individual files to the archive. To add one or more archives to the end of another archive, you should use the '--concatenate' ('--catenate', '-A') operation. To use '--concatenate', give the first archive with '--file' option and name the rest of archives to be concatenated on the command line. The members, and their member names, will be copied verbatim from those archives to the first one(1). The new, concatenated archive will be called by the same name as the one given with the '--file' option. As usual, if you omit '--file', 'tar' will use the value of the environment variable 'TAPE', or, if this has not been set, the default archive name. To demonstrate how '--concatenate' works, create two small archives called 'bluesrock.tar' and 'folkjazz.tar', using the relevant files from 'practice': $ tar -cvf bluesrock.tar blues rock blues rock $ tar -cvf folkjazz.tar folk jazz folk jazz If you like, You can run 'tar --list' to make sure the archives contain what they are supposed to: $ tar -tvf bluesrock.tar -rw-r--r-- melissa/user 105 1997-01-21 19:42 blues -rw-r--r-- melissa/user 33 1997-01-20 15:34 rock $ tar -tvf jazzfolk.tar -rw-r--r-- melissa/user 20 1996-09-23 16:44 folk -rw-r--r-- melissa/user 65 1997-01-30 14:15 jazz We can concatenate these two archives with 'tar': $ cd .. $ tar --concatenate --file=bluesrock.tar jazzfolk.tar If you now list the contents of the 'bluesrock.tar', you will see that now it also contains the archive members of 'jazzfolk.tar': $ tar --list --file=bluesrock.tar blues rock folk jazz When you use '--concatenate', the source and target archives must already exist and must have been created using compatible format parameters. Notice, that 'tar' does not check whether the archives it concatenates have compatible formats, it does not even check if the files are really tar archives. Like '--append' ('-r'), this operation cannot be performed on some tape drives, due to deficiencies in the formats those tape drives use. It may seem more intuitive to you to want or try to use 'cat' to concatenate two archives instead of using the '--concatenate' operation; after all, 'cat' is the utility for combining files. However, 'tar' archives incorporate an end-of-file marker which must be removed if the concatenated archives are to be read properly as one archive. '--concatenate' removes the end-of-archive marker from the target archive before each new archive is appended. If you use 'cat' to combine the archives, the result will not be a valid 'tar' format archive. If you need to retrieve files from an archive that was added to using the 'cat' utility, use the '--ignore-zeros' ('-i') option. *Note Ignore Zeros::, for further information on dealing with archives improperly combined using the 'cat' shell utility. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) This can cause multiple members to have the same name. For information on how this affects reading the archive, see *note multiple::.  File: tar.info, Node: delete, Next: compare, Prev: concatenate, Up: Advanced tar 4.2.5 Removing Archive Members Using '--delete' ----------------------------------------------- You can remove members from an archive by using the '--delete' option. Specify the name of the archive with '--file' ('-f') and then specify the names of the members to be deleted; if you list no member names, nothing will be deleted. The '--verbose' option will cause 'tar' to print the names of the members as they are deleted. As with '--extract', you must give the exact member names when using 'tar --delete'. '--delete' will remove all versions of the named file from the archive. The '--delete' operation can run very slowly. Unlike other operations, '--delete' has no short form. This operation will rewrite the archive. You can only use '--delete' on an archive if the archive device allows you to write to any point on the media, such as a disk; because of this, it does not work on magnetic tapes. Do not try to delete an archive member from a magnetic tape; the action will not succeed, and you will be likely to scramble the archive and damage your tape. There is no safe way (except by completely re-writing the archive) to delete files from most kinds of magnetic tape. *Note Media::. To delete all versions of the file 'blues' from the archive 'collection.tar' in the 'practice' directory, make sure you are in that directory, and then, $ tar --list --file=collection.tar blues folk jazz rock $ tar --delete --file=collection.tar blues $ tar --list --file=collection.tar folk jazz rock The '--delete' option has been reported to work properly when 'tar' acts as a filter from 'stdin' to 'stdout'.  File: tar.info, Node: compare, Prev: delete, Up: Advanced tar 4.2.6 Comparing Archive Members with the File System ---------------------------------------------------- The '--compare' ('-d'), or '--diff' operation compares specified archive members against files with the same names, and then reports differences in file size, mode, owner, modification date and contents. You should _only_ specify archive member names, not file names. If you do not name any members, then 'tar' will compare the entire archive. If a file is represented in the archive but does not exist in the file system, 'tar' reports a difference. You have to specify the record size of the archive when modifying an archive with a non-default record size. 'tar' ignores files in the file system that do not have corresponding members in the archive. The following example compares the archive members 'rock', 'blues' and 'funk' in the archive 'bluesrock.tar' with files of the same name in the file system. (Note that there is no file, 'funk'; 'tar' will report an error message.) $ tar --compare --file=bluesrock.tar rock blues funk rock blues tar: funk not found in archive The spirit behind the '--compare' ('--diff', '-d') option is to check whether the archive represents the current state of files on disk, more than validating the integrity of the archive media. For this latter goal, see *note verify::.  File: tar.info, Node: create options, Next: extract options, Prev: Advanced tar, Up: operations 4.3 Options Used by '--create' ============================== The previous chapter described the basics of how to use '--create' ('-c') to create an archive from a set of files. *Note create::. This section described advanced options to be used with '--create'. * Menu: * override:: Overriding File Metadata. * Extended File Attributes:: * Ignore Failed Read::  File: tar.info, Node: override, Next: Extended File Attributes, Up: create options 4.3.1 Overriding File Metadata ------------------------------ As described above, a 'tar' archive keeps, for each member it contains, its "metadata", such as modification time, mode and ownership of the file. GNU 'tar' allows to replace these data with other values when adding files to the archive. The options described in this section affect creation of archives of any type. For POSIX archives, see also *note PAX keywords::, for additional ways of controlling metadata, stored in the archive. '--mode=PERMISSIONS' When adding files to an archive, 'tar' will use PERMISSIONS for the archive members, rather than the permissions from the files. PERMISSIONS can be specified either as an octal number or as symbolic permissions, like with 'chmod' (*Note Permissions: (fileutils)File permissions. This reference also has useful information for those not being overly familiar with the UNIX permission system). Using latter syntax allows for more flexibility. For example, the value 'a+rw' adds read and write permissions for everybody, while retaining executable bits on directories or on any other file already marked as executable: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --mode='a+rw' . '--mtime=DATE' When adding files to an archive, 'tar' will use DATE as the modification time of members when creating archives, instead of their actual modification times. The argument DATE can be either a textual date representation in almost arbitrary format (*note Date input formats::) or a name of an existing file, starting with '/' or '.'. In the latter case, the modification time of that file will be used. The following example will set the modification date to 00:00:00, January 1, 1970: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --mtime='1970-01-01' . When used with '--verbose' (*note verbose tutorial::) GNU 'tar' will try to convert the specified date back to its textual representation and compare it with the one given with '--mtime' options. If the two dates differ, 'tar' will print a warning saying what date it will use. This is to help user ensure he is using the right date. For example: $ tar -c -f archive.tar -v --mtime=yesterday . tar: Option --mtime: Treating date 'yesterday' as 2006-06-20 13:06:29.152478 ... When used with '--clamp-mtime' GNU 'tar' will only set the modification date to DATE on files whose actual modification date is later than DATE. This is to make it easy to build reproducible archives given a common timestamp for generated files while still retaining the original timestamps of untouched files. $ tar -c -f archive.tar --clamp-mtime --mtime=@$SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH . '--owner=USER' Specifies that 'tar' should use USER as the owner of members when creating archives, instead of the user associated with the source file. If USER contains a colon, it is taken to be of the form NAME:ID where a nonempty NAME specifies the user name and a nonempty ID specifies the decimal numeric user ID. If USER does not contain a colon, it is taken to be a user number if it is one or more decimal digits; otherwise it is taken to be a user name. If a name is given but no number, the number is inferred from the current host's user database if possible, and the file's user number is used otherwise. If a number is given but no name, the name is inferred from the number if possible, and an empty name is used otherwise. If both name and number are given, the user database is not consulted, and the name and number need not be valid on the current host. There is no value indicating a missing number, and '0' usually means 'root'. Some people like to force '0' as the value to offer in their distributions for the owner of files, because the 'root' user is anonymous anyway, so that might as well be the owner of anonymous archives. For example: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --owner=0 . or: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --owner=root . '--group=GROUP' Files added to the 'tar' archive will have a group ID of GROUP, rather than the group from the source file. As with '--owner', the argument GROUP can be an existing group symbolic name, or a decimal numeric group ID, or NAME:ID. The '--owner' and '--group' options affect all files added to the archive. GNU 'tar' provides also two options that allow for more detailed control over owner translation: '--owner-map=FILE' Read UID translation map from FILE. When reading, empty lines are ignored. The '#' sign, unless quoted, introduces a comment, which extends to the end of the line. Each nonempty line defines mapping for a single UID. It must consist of two fields separated by any amount of whitespace. The first field defines original username and UID. It can be a valid user name or a valid UID prefixed with a plus sign. In both cases the corresponding UID or user name is inferred from the current host's user database. The second field defines the UID and username to map the original one to. Its format can be the same as described above. Otherwise, it can have the form NEWNAME:NEWUID, in which case neither NEWNAME nor NEWUID are required to be valid as per the user database. For example, consider the following file: +10 bin smith root:0 Given this file, each input file that is owner by UID 10 will be stored in archive with owner name 'bin' and owner UID corresponding to 'bin'. Each file owned by user 'smith' will be stored with owner name 'root' and owner ID 0. Other files will remain unchanged. When used together with '--owner-map', the '--owner' option affects only files whose owner is not listed in the map file. '--group-map=FILE' Read GID translation map from FILE. The format of FILE is the same as for '--owner-map' option: Each nonempty line defines mapping for a single GID. It must consist of two fields separated by any amount of whitespace. The first field defines original group name and GID. It can be a valid group name or a valid GID prefixed with a plus sign. In both cases the corresponding GID or user name is inferred from the current host's group database. The second field defines the GID and group name to map the original one to. Its format can be the same as described above. Otherwise, it can have the form NEWNAME:NEWGID, in which case neither NEWNAME nor NEWGID are required to be valid as per the group database. When used together with '--group-map', the '--group' option affects only files whose owner group is not rewritten using the map file.  File: tar.info, Node: Extended File Attributes, Next: Ignore Failed Read, Prev: override, Up: create options 4.3.2 Extended File Attributes ------------------------------ Extended file attributes are name-value pairs that can be associated with each node in a file system. Despite the fact that POSIX.1e draft which proposed them has been withdrawn, the extended file attributes are supported by many file systems. GNU 'tar' can store extended file attributes along with the files. This feature is controlled by the following command line arguments: '--xattrs' Enable extended attributes support. When used with '--create', this option instructs GNU 'tar' to store extended file attribute in the created archive. This implies POSIX.1-2001 archive format ('--format=pax'). When used with '--extract', this option tells 'tar', for each file extracted, to read stored attributes from the archive and to apply them to the file. '--no-xattrs' Disable extended attributes support. This is the default. Attribute names are strings prefixed by a "namespace" name and a dot. Currently, four namespaces exist: 'user', 'trusted', 'security' and 'system'. By default, when '--xattr' is used, all names are stored in the archive (or extracted, if using '--extract'). This can be controlled using the following options: '--xattrs-exclude=PATTERN' Specify exclude pattern for extended attributes. '--xattrs-include=PATTERN' Specify include pattern for extended attributes. Here, the PATTERN is POSIX regular expression. For example, the following command: $ tar --xattrs --xattrs-exclude='^user\.' -c a.tar . will include in the archive 'a.tar' all attributes, except those from the 'user' namespace. Any number of these options can be given, thereby creating lists of include and exclude patterns. When both options are used, first '--xattrs-inlcude' is applied to select the set of attribute names to keep, and then '--xattrs-exclude' is applied to the resulting set. In other words, only those attributes will be stored, whose names match one of the regexps in '--xattrs-inlcude' and don't match any of the regexps from '--xattrs-exclude'. When listing the archive, if both '--xattrs' and '--verbose' options are given, files that have extended attributes are marked with an asterisk following their permission mask. For example: -rw-r--r--* smith/users 110 2016-03-16 16:07 file When two or more '--verbose' options are given, a detailed listing of extended attributes is printed after each file entry. Each attribute is listed on a separate line, which begins with two spaces and the letter 'x' indicating extended attribute. It is followed by a colon, length of the attribute and its name, e.g.: -rw-r--r--* smith/users 110 2016-03-16 16:07 file x: 7 user.mime_type x: 32 trusted.md5sum File access control lists ("ACL") are another actively used feature proposed by the POSIX.1e standard. Each ACL consists of a set of ACL entries, each of which describes the access permissions on the file for an individual user or a group of users as a combination of read, write and search/execute permissions. Whether or not to use ACLs is controlled by the following two options: '--acls' Enable POSIX ACLs support. When used with '--create', this option instructs GNU 'tar' to store ACLs in the created archive. This implies POSIX.1-2001 archive format ('--format=pax'). When used with '--extract', this option tells 'tar', to restore ACLs for each file extracted (provided they are present in the archive). '--no-acls' Disable POSIX ACLs support. This is the default. When listing the archive, if both '--acls' and '--verbose' options are given, files that have ACLs are marked with a plus sing following their permission mask. For example: -rw-r--r--+ smith/users 110 2016-03-16 16:07 file When two or more '--verbose' options are given, a detailed listing of ACL is printed after each file entry: -rw-r--r--+ smith/users 110 2016-03-16 16:07 file a: user::rw-,user:gray:-w-,group::r--,mask::rw-,other::r-- "Security-Enhanced Linux" ("SELinux" for short) is a Linux kernel security module that provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies, including so-called mandatory access controls ("MAC"). Support for SELinux attributes is controlled by the following command line options: '--selinux' Enable the SELinux context support. '--no-selinux' Disable SELinux context support.  File: tar.info, Node: Ignore Failed Read, Prev: Extended File Attributes, Up: create options 4.3.3 Ignore Fail Read ---------------------- '--ignore-failed-read' Do not exit with nonzero on unreadable files or directories.  File: tar.info, Node: extract options, Next: backup, Prev: create options, Up: operations 4.4 Options Used by '--extract' =============================== The previous chapter showed how to use '--extract' to extract an archive into the file system. Various options cause 'tar' to extract more information than just file contents, such as the owner, the permissions, the modification date, and so forth. This section presents options to be used with '--extract' when certain special considerations arise. You may review the information presented in *note extract:: for more basic information about the '--extract' operation. * Menu: * Reading:: Options to Help Read Archives * Writing:: Changing How 'tar' Writes Files * Scarce:: Coping with Scarce Resources  File: tar.info, Node: Reading, Next: Writing, Up: extract options 4.4.1 Options to Help Read Archives ----------------------------------- Normally, 'tar' will request data in full record increments from an archive storage device. If the device cannot return a full record, 'tar' will report an error. However, some devices do not always return full records, or do not require the last record of an archive to be padded out to the next record boundary. To keep reading until you obtain a full record, or to accept an incomplete record if it contains an end-of-archive marker, specify the '--read-full-records' ('-B') option in conjunction with the '--extract' or '--list' operations. *Note Blocking::. The '--read-full-records' ('-B') option is turned on by default when 'tar' reads an archive from standard input, or from a remote machine. This is because on BSD Unix systems, attempting to read a pipe returns however much happens to be in the pipe, even if it is less than was requested. If this option were not enabled, 'tar' would fail as soon as it read an incomplete record from the pipe. If you're not sure of the blocking factor of an archive, you can read the archive by specifying '--read-full-records' ('-B') and '--blocking-factor=512-SIZE' ('-b 512-SIZE'), using a blocking factor larger than what the archive uses. This lets you avoid having to determine the blocking factor of an archive. *Note Blocking Factor::. * Menu: * read full records:: * Ignore Zeros::  File: tar.info, Node: read full records, Next: Ignore Zeros, Up: Reading Reading Full Records .................... '--read-full-records' '-B' Use in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x') to read an archive which contains incomplete records, or one which has a blocking factor less than the one specified.  File: tar.info, Node: Ignore Zeros, Prev: read full records, Up: Reading Ignoring Blocks of Zeros ........................ Normally, 'tar' stops reading when it encounters a block of zeros between file entries (which usually indicates the end of the archive). '--ignore-zeros' ('-i') allows 'tar' to completely read an archive which contains a block of zeros before the end (i.e., a damaged archive, or one that was created by concatenating several archives together). The '--ignore-zeros' ('-i') option is turned off by default because many versions of 'tar' write garbage after the end-of-archive entry, since that part of the media is never supposed to be read. GNU 'tar' does not write after the end of an archive, but seeks to maintain compatibility among archiving utilities. '--ignore-zeros' '-i' To ignore blocks of zeros (i.e., end-of-archive entries) which may be encountered while reading an archive. Use in conjunction with '--extract' or '--list'.  File: tar.info, Node: Writing, Next: Scarce, Prev: Reading, Up: extract options 4.4.2 Changing How 'tar' Writes Files ------------------------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ * Menu: * Dealing with Old Files:: * Overwrite Old Files:: * Keep Old Files:: * Keep Newer Files:: * Unlink First:: * Recursive Unlink:: * Data Modification Times:: * Setting Access Permissions:: * Directory Modification Times and Permissions:: * Writing to Standard Output:: * Writing to an External Program:: * remove files::  File: tar.info, Node: Dealing with Old Files, Next: Overwrite Old Files, Up: Writing Options Controlling the Overwriting of Existing Files ..................................................... When extracting files, if 'tar' discovers that the extracted file already exists, it normally replaces the file by removing it before extracting it, to prevent confusion in the presence of hard or symbolic links. (If the existing file is a symbolic link, it is removed, not followed.) However, if a directory cannot be removed because it is nonempty, 'tar' normally overwrites its metadata (ownership, permission, etc.). The '--overwrite-dir' option enables this default behavior. To be more cautious and preserve the metadata of such a directory, use the '--no-overwrite-dir' option. To be even more cautious and prevent existing files from being replaced, use the '--keep-old-files' ('-k') option. It causes 'tar' to refuse to replace or update a file that already exists, i.e., a file with the same name as an archive member prevents extraction of that archive member. Instead, it reports an error. For example: $ ls blues $ tar -x -k -f archive.tar tar: blues: Cannot open: File exists tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors If you wish to preserve old files untouched, but don't want 'tar' to treat them as errors, use the '--skip-old-files' option. This option causes 'tar' to silently skip extracting over existing files. To be more aggressive about altering existing files, use the '--overwrite' option. It causes 'tar' to overwrite existing files and to follow existing symbolic links when extracting. Some people argue that GNU 'tar' should not hesitate to overwrite files with other files when extracting. When extracting a 'tar' archive, they expect to see a faithful copy of the state of the file system when the archive was created. It is debatable that this would always be a proper behavior. For example, suppose one has an archive in which 'usr/local' is a link to 'usr/local2'. Since then, maybe the site removed the link and renamed the whole hierarchy from '/usr/local2' to '/usr/local'. Such things happen all the time. I guess it would not be welcome at all that GNU 'tar' removes the whole hierarchy just to make room for the link to be reinstated (unless it _also_ simultaneously restores the full '/usr/local2', of course!) GNU 'tar' is indeed able to remove a whole hierarchy to reestablish a symbolic link, for example, but _only if_ '--recursive-unlink' is specified to allow this behavior. In any case, single files are silently removed. Finally, the '--unlink-first' ('-U') option can improve performance in some cases by causing 'tar' to remove files unconditionally before extracting them.  File: tar.info, Node: Overwrite Old Files, Next: Keep Old Files, Prev: Dealing with Old Files, Up: Writing Overwrite Old Files ................... '--overwrite' Overwrite existing files and directory metadata when extracting files from an archive. This causes 'tar' to write extracted files into the file system without regard to the files already on the system; i.e., files with the same names as archive members are overwritten when the archive is extracted. It also causes 'tar' to extract the ownership, permissions, and time stamps onto any preexisting files or directories. If the name of a corresponding file name is a symbolic link, the file pointed to by the symbolic link will be overwritten instead of the symbolic link itself (if this is possible). Moreover, special devices, empty directories and even symbolic links are automatically removed if they are in the way of extraction. Be careful when using the '--overwrite' option, particularly when combined with the '--absolute-names' ('-P') option, as this combination can change the contents, ownership or permissions of any file on your system. Also, many systems do not take kindly to overwriting files that are currently being executed. '--overwrite-dir' Overwrite the metadata of directories when extracting files from an archive, but remove other files before extracting.  File: tar.info, Node: Keep Old Files, Next: Keep Newer Files, Prev: Overwrite Old Files, Up: Writing Keep Old Files .............. GNU 'tar' provides two options to control its actions in a situation when it is about to extract a file which already exists on disk. '--keep-old-files' '-k' Do not replace existing files from archive. When such a file is encountered, 'tar' issues an error message. Upon end of extraction, 'tar' exits with code 2 (*note exit status::). '--skip-old-files' Do not replace existing files from archive, but do not treat that as error. Such files are silently skipped and do not affect 'tar' exit status. Additional verbosity can be obtained using '--warning=existing-file' together with that option (*note warnings::).  File: tar.info, Node: Keep Newer Files, Next: Unlink First, Prev: Keep Old Files, Up: Writing Keep Newer Files ................ '--keep-newer-files' Do not replace existing files that are newer than their archive copies. This option is meaningless with '--list' ('-t').  File: tar.info, Node: Unlink First, Next: Recursive Unlink, Prev: Keep Newer Files, Up: Writing Unlink First ............ '--unlink-first' '-U' Remove files before extracting over them. This can make 'tar' run a bit faster if you know in advance that the extracted files all need to be removed. Normally this option slows 'tar' down slightly, so it is disabled by default.  File: tar.info, Node: Recursive Unlink, Next: Data Modification Times, Prev: Unlink First, Up: Writing Recursive Unlink ................ '--recursive-unlink' When this option is specified, try removing files and directory hierarchies before extracting over them. _This is a dangerous option!_ If you specify the '--recursive-unlink' option, 'tar' removes _anything_ that keeps you from extracting a file as far as current permissions will allow it. This could include removal of the contents of a full directory hierarchy.  File: tar.info, Node: Data Modification Times, Next: Setting Access Permissions, Prev: Recursive Unlink, Up: Writing Setting Data Modification Times ............................... Normally, 'tar' sets the data modification times of extracted files to the corresponding times recorded for the files in the archive, but limits the permissions of extracted files by the current 'umask' setting. To set the data modification times of extracted files to the time when the files were extracted, use the '--touch' ('-m') option in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x'). '--touch' '-m' Sets the data modification time of extracted archive members to the time they were extracted, not the time recorded for them in the archive. Use in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x').  File: tar.info, Node: Setting Access Permissions, Next: Directory Modification Times and Permissions, Prev: Data Modification Times, Up: Writing Setting Access Permissions .......................... To set the modes (access permissions) of extracted files to those recorded for those files in the archive, use '--same-permissions' in conjunction with the '--extract' ('--get', '-x') operation. '--preserve-permissions' '--same-permissions' '-p' Set modes of extracted archive members to those recorded in the archive, instead of current umask settings. Use in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x').  File: tar.info, Node: Directory Modification Times and Permissions, Next: Writing to Standard Output, Prev: Setting Access Permissions, Up: Writing Directory Modification Times and Permissions ............................................ After successfully extracting a file member, GNU 'tar' normally restores its permissions and modification times, as described in the previous sections. This cannot be done for directories, because after extracting a directory 'tar' will almost certainly extract files into that directory and this will cause the directory modification time to be updated. Moreover, restoring that directory permissions may not permit file creation within it. Thus, restoring directory permissions and modification times must be delayed at least until all files have been extracted into that directory. GNU 'tar' restores directories using the following approach. The extracted directories are created with the mode specified in the archive, as modified by the umask of the user, which gives sufficient permissions to allow file creation. The meta-information about the directory is recorded in the temporary list of directories. When preparing to extract next archive member, GNU 'tar' checks if the directory prefix of this file contains the remembered directory. If it does not, the program assumes that all files have been extracted into that directory, restores its modification time and permissions and removes its entry from the internal list. This approach allows to correctly restore directory meta-information in the majority of cases, while keeping memory requirements sufficiently small. It is based on the fact, that most 'tar' archives use the predefined order of members: first the directory, then all the files and subdirectories in that directory. However, this is not always true. The most important exception are incremental archives (*note Incremental Dumps::). The member order in an incremental archive is reversed: first all directory members are stored, followed by other (non-directory) members. So, when extracting from incremental archives, GNU 'tar' alters the above procedure. It remembers all restored directories, and restores their meta-data only after the entire archive has been processed. Notice, that you do not need to specify any special options for that, as GNU 'tar' automatically detects archives in incremental format. There may be cases, when such processing is required for normal archives too. Consider the following example: $ tar --no-recursion -cvf archive \ foo foo/file1 bar bar/file foo/file2 foo/ foo/file1 bar/ bar/file foo/file2 During the normal operation, after encountering 'bar' GNU 'tar' will assume that all files from the directory 'foo' were already extracted and will therefore restore its timestamp and permission bits. However, after extracting 'foo/file2' the directory timestamp will be offset again. To correctly restore directory meta-information in such cases, use the '--delay-directory-restore' command line option: '--delay-directory-restore' Delays restoring of the modification times and permissions of extracted directories until the end of extraction. This way, correct meta-information is restored even if the archive has unusual member ordering. '--no-delay-directory-restore' Cancel the effect of the previous '--delay-directory-restore'. Use this option if you have used '--delay-directory-restore' in 'TAR_OPTIONS' variable (*note TAR_OPTIONS::) and wish to temporarily disable it.  File: tar.info, Node: Writing to Standard Output, Next: Writing to an External Program, Prev: Directory Modification Times and Permissions, Up: Writing Writing to Standard Output .......................... To write the extracted files to the standard output, instead of creating the files on the file system, use '--to-stdout' ('-O') in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x'). This option is useful if you are extracting files to send them through a pipe, and do not need to preserve them in the file system. If you extract multiple members, they appear on standard output concatenated, in the order they are found in the archive. '--to-stdout' '-O' Writes files to the standard output. Use only in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x'). When this option is used, instead of creating the files specified, 'tar' writes the contents of the files extracted to its standard output. This may be useful if you are only extracting the files in order to send them through a pipe. This option is meaningless with '--list' ('-t'). This can be useful, for example, if you have a tar archive containing a big file and don't want to store the file on disk before processing it. You can use a command like this: tar -xOzf foo.tgz bigfile | process or even like this if you want to process the concatenation of the files: tar -xOzf foo.tgz bigfile1 bigfile2 | process However, '--to-command' may be more convenient for use with multiple files. See the next section.  File: tar.info, Node: Writing to an External Program, Next: remove files, Prev: Writing to Standard Output, Up: Writing Writing to an External Program .............................. You can instruct 'tar' to send the contents of each extracted file to the standard input of an external program: '--to-command=COMMAND' Extract files and pipe their contents to the standard input of COMMAND. When this option is used, instead of creating the files specified, 'tar' invokes COMMAND and pipes the contents of the files to its standard output. The COMMAND may contain command line arguments (see *note Running External Commands: external, for more detail). Notice, that COMMAND is executed once for each regular file extracted. Non-regular files (directories, etc.) are ignored when this option is used. The command can obtain the information about the file it processes from the following environment variables: 'TAR_FILETYPE' Type of the file. It is a single letter with the following meaning: f Regular file d Directory l Symbolic link h Hard link b Block device c Character device Currently only regular files are supported. 'TAR_MODE' File mode, an octal number. 'TAR_FILENAME' The name of the file. 'TAR_REALNAME' Name of the file as stored in the archive. 'TAR_UNAME' Name of the file owner. 'TAR_GNAME' Name of the file owner group. 'TAR_ATIME' Time of last access. It is a decimal number, representing seconds since the Epoch. If the archive provides times with nanosecond precision, the nanoseconds are appended to the timestamp after a decimal point. 'TAR_MTIME' Time of last modification. 'TAR_CTIME' Time of last status change. 'TAR_SIZE' Size of the file. 'TAR_UID' UID of the file owner. 'TAR_GID' GID of the file owner. Additionally, the following variables contain information about tar mode and the archive being processed: 'TAR_VERSION' GNU 'tar' version number. 'TAR_ARCHIVE' The name of the archive 'tar' is processing. 'TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR' Current blocking factor (*note Blocking::). 'TAR_VOLUME' Ordinal number of the volume 'tar' is processing. 'TAR_FORMAT' Format of the archive being processed. *Note Formats::, for a complete list of archive format names. These variables are defined prior to executing the command, so you can pass them as arguments, if you prefer. For example, if the command PROC takes the member name and size as its arguments, then you could do: $ tar -x -f archive.tar \ --to-command='proc $TAR_FILENAME $TAR_SIZE' Notice single quotes to prevent variable names from being expanded by the shell when invoking 'tar'. If COMMAND exits with a non-0 status, 'tar' will print an error message similar to the following: tar: 2345: Child returned status 1 Here, '2345' is the PID of the finished process. If this behavior is not wanted, use '--ignore-command-error': '--ignore-command-error' Ignore exit codes of subprocesses. Notice that if the program exits on signal or otherwise terminates abnormally, the error message will be printed even if this option is used. '--no-ignore-command-error' Cancel the effect of any previous '--ignore-command-error' option. This option is useful if you have set '--ignore-command-error' in 'TAR_OPTIONS' (*note TAR_OPTIONS::) and wish to temporarily cancel it.  File: tar.info, Node: remove files, Prev: Writing to an External Program, Up: Writing Removing Files .............. '--remove-files' Remove files after adding them to the archive.  File: tar.info, Node: Scarce, Prev: Writing, Up: extract options 4.4.3 Coping with Scarce Resources ---------------------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ * Menu: * Starting File:: * Same Order::  File: tar.info, Node: Starting File, Next: Same Order, Up: Scarce Starting File ............. '--starting-file=NAME' '-K NAME' Starts an operation in the middle of an archive. Use in conjunction with '--extract' ('--get', '-x') or '--list' ('-t'). If a previous attempt to extract files failed due to lack of disk space, you can use '--starting-file=NAME' ('-K NAME') to start extracting only after member NAME of the archive. This assumes, of course, that there is now free space, or that you are now extracting into a different file system. (You could also choose to suspend 'tar', remove unnecessary files from the file system, and then resume the same 'tar' operation. In this case, '--starting-file' is not necessary.) See also *note interactive::, and *note exclude::.  File: tar.info, Node: Same Order, Prev: Starting File, Up: Scarce Same Order .......... '--same-order' '--preserve-order' '-s' To process large lists of file names on machines with small amounts of memory. Use in conjunction with '--compare' ('--diff', '-d'), '--list' ('-t') or '--extract' ('--get', '-x'). The '--same-order' ('--preserve-order', '-s') option tells 'tar' that the list of file names to be listed or extracted is sorted in the same order as the files in the archive. This allows a large list of names to be used, even on a small machine that would not otherwise be able to hold all the names in memory at the same time. Such a sorted list can easily be created by running 'tar -t' on the archive and editing its output. This option is probably never needed on modern computer systems.  File: tar.info, Node: backup, Next: Applications, Prev: extract options, Up: operations 4.5 Backup options ================== GNU 'tar' offers options for making backups of files before writing new versions. These options control the details of these backups. They may apply to the archive itself before it is created or rewritten, as well as individual extracted members. Other GNU programs ('cp', 'install', 'ln', and 'mv', for example) offer similar options. Backup options may prove unexpectedly useful when extracting archives containing many members having identical name, or when extracting archives on systems having file name limitations, making different members appear as having similar names through the side-effect of name truncation. When any existing file is backed up before being overwritten by extraction, then clashing files are automatically be renamed to be unique, and the true name is kept for only the last file of a series of clashing files. By using verbose mode, users may track exactly what happens. At the detail level, some decisions are still experimental, and may change in the future, we are waiting comments from our users. So, please do not learn to depend blindly on the details of the backup features. For example, currently, directories themselves are never renamed through using these options, so, extracting a file over a directory still has good chances to fail. Also, backup options apply to created archives, not only to extracted members. For created archives, backups will not be attempted when the archive is a block or character device, or when it refers to a remote file. For the sake of simplicity and efficiency, backups are made by renaming old files prior to creation or extraction, and not by copying. The original name is restored if the file creation fails. If a failure occurs after a partial extraction of a file, both the backup and the partially extracted file are kept. '--backup[=METHOD]' Back up files that are about to be overwritten or removed. Without this option, the original versions are destroyed. Use METHOD to determine the type of backups made. If METHOD is not specified, use the value of the 'VERSION_CONTROL' environment variable. And if 'VERSION_CONTROL' is not set, use the 'existing' method. This option corresponds to the Emacs variable 'version-control'; the same values for METHOD are accepted as in Emacs. This option also allows more descriptive names. The valid METHODs are: 't' 'numbered' Always make numbered backups. 'nil' 'existing' Make numbered backups of files that already have them, simple backups of the others. 'never' 'simple' Always make simple backups. '--suffix=SUFFIX' Append SUFFIX to each backup file made with '--backup'. If this option is not specified, the value of the 'SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX' environment variable is used. And if 'SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX' is not set, the default is '~', just as in Emacs.  File: tar.info, Node: Applications, Next: looking ahead, Prev: backup, Up: operations 4.6 Notable 'tar' Usages ======================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ You can easily use archive files to transport a group of files from one system to another: put all relevant files into an archive on one computer system, transfer the archive to another system, and extract the contents there. The basic transfer medium might be magnetic tape, Internet FTP, or even electronic mail (though you must encode the archive with 'uuencode' in order to transport it properly by mail). Both machines do not have to use the same operating system, as long as they both support the 'tar' program. For example, here is how you might copy a directory's contents from one disk to another, while preserving the dates, modes, owners and link-structure of all the files therein. In this case, the transfer medium is a "pipe": $ (cd sourcedir; tar -cf - .) | (cd targetdir; tar -xf -) You can avoid subshells by using '-C' option: $ tar -C sourcedir -cf - . | tar -C targetdir -xf - The command also works using long option forms: $ (cd sourcedir; tar --create --file=- . ) \ | (cd targetdir; tar --extract --file=-) or $ tar --directory sourcedir --create --file=- . \ | tar --directory targetdir --extract --file=- This is one of the easiest methods to transfer a 'tar' archive.  File: tar.info, Node: looking ahead, Prev: Applications, Up: operations 4.7 Looking Ahead: The Rest of this Manual ========================================== You have now seen how to use all eight of the operations available to 'tar', and a number of the possible options. The next chapter explains how to choose and change file and archive names, how to use files to store names of other files which you can then call as arguments to 'tar' (this can help you save time if you expect to archive the same list of files a number of times), and so forth. If there are too many files to conveniently list on the command line, you can list the names in a file, and 'tar' will read that file. *Note files::. There are various ways of causing 'tar' to skip over some files, and not archive them. *Note Choosing::.  File: tar.info, Node: Backups, Next: Choosing, Prev: operations, Up: Top 5 Performing Backups and Restoring Files **************************************** GNU 'tar' is distributed along with the scripts for performing backups and restores. Even if there is a good chance those scripts may be satisfying to you, they are not the only scripts or methods available for doing backups and restore. You may well create your own, or use more sophisticated packages dedicated to that purpose. Some users are enthusiastic about 'Amanda' (The Advanced Maryland Automatic Network Disk Archiver), a backup system developed by James da Silva 'jds@cs.umd.edu' and available on many Unix systems. This is free software, and it is available from . This chapter documents both the provided shell scripts and 'tar' options which are more specific to usage as a backup tool. To "back up" a file system means to create archives that contain all the files in that file system. Those archives can then be used to restore any or all of those files (for instance if a disk crashes or a file is accidentally deleted). File system "backups" are also called "dumps". * Menu: * Full Dumps:: Using 'tar' to Perform Full Dumps * Incremental Dumps:: Using 'tar' to Perform Incremental Dumps * Backup Levels:: Levels of Backups * Backup Parameters:: Setting Parameters for Backups and Restoration * Scripted Backups:: Using the Backup Scripts * Scripted Restoration:: Using the Restore Script  File: tar.info, Node: Full Dumps, Next: Incremental Dumps, Up: Backups 5.1 Using 'tar' to Perform Full Dumps ===================================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ Full dumps should only be made when no other people or programs are modifying files in the file system. If files are modified while 'tar' is making the backup, they may not be stored properly in the archive, in which case you won't be able to restore them if you have to. (Files not being modified are written with no trouble, and do not corrupt the entire archive.) You will want to use the '--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL' ('-V ARCHIVE-LABEL') option to give the archive a volume label, so you can tell what this archive is even if the label falls off the tape, or anything like that. Unless the file system you are dumping is guaranteed to fit on one volume, you will need to use the '--multi-volume' ('-M') option. Make sure you have enough tapes on hand to complete the backup. If you want to dump each file system separately you will need to use the '--one-file-system' option to prevent 'tar' from crossing file system boundaries when storing (sub)directories. The '--incremental' ('-G') (*note Incremental Dumps::) option is not needed, since this is a complete copy of everything in the file system, and a full restore from this backup would only be done onto a completely empty disk. Unless you are in a hurry, and trust the 'tar' program (and your tapes), it is a good idea to use the '--verify' ('-W') option, to make sure your files really made it onto the dump properly. This will also detect cases where the file was modified while (or just after) it was being archived. Not all media (notably cartridge tapes) are capable of being verified, unfortunately.  File: tar.info, Node: Incremental Dumps, Next: Backup Levels, Prev: Full Dumps, Up: Backups 5.2 Using 'tar' to Perform Incremental Dumps ============================================ "Incremental backup" is a special form of GNU 'tar' archive that stores additional metadata so that exact state of the file system can be restored when extracting the archive. GNU 'tar' currently offers two options for handling incremental backups: '--listed-incremental=SNAPSHOT-FILE' ('-g SNAPSHOT-FILE') and '--incremental' ('-G'). The option '--listed-incremental' instructs tar to operate on an incremental archive with additional metadata stored in a standalone file, called a "snapshot file". The purpose of this file is to help determine which files have been changed, added or deleted since the last backup, so that the next incremental backup will contain only modified files. The name of the snapshot file is given as an argument to the option: '--listed-incremental=FILE' '-g FILE' Handle incremental backups with snapshot data in FILE. To create an incremental backup, you would use '--listed-incremental' together with '--create' (*note create::). For example: $ tar --create \ --file=archive.1.tar \ --listed-incremental=/var/log/usr.snar \ /usr This will create in 'archive.1.tar' an incremental backup of the '/usr' file system, storing additional metadata in the file '/var/log/usr.snar'. If this file does not exist, it will be created. The created archive will then be a "level 0 backup"; please see the next section for more on backup levels. Otherwise, if the file '/var/log/usr.snar' exists, it determines which files are modified. In this case only these files will be stored in the archive. Suppose, for example, that after running the above command, you delete file '/usr/doc/old' and create directory '/usr/local/db' with the following contents: $ ls /usr/local/db /usr/local/db/data /usr/local/db/index Some time later you create another incremental backup. You will then see: $ tar --create \ --file=archive.2.tar \ --listed-incremental=/var/log/usr.snar \ /usr tar: usr/local/db: Directory is new usr/local/db/ usr/local/db/data usr/local/db/index The created archive 'archive.2.tar' will contain only these three members. This archive is called a "level 1 backup". Notice that '/var/log/usr.snar' will be updated with the new data, so if you plan to create more 'level 1' backups, it is necessary to create a working copy of the snapshot file before running 'tar'. The above example will then be modified as follows: $ cp /var/log/usr.snar /var/log/usr.snar-1 $ tar --create \ --file=archive.2.tar \ --listed-incremental=/var/log/usr.snar-1 \ /usr You can force 'level 0' backups either by removing the snapshot file before running 'tar', or by supplying the '--level=0' option, e.g.: $ tar --create \ --file=archive.2.tar \ --listed-incremental=/var/log/usr.snar-0 \ --level=0 \ /usr Incremental dumps depend crucially on time stamps, so the results are unreliable if you modify a file's time stamps during dumping (e.g., with the '--atime-preserve=replace' option), or if you set the clock backwards. Metadata stored in snapshot files include device numbers, which, obviously are supposed to be non-volatile values. However, it turns out that NFS devices have undependable values when an automounter gets in the picture. This can lead to a great deal of spurious redumping in incremental dumps, so it is somewhat useless to compare two NFS devices numbers over time. The solution implemented currently is to consider all NFS devices as being equal when it comes to comparing directories; this is fairly gross, but there does not seem to be a better way to go. Apart from using NFS, there are a number of cases where relying on device numbers can cause spurious redumping of unmodified files. For example, this occurs when archiving LVM snapshot volumes. To avoid this, use '--no-check-device' option: '--no-check-device' Do not rely on device numbers when preparing a list of changed files for an incremental dump. '--check-device' Use device numbers when preparing a list of changed files for an incremental dump. This is the default behavior. The purpose of this option is to undo the effect of the '--no-check-device' if it was given in 'TAR_OPTIONS' environment variable (*note TAR_OPTIONS::). There is also another way to cope with changing device numbers. It is described in detail in *note Fixing Snapshot Files::. Note that incremental archives use 'tar' extensions and may not be readable by non-GNU versions of the 'tar' program. To extract from the incremental dumps, use '--listed-incremental' together with '--extract' option (*note extracting files::). In this case, 'tar' does not need to access snapshot file, since all the data necessary for extraction are stored in the archive itself. So, when extracting, you can give whatever argument to '--listed-incremental', the usual practice is to use '--listed-incremental=/dev/null'. Alternatively, you can use '--incremental', which needs no arguments. In general, '--incremental' ('-G') can be used as a shortcut for '--listed-incremental' when listing or extracting incremental backups (for more information regarding this option, *note incremental-op::). When extracting from the incremental backup GNU 'tar' attempts to restore the exact state the file system had when the archive was created. In particular, it will _delete_ those files in the file system that did not exist in their directories when the archive was created. If you have created several levels of incremental files, then in order to restore the exact contents the file system had when the last level was created, you will need to restore from all backups in turn. Continuing our example, to restore the state of '/usr' file system, one would do(1): $ tar --extract \ --listed-incremental=/dev/null \ --file archive.1.tar $ tar --extract \ --listed-incremental=/dev/null \ --file archive.2.tar To list the contents of an incremental archive, use '--list' (*note list::), as usual. To obtain more information about the archive, use '--listed-incremental' or '--incremental' combined with two '--verbose' options(2): tar --list --incremental --verbose --verbose --file archive.tar This command will print, for each directory in the archive, the list of files in that directory at the time the archive was created. This information is put out in a format which is both human-readable and unambiguous for a program: each file name is printed as X FILE where X is a letter describing the status of the file: 'Y' if the file is present in the archive, 'N' if the file is not included in the archive, or a 'D' if the file is a directory (and is included in the archive). *Note Dumpdir::, for the detailed description of dumpdirs and status codes. Each such line is terminated by a newline character. The last line is followed by an additional newline to indicate the end of the data. The option '--incremental' ('-G') gives the same behavior as '--listed-incremental' when used with '--list' and '--extract' options. When used with '--create' option, it creates an incremental archive without creating snapshot file. Thus, it is impossible to create several levels of incremental backups with '--incremental' option. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Notice, that since both archives were created without '-P' option (*note absolute::), these commands should be run from the root file system. (2) Two '--verbose' options were selected to avoid breaking usual verbose listing output ('--list --verbose') when using in scripts. Versions of GNU 'tar' up to 1.15.1 used to dump verbatim binary contents of the DUMPDIR header (with terminating nulls) when '--incremental' or '--listed-incremental' option was given, no matter what the verbosity level. This behavior, and, especially, the binary output it produced were considered inconvenient and were changed in version 1.16.  File: tar.info, Node: Backup Levels, Next: Backup Parameters, Prev: Incremental Dumps, Up: Backups 5.3 Levels of Backups ===================== An archive containing all the files in the file system is called a "full backup" or "full dump". You could insure your data by creating a full dump every day. This strategy, however, would waste a substantial amount of archive media and user time, as unchanged files are daily re-archived. It is more efficient to do a full dump only occasionally. To back up files between full dumps, you can use "incremental dumps". A "level one" dump archives all the files that have changed since the last full dump. A typical dump strategy would be to perform a full dump once a week, and a level one dump once a day. This means some versions of files will in fact be archived more than once, but this dump strategy makes it possible to restore a file system to within one day of accuracy by only extracting two archives--the last weekly (full) dump and the last daily (level one) dump. The only information lost would be in files changed or created since the last daily backup. (Doing dumps more than once a day is usually not worth the trouble.) GNU 'tar' comes with scripts you can use to do full and level-one (actually, even level-two and so on) dumps. Using scripts (shell programs) to perform backups and restoration is a convenient and reliable alternative to typing out file name lists and 'tar' commands by hand. Before you use these scripts, you need to edit the file 'backup-specs', which specifies parameters used by the backup scripts and by the restore script. This file is usually located in '/etc/backup' directory. *Note Backup Parameters::, for its detailed description. Once the backup parameters are set, you can perform backups or restoration by running the appropriate script. The name of the backup script is 'backup'. The name of the restore script is 'restore'. The following sections describe their use in detail. _Please Note:_ The backup and restoration scripts are designed to be used together. While it is possible to restore files by hand from an archive which was created using a backup script, and to create an archive by hand which could then be extracted using the restore script, it is easier to use the scripts. *Note Incremental Dumps::, before making such an attempt.  File: tar.info, Node: Backup Parameters, Next: Scripted Backups, Prev: Backup Levels, Up: Backups 5.4 Setting Parameters for Backups and Restoration ================================================== The file 'backup-specs' specifies backup parameters for the backup and restoration scripts provided with 'tar'. You must edit 'backup-specs' to fit your system configuration and schedule before using these scripts. Syntactically, 'backup-specs' is a shell script, containing mainly variable assignments. However, any valid shell construct is allowed in this file. Particularly, you may wish to define functions within that script (e.g., see 'RESTORE_BEGIN' below). For more information about shell script syntax, please refer to the definition of the Shell Command Language (http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#ta g_02). See also *note Bash Features: (bashref)Top. The shell variables controlling behavior of 'backup' and 'restore' are described in the following subsections. * Menu: * General-Purpose Variables:: * Magnetic Tape Control:: * User Hooks:: * backup-specs example:: An Example Text of 'Backup-specs'  File: tar.info, Node: General-Purpose Variables, Next: Magnetic Tape Control, Up: Backup Parameters 5.4.1 General-Purpose Variables ------------------------------- -- Backup variable: ADMINISTRATOR The user name of the backup administrator. 'Backup' scripts sends a backup report to this address. -- Backup variable: BACKUP_HOUR The hour at which the backups are done. This can be a number from 0 to 23, or the time specification in form HOURS:MINUTES, or the string 'now'. This variable is used by 'backup'. Its value may be overridden using '--time' option (*note Scripted Backups::). -- Backup variable: TAPE_FILE The device 'tar' writes the archive to. If TAPE_FILE is a remote archive (*note remote-dev::), backup script will suppose that your 'mt' is able to access remote devices. If RSH (*note RSH::) is set, '--rsh-command' option will be added to invocations of 'mt'. -- Backup variable: BLOCKING The blocking factor 'tar' will use when writing the dump archive. *Note Blocking Factor::. -- Backup variable: BACKUP_DIRS A list of file systems to be dumped (for 'backup'), or restored (for 'restore'). You can include any directory name in the list -- subdirectories on that file system will be included, regardless of how they may look to other networked machines. Subdirectories on other file systems will be ignored. The host name specifies which host to run 'tar' on, and should normally be the host that actually contains the file system. However, the host machine must have GNU 'tar' installed, and must be able to access the directory containing the backup scripts and their support files using the same file name that is used on the machine where the scripts are run (i.e., what 'pwd' will print when in that directory on that machine). If the host that contains the file system does not have this capability, you can specify another host as long as it can access the file system through NFS. If the list of file systems is very long you may wish to put it in a separate file. This file is usually named '/etc/backup/dirs', but this name may be overridden in 'backup-specs' using 'DIRLIST' variable. -- Backup variable: DIRLIST The name of the file that contains a list of file systems to backup or restore. By default it is '/etc/backup/dirs'. -- Backup variable: BACKUP_FILES A list of individual files to be dumped (for 'backup'), or restored (for 'restore'). These should be accessible from the machine on which the backup script is run. If the list of individual files is very long you may wish to store it in a separate file. This file is usually named '/etc/backup/files', but this name may be overridden in 'backup-specs' using 'FILELIST' variable. -- Backup variable: FILELIST The name of the file that contains a list of individual files to backup or restore. By default it is '/etc/backup/files'. -- Backup variable: MT Full file name of 'mt' binary. -- Backup variable: RSH Full file name of 'rsh' binary or its equivalent. You may wish to set it to 'ssh', to improve security. In this case you will have to use public key authentication. -- Backup variable: RSH_COMMAND Full file name of 'rsh' binary on remote machines. This will be passed via '--rsh-command' option to the remote invocation of GNU 'tar'. -- Backup variable: VOLNO_FILE Name of temporary file to hold volume numbers. This needs to be accessible by all the machines which have file systems to be dumped. -- Backup variable: XLIST Name of "exclude file list". An "exclude file list" is a file located on the remote machine and containing the list of files to be excluded from the backup. Exclude file lists are searched in /etc/tar-backup directory. A common use for exclude file lists is to exclude files containing security-sensitive information (e.g., '/etc/shadow' from backups). This variable affects only 'backup'. -- Backup variable: SLEEP_TIME Time to sleep between dumps of any two successive file systems This variable affects only 'backup'. -- Backup variable: DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT Script to be run when it's time to insert a new tape in for the next volume. Administrators may want to tailor this script for their site. If this variable isn't set, GNU 'tar' will display its built-in prompt, and will expect confirmation from the console. For the description of the default prompt, see *note change volume prompt::. -- Backup variable: SLEEP_MESSAGE Message to display on the terminal while waiting for dump time. Usually this will just be some literal text. -- Backup variable: TAR Full file name of the GNU 'tar' executable. If this is not set, backup scripts will search 'tar' in the current shell path.  File: tar.info, Node: Magnetic Tape Control, Next: User Hooks, Prev: General-Purpose Variables, Up: Backup Parameters 5.4.2 Magnetic Tape Control --------------------------- Backup scripts access tape device using special "hook functions". These functions take a single argument -- the name of the tape device. Their names are kept in the following variables: -- Backup variable: MT_BEGIN The name of "begin" function. This function is called before accessing the drive. By default it retensions the tape: MT_BEGIN=mt_begin mt_begin() { mt -f "$1" retension } -- Backup variable: MT_REWIND The name of "rewind" function. The default definition is as follows: MT_REWIND=mt_rewind mt_rewind() { mt -f "$1" rewind } -- Backup variable: MT_OFFLINE The name of the function switching the tape off line. By default it is defined as follows: MT_OFFLINE=mt_offline mt_offline() { mt -f "$1" offl } -- Backup variable: MT_STATUS The name of the function used to obtain the status of the archive device, including error count. Default definition: MT_STATUS=mt_status mt_status() { mt -f "$1" status }  File: tar.info, Node: User Hooks, Next: backup-specs example, Prev: Magnetic Tape Control, Up: Backup Parameters 5.4.3 User Hooks ---------------- "User hooks" are shell functions executed before and after each 'tar' invocation. Thus, there are "backup hooks", which are executed before and after dumping each file system, and "restore hooks", executed before and after restoring a file system. Each user hook is a shell function taking four arguments: -- User Hook Function: hook LEVEL HOST FS FSNAME Its arguments are: LEVEL Current backup or restore level. HOST Name or IP address of the host machine being dumped or restored. FS Full file name of the file system being dumped or restored. FSNAME File system name with directory separators replaced with colons. This is useful, e.g., for creating unique files. Following variables keep the names of user hook functions: -- Backup variable: DUMP_BEGIN Dump begin function. It is executed before dumping the file system. -- Backup variable: DUMP_END Executed after dumping the file system. -- Backup variable: RESTORE_BEGIN Executed before restoring the file system. -- Backup variable: RESTORE_END Executed after restoring the file system.  File: tar.info, Node: backup-specs example, Prev: User Hooks, Up: Backup Parameters 5.4.4 An Example Text of 'Backup-specs' --------------------------------------- The following is an example of 'backup-specs': # site-specific parameters for file system backup. ADMINISTRATOR=friedman BACKUP_HOUR=1 TAPE_FILE=/dev/nrsmt0 # Use ssh instead of the less secure rsh RSH=/usr/bin/ssh RSH_COMMAND=/usr/bin/ssh # Override MT_STATUS function: my_status() { mts -t $TAPE_FILE } MT_STATUS=my_status # Disable MT_OFFLINE function MT_OFFLINE=: BLOCKING=124 BACKUP_DIRS=" albert:/fs/fsf apple-gunkies:/gd albert:/fs/gd2 albert:/fs/gp geech:/usr/jla churchy:/usr/roland albert:/ albert:/usr apple-gunkies:/ apple-gunkies:/usr gnu:/hack gnu:/u apple-gunkies:/com/mailer/gnu apple-gunkies:/com/archive/gnu" BACKUP_FILES="/com/mailer/aliases /com/mailer/league*[a-z]"  File: tar.info, Node: Scripted Backups, Next: Scripted Restoration, Prev: Backup Parameters, Up: Backups 5.5 Using the Backup Scripts ============================ The syntax for running a backup script is: backup --level=LEVEL --time=TIME The '--level' option requests the dump level. Thus, to produce a full dump, specify '--level=0' (this is the default, so '--level' may be omitted if its value is '0')(1). The '--time' option determines when should the backup be run. TIME may take three forms: HH:MM The dump must be run at HH hours MM minutes. HH The dump must be run at HH hours. now The dump must be run immediately. You should start a script with a tape or disk mounted. Once you start a script, it prompts you for new tapes or disks as it needs them. Media volumes don't have to correspond to archive files -- a multi-volume archive can be started in the middle of a tape that already contains the end of another multi-volume archive. The 'restore' script prompts for media by its archive volume, so to avoid an error message you should keep track of which tape (or disk) contains which volume of the archive (*note Scripted Restoration::). The backup scripts write two files on the file system. The first is a record file in '/etc/tar-backup/', which is used by the scripts to store and retrieve information about which files were dumped. This file is not meant to be read by humans, and should not be deleted by them. *Note Snapshot Files::, for a more detailed explanation of this file. The second file is a log file containing the names of the file systems and files dumped, what time the backup was made, and any error messages that were generated, as well as how much space was left in the media volume after the last volume of the archive was written. You should check this log file after every backup. The file name is 'log-MM-DD-YYYY-level-N', where MM-DD-YYYY represents current date, and N represents current dump level number. The script also prints the name of each system being dumped to the standard output. Following is the full list of options accepted by 'backup' script: '-l LEVEL' '--level=LEVEL' Do backup level LEVEL (default 0). '-f' '--force' Force backup even if today's log file already exists. '-v[LEVEL]' '--verbose[=LEVEL]' Set verbosity level. The higher the level is, the more debugging information will be output during execution. Default LEVEL is 100, which means the highest debugging level. '-t START-TIME' '--time=START-TIME' Wait till TIME, then do backup. '-h' '--help' Display short help message and exit. '-V' '--version' Display information about the program's name, version, origin and legal status, all on standard output, and then exit successfully. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) For backward compatibility, the 'backup' will also try to deduce the requested dump level from the name of the script itself. If the name consists of a string 'level-' followed by a single decimal digit, that digit is taken as the dump level number. Thus, you may create a link from 'backup' to 'level-1' and then run 'level-1' whenever you need to create a level one dump.  File: tar.info, Node: Scripted Restoration, Prev: Scripted Backups, Up: Backups 5.6 Using the Restore Script ============================ To restore files that were archived using a scripted backup, use the 'restore' script. Its usage is quite straightforward. In the simplest form, invoke 'restore --all', it will then restore all the file systems and files specified in 'backup-specs' (*note BACKUP_DIRS: General-Purpose Variables.). You may select the file systems (and/or files) to restore by giving 'restore' a list of "patterns" in its command line. For example, running restore 'albert:*' will restore all file systems on the machine 'albert'. A more complicated example: restore 'albert:*' '*:/var' This command will restore all file systems on the machine 'albert' as well as '/var' file system on all machines. By default 'restore' will start restoring files from the lowest available dump level (usually zero) and will continue through all available dump levels. There may be situations where such a thorough restore is not necessary. For example, you may wish to restore only files from the recent level one backup. To do so, use '--level' option, as shown in the example below: restore --level=1 The full list of options accepted by 'restore' follows: '-a' '--all' Restore all file systems and files specified in 'backup-specs'. '-l LEVEL' '--level=LEVEL' Start restoring from the given backup level, instead of the default 0. '-v[LEVEL]' '--verbose[=LEVEL]' Set verbosity level. The higher the level is, the more debugging information will be output during execution. Default LEVEL is 100, which means the highest debugging level. '-h' '--help' Display short help message and exit. '-V' '--version' Display information about the program's name, version, origin and legal status, all on standard output, and then exit successfully. You should start the restore script with the media containing the first volume of the archive mounted. The script will prompt for other volumes as they are needed. If the archive is on tape, you don't need to rewind the tape to to its beginning--if the tape head is positioned past the beginning of the archive, the script will rewind the tape as needed. *Note Tape Positioning::, for a discussion of tape positioning. *Warning:* The script will delete files from the active file system if they were not in the file system when the archive was made. *Note Incremental Dumps::, for an explanation of how the script makes that determination.  File: tar.info, Node: Choosing, Next: Date input formats, Prev: Backups, Up: Top 6 Choosing Files and Names for 'tar' ************************************ Certain options to 'tar' enable you to specify a name for your archive. Other options let you decide which files to include or exclude from the archive, based on when or whether files were modified, whether the file names do or don't match specified patterns, or whether files are in specified directories. This chapter discusses these options in detail. * Menu: * file:: Choosing the Archive's Name * Selecting Archive Members:: * files:: Reading Names from a File * exclude:: Excluding Some Files * wildcards:: Wildcards Patterns and Matching * quoting styles:: Ways of Quoting Special Characters in Names * transform:: Modifying File and Member Names * after:: Operating Only on New Files * recurse:: Descending into Directories * one:: Crossing File System Boundaries  File: tar.info, Node: file, Next: Selecting Archive Members, Up: Choosing 6.1 Choosing and Naming Archive Files ===================================== By default, 'tar' uses an archive file name that was compiled when it was built on the system; usually this name refers to some physical tape drive on the machine. However, the person who installed 'tar' on the system may not have set the default to a meaningful value as far as most users are concerned. As a result, you will usually want to tell 'tar' where to find (or create) the archive. The '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' ('-f ARCHIVE-NAME') option allows you to either specify or name a file to use as the archive instead of the default archive file location. '--file=ARCHIVE-NAME' '-f ARCHIVE-NAME' Name the archive to create or operate on. Use in conjunction with any operation. For example, in this 'tar' command, $ tar -cvf collection.tar blues folk jazz 'collection.tar' is the name of the archive. It must directly follow the '-f' option, since whatever directly follows '-f' _will_ end up naming the archive. If you neglect to specify an archive name, you may end up overwriting a file in the working directory with the archive you create since 'tar' will use this file's name for the archive name. An archive can be saved as a file in the file system, sent through a pipe or over a network, or written to an I/O device such as a tape, floppy disk, or CD write drive. If you do not name the archive, 'tar' uses the value of the environment variable 'TAPE' as the file name for the archive. If that is not available, 'tar' uses a default, compiled-in archive name, usually that for tape unit zero (i.e., '/dev/tu00'). If you use '-' as an ARCHIVE-NAME, 'tar' reads the archive from standard input (when listing or extracting files), or writes it to standard output (when creating an archive). If you use '-' as an ARCHIVE-NAME when modifying an archive, 'tar' reads the original archive from its standard input and writes the entire new archive to its standard output. The following example is a convenient way of copying directory hierarchy from 'sourcedir' to 'targetdir'. $ (cd sourcedir; tar -cf - .) | (cd targetdir; tar -xpf -) The '-C' option allows to avoid using subshells: $ tar -C sourcedir -cf - . | tar -C targetdir -xpf - In both examples above, the leftmost 'tar' invocation archives the contents of 'sourcedir' to the standard output, while the rightmost one reads this archive from its standard input and extracts it. The '-p' option tells it to restore permissions of the extracted files. To specify an archive file on a device attached to a remote machine, use the following: --file=HOSTNAME:/DEV/FILE-NAME 'tar' will set up the remote connection, if possible, and prompt you for a username and password. If you use '--file=@HOSTNAME:/DEV/FILE-NAME', 'tar' will attempt to set up the remote connection using your username as the username on the remote machine. If the archive file name includes a colon (':'), then it is assumed to be a file on another machine. If the archive file is 'USER@HOST:FILE', then FILE is used on the host HOST. The remote host is accessed using the 'rsh' program, with a username of USER. If the username is omitted (along with the '@' sign), then your user name will be used. (This is the normal 'rsh' behavior.) It is necessary for the remote machine, in addition to permitting your 'rsh' access, to have the 'rmt' program installed (this command is included in the GNU 'tar' distribution and by default is installed under 'PREFIX/libexec/rmt', where PREFIX means your installation prefix). If you need to use a file whose name includes a colon, then the remote tape drive behavior can be inhibited by using the '--force-local' option. When the archive is being created to '/dev/null', GNU 'tar' tries to minimize input and output operations. The Amanda backup system, when used with GNU 'tar', has an initial sizing pass which uses this feature.  File: tar.info, Node: Selecting Archive Members, Next: files, Prev: file, Up: Choosing 6.2 Selecting Archive Members ============================= "File Name arguments" specify which files in the file system 'tar' operates on, when creating or adding to an archive, or which archive members 'tar' operates on, when reading or deleting from an archive. *Note Operations::. To specify file names, you can include them as the last arguments on the command line, as follows: tar OPERATION [OPTION1 OPTION2 ...] [FILE NAME-1 FILE NAME-2 ...] If a file name begins with dash ('-'), precede it with '--add-file' option to prevent it from being treated as an option. By default GNU 'tar' attempts to "unquote" each file or member name, replacing "escape sequences" according to the following table: Escape Replaced with ----------------------------------------------------------- \a Audible bell (ASCII 7) \b Backspace (ASCII 8) \f Form feed (ASCII 12) \n New line (ASCII 10) \r Carriage return (ASCII 13) \t Horizontal tabulation (ASCII 9) \v Vertical tabulation (ASCII 11) \? ASCII 127 \N ASCII N (N should be an octal number of up to 3 digits) A backslash followed by any other symbol is retained. This default behavior is controlled by the following command line option: '--unquote' Enable unquoting input file or member names (default). '--no-unquote' Disable unquoting input file or member names. If you specify a directory name as a file name argument, all the files in that directory are operated on by 'tar'. If you do not specify files, 'tar' behavior differs depending on the operation mode as described below: When 'tar' is invoked with '--create' ('-c'), 'tar' will stop immediately, reporting the following: $ tar cf a.tar tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information. If you specify either '--list' ('-t') or '--extract' ('--get', '-x'), 'tar' operates on all the archive members in the archive. If run with '--diff' option, tar will compare the archive with the contents of the current working directory. If you specify any other operation, 'tar' does nothing. By default, 'tar' takes file names from the command line. However, there are other ways to specify file or member names, or to modify the manner in which 'tar' selects the files or members upon which to operate. In general, these methods work both for specifying the names of files and archive members.  File: tar.info, Node: files, Next: exclude, Prev: Selecting Archive Members, Up: Choosing 6.3 Reading Names from a File ============================= Instead of giving the names of files or archive members on the command line, you can put the names into a file, and then use the '--files-from=FILE-OF-NAMES' ('-T FILE-OF-NAMES') option to 'tar'. Give the name of the file which contains the list of files to include as the argument to '--files-from'. In the list, the file names should be separated by newlines. You will frequently use this option when you have generated the list of files to archive with the 'find' utility. '--files-from=FILE-NAME' '-T FILE-NAME' Get names to extract or create from file FILE-NAME. If you give a single dash as a file name for '--files-from', (i.e., you specify either '--files-from=-' or '-T -'), then the file names are read from standard input. Unless you are running 'tar' with '--create', you cannot use both '--files-from=-' and '--file=-' ('-f -') in the same command. Any number of '-T' options can be given in the command line. The following example shows how to use 'find' to generate a list of files smaller than 400K in length and put that list into a file called 'small-files'. You can then use the '-T' option to 'tar' to specify the files from that file, 'small-files', to create the archive 'little.tgz'. (The '-z' option to 'tar' compresses the archive with 'gzip'; *note gzip:: for more information.) $ find . -size -400 -print > small-files $ tar -c -v -z -T small-files -f little.tgz By default, each line read from the file list is first stripped off any leading and trailing whitespace. If the resulting string begins with '-' character, it is considered a 'tar' option and is processed accordingly(1). For example, the common use of this feature is to change to another directory by specifying '-C' option: $ cat list -C/etc passwd hosts -C/lib libc.a $ tar -c -f foo.tar --files-from list In this example, 'tar' will first switch to '/etc' directory and add files 'passwd' and 'hosts' to the archive. Then it will change to '/lib' directory and will archive the file 'libc.a'. Thus, the resulting archive 'foo.tar' will contain: $ tar tf foo.tar passwd hosts libc.a Note, that any options used in the file list remain in effect for the rest of the command line. For example, using the same 'list' file as above, the following command $ tar -c -f foo.tar --files-from list libcurses.a will look for file 'libcurses.a' in the directory '/lib', because it was used with the last '-C' option (*note Position-Sensitive Options::). If such option handling is undesirable, use the '--verbatim-files-from' option. When this option is in effect, each line read from the file list is treated as a file name. Notice, that this means, in particular, that no whitespace trimming is performed. The '--verbatim-files-from' affects all '-T' options that follow it in the command line. The default behavior can be restored using '--no-verbatim-files-from' option. To disable option handling for a single file name, use the '--add-file' option, e.g.: '--add-file=--my-file'. You can use any GNU 'tar' command line options in the file list file, including '--files-from' option itself. This allows for including contents of a file list into another file list file. Note however, that options that control file list processing, such as '--verbatim-files-from' or '--null' won't affect the file they appear in. They will affect next '--files-from' option, if there is any. * Menu: * nul:: ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Versions of GNU 'tar' up to 1.15.1 recognized only '-C' option in file lists, and only if the option and its argument occupied two consecutive lines.  File: tar.info, Node: nul, Up: files 6.3.1 'NUL'-Terminated File Names --------------------------------- The '--null' option causes '--files-from=FILE-OF-NAMES' ('-T FILE-OF-NAMES') to read file names terminated by a 'NUL' instead of a newline, so files whose names contain newlines can be archived using '--files-from'. '--null' Only consider 'NUL'-terminated file names, instead of files that terminate in a newline. '--no-null' Undo the effect of any previous '--null' option. The '--null' option is just like the one in GNU 'xargs' and 'cpio', and is useful with the '-print0' predicate of GNU 'find'. In 'tar', '--null' also disables special handling for file names that begin with dash (similar to '--verbatim-files-from' option). This example shows how to use 'find' to generate a list of files larger than 800K in length and put that list into a file called 'long-files'. The '-print0' option to 'find' is just like '-print', except that it separates files with a 'NUL' rather than with a newline. You can then run 'tar' with both the '--null' and '-T' options to specify that 'tar' gets the files from that file, 'long-files', to create the archive 'big.tgz'. The '--null' option to 'tar' will cause 'tar' to recognize the 'NUL' separator between files. $ find . -size +800 -print0 > long-files $ tar -c -v --null --files-from=long-files --file=big.tar The '--no-null' option can be used if you need to read both 'NUL'-terminated and newline-terminated files on the same command line. For example, if 'flist' is a newline-terminated file, then the following command can be used to combine it with the above command: $ find . -size +800 -print0 | tar -c -f big.tar --null -T - --no-null -T flist This example uses short options for typographic reasons, to avoid very long lines. GNU 'tar' is tries to automatically detect 'NUL'-terminated file lists, so in many cases it is safe to use them even without the '--null' option. In this case 'tar' will print a warning and continue reading such a file as if '--null' were actually given: $ find . -size +800 -print0 | tar -c -f big.tar -T - tar: -: file name read contains nul character The null terminator, however, remains in effect only for this particular file, any following '-T' options will assume newline termination. Of course, the null autodetection applies to these eventual surplus '-T' options as well.  File: tar.info, Node: exclude, Next: wildcards, Prev: files, Up: Choosing 6.4 Excluding Some Files ======================== To avoid operating on files whose names match a particular pattern, use the '--exclude' or '--exclude-from' options. '--exclude=PATTERN' Causes 'tar' to ignore files that match the PATTERN. The '--exclude=PATTERN' option prevents any file or member whose name matches the shell wildcard (PATTERN) from being operated on. For example, to create an archive with all the contents of the directory 'src' except for files whose names end in '.o', use the command 'tar -cf src.tar --exclude='*.o' src'. You may give multiple '--exclude' options. '--exclude-from=FILE' '-X FILE' Causes 'tar' to ignore files that match the patterns listed in FILE. Use the '--exclude-from' option to read a list of patterns, one per line, from FILE; 'tar' will ignore files matching those patterns. Thus if 'tar' is called as 'tar -c -X foo .' and the file 'foo' contains a single line '*.o', no files whose names end in '.o' will be added to the archive. Notice, that lines from FILE are read verbatim. One of the frequent errors is leaving some extra whitespace after a file name, which is difficult to catch using text editors. However, empty lines are OK. When archiving directories that are under some version control system (VCS), it is often convenient to read exclusion patterns from this VCS' ignore files (e.g. '.cvsignore', '.gitignore', etc.) The following options provide such possibility: '--exclude-vcs-ignores' Before archiving a directory, see if it contains any of the following files: 'cvsignore', '.gitignore', '.bzrignore', or '.hgignore'. If so, read ignore patterns from these files. The patterns are treated much as the corresponding VCS would treat them, i.e.: '.cvsignore' Contains shell-style globbing patterns that apply only to the directory where this file resides. No comments are allowed in the file. Empty lines are ignored. '.gitignore' Contains shell-style globbing patterns. Applies to the directory where '.gitfile' is located and all its subdirectories. Any line beginning with a '#' is a comment. Backslash escapes the comment character. '.bzrignore' Contains shell globbing-patterns and regular expressions (if prefixed with 'RE:'(1). Patterns affect the directory and all its subdirectories. Any line beginning with a '#' is a comment. '.hgignore' Contains posix regular expressions(2). The line 'syntax: glob' switches to shell globbing patterns. The line 'syntax: regexp' switches back. Comments begin with a '#'. Patterns affect the directory and all its subdirectories. '--exclude-ignore=FILE' Before dumping a directory, 'tar' checks if it contains FILE. If so, exclusion patterns are read from this file. The patterns affect only the directory itself. '--exclude-ignore-recursive=FILE' Same as '--exclude-ignore', except that the patterns read affect both the directory where FILE resides and all its subdirectories. '--exclude-vcs' Exclude files and directories used by following version control systems: 'CVS', 'RCS', 'SCCS', 'SVN', 'Arch', 'Bazaar', 'Mercurial', and 'Darcs'. As of version 1.29, the following files are excluded: * 'CVS/', and everything under it * 'RCS/', and everything under it * 'SCCS/', and everything under it * '.git/', and everything under it * '.gitignore' * '.gitmodules' * '.gitattributes' * '.cvsignore' * '.svn/', and everything under it * '.arch-ids/', and everything under it * '{arch}/', and everything under it * '=RELEASE-ID' * '=meta-update' * '=update' * '.bzr' * '.bzrignore' * '.bzrtags' * '.hg' * '.hgignore' * '.hgrags' * '_darcs' '--exclude-backups' Exclude backup and lock files. This option causes exclusion of files that match the following shell globbing patterns: .#* *~ #*# When creating an archive, the '--exclude-caches' option family causes 'tar' to exclude all directories that contain a "cache directory tag". A cache directory tag is a short file with the well-known name 'CACHEDIR.TAG' and having a standard header specified in . Various applications write cache directory tags into directories they use to hold regenerable, non-precious data, so that such data can be more easily excluded from backups. There are three 'exclude-caches' options, each providing a different exclusion semantics: '--exclude-caches' Do not archive the contents of the directory, but archive the directory itself and the 'CACHEDIR.TAG' file. '--exclude-caches-under' Do not archive the contents of the directory, nor the 'CACHEDIR.TAG' file, archive only the directory itself. '--exclude-caches-all' Omit directories containing 'CACHEDIR.TAG' file entirely. Another option family, '--exclude-tag', provides a generalization of this concept. It takes a single argument, a file name to look for. Any directory that contains this file will be excluded from the dump. Similarly to 'exclude-caches', there are three options in this option family: '--exclude-tag=FILE' Do not dump the contents of the directory, but dump the directory itself and the FILE. '--exclude-tag-under=FILE' Do not dump the contents of the directory, nor the FILE, archive only the directory itself. '--exclude-tag-all=FILE' Omit directories containing FILE file entirely. Multiple '--exclude-tag*' options can be given. For example, given this directory: $ find dir dir dir/blues dir/jazz dir/folk dir/folk/tagfile dir/folk/sanjuan dir/folk/trote The '--exclude-tag' will produce the following: $ tar -cf archive.tar --exclude-tag=tagfile -v dir dir/ dir/blues dir/jazz dir/folk/ tar: dir/folk/: contains a cache directory tag tagfile; contents not dumped dir/folk/tagfile Both the 'dir/folk' directory and its tagfile are preserved in the archive, however the rest of files in this directory are not. Now, using the '--exclude-tag-under' option will exclude 'tagfile' from the dump, while still preserving the directory itself, as shown in this example: $ tar -cf archive.tar --exclude-tag-under=tagfile -v dir dir/ dir/blues dir/jazz dir/folk/ ./tar: dir/folk/: contains a cache directory tag tagfile; contents not dumped Finally, using '--exclude-tag-all' omits the 'dir/folk' directory entirely: $ tar -cf archive.tar --exclude-tag-all=tagfile -v dir dir/ dir/blues dir/jazz ./tar: dir/folk/: contains a cache directory tag tagfile; directory not dumped * Menu: * problems with exclude:: ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) According to the Bazaar docs, globbing-patterns are Korn-shell style and regular expressions are perl-style. As of GNU 'tar' version 1.29, these are treated as shell-style globs and posix extended regexps. This will be fixed in future releases. (2) Support for perl-style regexps will appear in future releases.  File: tar.info, Node: problems with exclude, Up: exclude Problems with Using the 'exclude' Options ----------------------------------------- Some users find 'exclude' options confusing. Here are some common pitfalls: * The main operating mode of 'tar' does not act on a file name explicitly listed on the command line, if one of its file name components is excluded. In the example above, if you create an archive and exclude files that end with '*.o', but explicitly name the file 'dir.o/foo' after all the options have been listed, 'dir.o/foo' will be excluded from the archive. * You can sometimes confuse the meanings of '--exclude' and '--exclude-from'. Be careful: use '--exclude' when files to be excluded are given as a pattern on the command line. Use '--exclude-from' to introduce the name of a file which contains a list of patterns, one per line; each of these patterns can exclude zero, one, or many files. * When you use '--exclude=PATTERN', be sure to quote the PATTERN parameter, so GNU 'tar' sees wildcard characters like '*'. If you do not do this, the shell might expand the '*' itself using files at hand, so 'tar' might receive a list of files instead of one pattern, or none at all, making the command somewhat illegal. This might not correspond to what you want. For example, write: $ tar -c -f ARCHIVE.TAR --exclude '*.o' DIRECTORY rather than: # _Wrong!_ $ tar -c -f ARCHIVE.TAR --exclude *.o DIRECTORY * You must use use shell syntax, or globbing, rather than 'regexp' syntax, when using exclude options in 'tar'. If you try to use 'regexp' syntax to describe files to be excluded, your command might fail. * In earlier versions of 'tar', what is now the '--exclude-from' option was called '--exclude' instead. Now, '--exclude' applies to patterns listed on the command line and '--exclude-from' applies to patterns listed in a file.  File: tar.info, Node: wildcards, Next: quoting styles, Prev: exclude, Up: Choosing 6.5 Wildcards Patterns and Matching =================================== "Globbing" is the operation by which "wildcard" characters, '*' or '?' for example, are replaced and expanded into all existing files matching the given pattern. GNU 'tar' can use wildcard patterns for matching (or globbing) archive members when extracting from or listing an archive. Wildcard patterns are also used for verifying volume labels of 'tar' archives. This section has the purpose of explaining wildcard syntax for 'tar'. A PATTERN should be written according to shell syntax, using wildcard characters to effect globbing. Most characters in the pattern stand for themselves in the matched string, and case is significant: 'a' will match only 'a', and not 'A'. The character '?' in the pattern matches any single character in the matched string. The character '*' in the pattern matches zero, one, or more single characters in the matched string. The character '\' says to take the following character of the pattern _literally_; it is useful when one needs to match the '?', '*', '[' or '\' characters, themselves. The character '[', up to the matching ']', introduces a character class. A "character class" is a list of acceptable characters for the next single character of the matched string. For example, '[abcde]' would match any of the first five letters of the alphabet. Note that within a character class, all of the "special characters" listed above other than '\' lose their special meaning; for example, '[-\\[*?]]' would match any of the characters, '-', '\', '[', '*', '?', or ']'. (Due to parsing constraints, the characters '-' and ']' must either come _first_ or _last_ in a character class.) If the first character of the class after the opening '[' is '!' or '^', then the meaning of the class is reversed. Rather than listing character to match, it lists those characters which are _forbidden_ as the next single character of the matched string. Other characters of the class stand for themselves. The special construction '[A-E]', using an hyphen between two letters, is meant to represent all characters between A and E, inclusive. Periods ('.') or forward slashes ('/') are not considered special for wildcard matches. However, if a pattern completely matches a directory prefix of a matched string, then it matches the full matched string: thus, excluding a directory also excludes all the files beneath it. * Menu: * controlling pattern-matching::  File: tar.info, Node: controlling pattern-matching, Up: wildcards Controlling Pattern-Matching ---------------------------- For the purposes of this section, we call "exclusion members" all member names obtained while processing '--exclude' and '--exclude-from' options, and "inclusion members" those member names that were given in the command line or read from the file specified with '--files-from' option. These two pairs of member lists are used in the following operations: '--diff', '--extract', '--list', '--update'. There are no inclusion members in create mode ('--create' and '--append'), since in this mode the names obtained from the command line refer to _files_, not archive members. By default, inclusion members are compared with archive members literally (1) and exclusion members are treated as globbing patterns. For example: $ tar tf foo.tar a.c b.c a.txt [remarks] # Member names are used verbatim: $ tar -xf foo.tar -v '[remarks]' [remarks] # Exclude member names are globbed: $ tar -xf foo.tar -v --exclude '*.c' a.txt [remarks] This behavior can be altered by using the following options: '--wildcards' Treat all member names as wildcards. '--no-wildcards' Treat all member names as literal strings. Thus, to extract files whose names end in '.c', you can use: $ tar -xf foo.tar -v --wildcards '*.c' a.c b.c Notice quoting of the pattern to prevent the shell from interpreting it. The effect of '--wildcards' option is canceled by '--no-wildcards'. This can be used to pass part of the command line arguments verbatim and other part as globbing patterns. For example, the following invocation: $ tar -xf foo.tar --wildcards '*.txt' --no-wildcards '[remarks]' instructs 'tar' to extract from 'foo.tar' all files whose names end in '.txt' and the file named '[remarks]'. Normally, a pattern matches a name if an initial subsequence of the name's components matches the pattern, where '*', '?', and '[...]' are the usual shell wildcards, '\' escapes wildcards, and wildcards can match '/'. Other than optionally stripping leading '/' from names (*note absolute::), patterns and names are used as-is. For example, trailing '/' is not trimmed from a user-specified name before deciding whether to exclude it. However, this matching procedure can be altered by the options listed below. These options accumulate. For example: --ignore-case --exclude='makefile' --no-ignore-case ---exclude='readme' ignores case when excluding 'makefile', but not when excluding 'readme'. '--anchored' '--no-anchored' If anchored, a pattern must match an initial subsequence of the name's components. Otherwise, the pattern can match any subsequence. Default is '--no-anchored' for exclusion members and '--anchored' inclusion members. '--ignore-case' '--no-ignore-case' When ignoring case, upper-case patterns match lower-case names and vice versa. When not ignoring case (the default), matching is case-sensitive. '--wildcards-match-slash' '--no-wildcards-match-slash' When wildcards match slash (the default for exclusion members), a wildcard like '*' in the pattern can match a '/' in the name. Otherwise, '/' is matched only by '/'. The '--recursion' and '--no-recursion' options (*note recurse::) also affect how member patterns are interpreted. If recursion is in effect, a pattern matches a name if it matches any of the name's parent directories. The following table summarizes pattern-matching default values: Members Default settings -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inclusion '--no-wildcards --anchored --no-wildcards-match-slash' Exclusion '--wildcards --no-anchored --wildcards-match-slash' ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Notice that earlier GNU 'tar' versions used globbing for inclusion members, which contradicted to UNIX98 specification and was not documented. *Note Changes::, for more information on this and other changes.  File: tar.info, Node: quoting styles, Next: transform, Prev: wildcards, Up: Choosing 6.6 Quoting Member Names ======================== When displaying member names, 'tar' takes care to avoid ambiguities caused by certain characters. This is called "name quoting". The characters in question are: * Non-printable control characters: Character ASCII Character name ------------------------------------------------------------------- \a 7 Audible bell \b 8 Backspace \f 12 Form feed \n 10 New line \r 13 Carriage return \t 9 Horizontal tabulation \v 11 Vertical tabulation * Space (ASCII 32) * Single and double quotes (''' and '"') * Backslash ('\') The exact way 'tar' uses to quote these characters depends on the "quoting style". The default quoting style, called "escape" (see below), uses backslash notation to represent control characters, space and backslash. Using this quoting style, control characters are represented as listed in column 'Character' in the above table, a space is printed as '\ ' and a backslash as '\\'. GNU 'tar' offers seven distinct quoting styles, which can be selected using '--quoting-style' option: '--quoting-style=STYLE' Sets quoting style. Valid values for STYLE argument are: literal, shell, shell-always, c, escape, locale, clocale. These styles are described in detail below. To illustrate their effect, we will use an imaginary tar archive 'arch.tar' containing the following members: # 1. Contains horizontal tabulation character. a tab # 2. Contains newline character a newline # 3. Contains a space a space # 4. Contains double quotes a"double"quote # 5. Contains single quotes a'single'quote # 6. Contains a backslash character: a\backslash Here is how usual 'ls' command would have listed them, if they had existed in the current working directory: $ ls a\ttab a\nnewline a\ space a"double"quote a'single'quote a\\backslash Quoting styles: 'literal' No quoting, display each character as is: $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=literal ./ ./a space ./a'single'quote ./a"double"quote ./a\backslash ./a tab ./a newline 'shell' Display characters the same way Bourne shell does: control characters, except '\t' and '\n', are printed using backslash escapes, '\t' and '\n' are printed as is, and a single quote is printed as '\''. If a name contains any quoted characters, it is enclosed in single quotes. In particular, if a name contains single quotes, it is printed as several single-quoted strings: $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=shell ./ './a space' './a'\''single'\''quote' './a"double"quote' './a\backslash' './a tab' './a newline' 'shell-always' Same as 'shell', but the names are always enclosed in single quotes: $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=shell-always './' './a space' './a'\''single'\''quote' './a"double"quote' './a\backslash' './a tab' './a newline' 'c' Use the notation of the C programming language. All names are enclosed in double quotes. Control characters are quoted using backslash notations, double quotes are represented as '\"', backslash characters are represented as '\\'. Single quotes and spaces are not quoted: $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=c "./" "./a space" "./a'single'quote" "./a\"double\"quote" "./a\\backslash" "./a\ttab" "./a\nnewline" 'escape' Control characters are printed using backslash notation, a space is printed as '\ ' and a backslash as '\\'. This is the default quoting style, unless it was changed when configured the package. $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=escape ./ ./a space ./a'single'quote ./a"double"quote ./a\\backslash ./a\ttab ./a\nnewline 'locale' Control characters, single quote and backslash are printed using backslash notation. All names are quoted using left and right quotation marks, appropriate to the current locale. If it does not define quotation marks, use ''' as left and as right quotation marks. Any occurrences of the right quotation mark in a name are escaped with '\', for example: For example: $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=locale './' './a space' './a\'single\'quote' './a"double"quote' './a\\backslash' './a\ttab' './a\nnewline' 'clocale' Same as 'locale', but '"' is used for both left and right quotation marks, if not provided by the currently selected locale: $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=clocale "./" "./a space" "./a'single'quote" "./a\"double\"quote" "./a\\backslash" "./a\ttab" "./a\nnewline" You can specify which characters should be quoted in addition to those implied by the current quoting style: '--quote-chars=STRING' Always quote characters from STRING, even if the selected quoting style would not quote them. For example, using 'escape' quoting (compare with the usual escape listing above): $ tar tf arch.tar --quoting-style=escape --quote-chars=' "' ./ ./a\ space ./a'single'quote ./a\"double\"quote ./a\\backslash ./a\ttab ./a\nnewline To disable quoting of such additional characters, use the following option: '--no-quote-chars=STRING' Remove characters listed in STRING from the list of quoted characters set by the previous '--quote-chars' option. This option is particularly useful if you have added '--quote-chars' to your 'TAR_OPTIONS' (*note TAR_OPTIONS::) and wish to disable it for the current invocation. Note, that '--no-quote-chars' does _not_ disable those characters that are quoted by default in the selected quoting style.  File: tar.info, Node: transform, Next: after, Prev: quoting styles, Up: Choosing 6.7 Modifying File and Member Names =================================== 'Tar' archives contain detailed information about files stored in them and full file names are part of that information. When storing a file to an archive, its file name is recorded in it, along with the actual file contents. When restoring from an archive, a file is created on disk with exactly the same name as that stored in the archive. In the majority of cases this is the desired behavior of a file archiver. However, there are some cases when it is not. First of all, it is often unsafe to extract archive members with absolute file names or those that begin with a '../'. GNU 'tar' takes special precautions when extracting such names and provides a special option for handling them, which is described in *note absolute::. Secondly, you may wish to extract file names without some leading directory components, or with otherwise modified names. In other cases it is desirable to store files under differing names in the archive. GNU 'tar' provides several options for these needs. '--strip-components=NUMBER' Strip given NUMBER of leading components from file names before extraction. For example, suppose you have archived whole '/usr' hierarchy to a tar archive named 'usr.tar'. Among other files, this archive contains 'usr/include/stdlib.h', which you wish to extract to the current working directory. To do so, you type: $ tar -xf usr.tar --strip=2 usr/include/stdlib.h The option '--strip=2' instructs 'tar' to strip the two leading components ('usr/' and 'include/') off the file name. If you add the '--verbose' ('-v') option to the invocation above, you will note that the verbose listing still contains the full file name, with the two removed components still in place. This can be inconvenient, so 'tar' provides a special option for altering this behavior: '--show-transformed-names' Display file or member names with all requested transformations applied. For example: $ tar -xf usr.tar -v --strip=2 usr/include/stdlib.h usr/include/stdlib.h $ tar -xf usr.tar -v --strip=2 --show-transformed usr/include/stdlib.h stdlib.h Notice that in both cases the file 'stdlib.h' is extracted to the current working directory, '--show-transformed-names' affects only the way its name is displayed. This option is especially useful for verifying whether the invocation will have the desired effect. Thus, before running $ tar -x --strip=N it is often advisable to run $ tar -t -v --show-transformed --strip=N to make sure the command will produce the intended results. In case you need to apply more complex modifications to the file name, GNU 'tar' provides a general-purpose transformation option: '--transform=EXPRESSION' '--xform=EXPRESSION' Modify file names using supplied EXPRESSION. The EXPRESSION is a 'sed'-like replace expression of the form: s/REGEXP/REPLACE/[FLAGS] where REGEXP is a "regular expression", REPLACE is a replacement for each file name part that matches REGEXP. Both REGEXP and REPLACE are described in detail in *note The "s" Command: (sed)The "s" Command. Any delimiter can be used in lieu of '/', the only requirement being that it be used consistently throughout the expression. For example, the following two expressions are equivalent: s/one/two/ s,one,two, Changing delimiters is often useful when the REGEX contains slashes. For example, it is more convenient to write 's,/,-,' than 's/\//-/'. As in 'sed', you can give several replace expressions, separated by a semicolon. Supported FLAGS are: 'g' Apply the replacement to _all_ matches to the REGEXP, not just the first. 'i' Use case-insensitive matching. 'x' REGEXP is an "extended regular expression" (*note Extended regular expressions: (sed)Extended regexps.). 'NUMBER' Only replace the NUMBERth match of the REGEXP. Note: the POSIX standard does not specify what should happen when you mix the 'g' and NUMBER modifiers. GNU 'tar' follows the GNU 'sed' implementation in this regard, so the interaction is defined to be: ignore matches before the NUMBERth, and then match and replace all matches from the NUMBERth on. In addition, several "transformation scope" flags are supported, that control to what files transformations apply. These are: 'r' Apply transformation to regular archive members. 'R' Do not apply transformation to regular archive members. 's' Apply transformation to symbolic link targets. 'S' Do not apply transformation to symbolic link targets. 'h' Apply transformation to hard link targets. 'H' Do not apply transformation to hard link targets. Default is 'rsh', which means to apply transformations to both archive members and targets of symbolic and hard links. Default scope flags can also be changed using 'flags=' statement in the transform expression. The flags set this way remain in force until next 'flags=' statement or end of expression, whichever occurs first. For example: --transform 'flags=S;s|^|/usr/local/|' Here are several examples of '--transform' usage: 1. Extract 'usr/' hierarchy into 'usr/local/': $ tar --transform='s,usr/,usr/local/,' -x -f arch.tar 2. Strip two leading directory components (equivalent to '--strip-components=2'): $ tar --transform='s,/*[^/]*/[^/]*/,,' -x -f arch.tar 3. Convert each file name to lower case: $ tar --transform 's/.*/\L&/' -x -f arch.tar 4. Prepend '/prefix/' to each file name: $ tar --transform 's,^,/prefix/,' -x -f arch.tar 5. Archive the '/lib' directory, prepending '/usr/local' to each archive member: $ tar --transform 's,^,/usr/local/,S' -c -f arch.tar /lib Notice the use of flags in the last example. The '/lib' directory often contains many symbolic links to files within it. It may look, for example, like this: $ ls -l drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2008-07-08 16:20 /lib/ -rwxr-xr-x root/root 1250840 2008-05-25 07:44 /lib/libc-2.3.2.so lrwxrwxrwx root/root 0 2008-06-24 17:12 /lib/libc.so.6 -> libc-2.3.2.so ... Using the expression 's,^,/usr/local/,' would mean adding '/usr/local' to both regular archive members and to link targets. In this case, '/lib/libc.so.6' would become: /usr/local/lib/libc.so.6 -> /usr/local/libc-2.3.2.so This is definitely not desired. To avoid this, the 'S' flag is used, which excludes symbolic link targets from filename transformations. The result is: $ tar --transform 's,^,/usr/local/,S', -c -v -f arch.tar \ --show-transformed /lib drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2008-07-08 16:20 /usr/local/lib/ -rwxr-xr-x root/root 1250840 2008-05-25 07:44 /usr/local/lib/libc-2.3.2.so lrwxrwxrwx root/root 0 2008-06-24 17:12 /usr/local/lib/libc.so.6 \ -> libc-2.3.2.so Unlike '--strip-components', '--transform' can be used in any GNU 'tar' operation mode. For example, the following command adds files to the archive while replacing the leading 'usr/' component with 'var/': $ tar -cf arch.tar --transform='s,^usr/,var/,' / To test '--transform' effect we suggest using '--show-transformed-names' option: $ tar -cf arch.tar --transform='s,^usr/,var/,' \ --verbose --show-transformed-names / If both '--strip-components' and '--transform' are used together, then '--transform' is applied first, and the required number of components is then stripped from its result. You can use as many '--transform' options in a single command line as you want. The specified expressions will then be applied in order of their appearance. For example, the following two invocations are equivalent: $ tar -cf arch.tar --transform='s,/usr/var,/var/' \ --transform='s,/usr/local,/usr/,' $ tar -cf arch.tar \ --transform='s,/usr/var,/var/;s,/usr/local,/usr/,'  File: tar.info, Node: after, Next: recurse, Prev: transform, Up: Choosing 6.8 Operating Only on New Files =============================== The '--after-date=DATE' ('--newer=DATE', '-N DATE') option causes 'tar' to only work on files whose data modification or status change times are newer than the DATE given. If DATE starts with '/' or '.', it is taken to be a file name; the data modification time of that file is used as the date. If you use this option when creating or appending to an archive, the archive will only include new files. If you use '--after-date' when extracting an archive, 'tar' will only extract files newer than the DATE you specify. If you only want 'tar' to make the date comparison based on modification of the file's data (rather than status changes), then use the '--newer-mtime=DATE' option. You may use these options with any operation. Note that these options differ from the '--update' ('-u') operation in that they allow you to specify a particular date against which 'tar' can compare when deciding whether or not to archive the files. '--after-date=DATE' '--newer=DATE' '-N DATE' Only store files newer than DATE. Acts on files only if their data modification or status change times are later than DATE. Use in conjunction with any operation. If DATE starts with '/' or '.', it is taken to be a file name; the data modification time of that file is used as the date. '--newer-mtime=DATE' Acts like '--after-date', but only looks at data modification times. These options limit 'tar' to operate only on files which have been modified after the date specified. A file's status is considered to have changed if its contents have been modified, or if its owner, permissions, and so forth, have been changed. (For more information on how to specify a date, see *note Date input formats::; remember that the entire date argument must be quoted if it contains any spaces.) Gurus would say that '--after-date' tests both the data modification time ('mtime', the time the contents of the file were last modified) and the status change time ('ctime', the time the file's status was last changed: owner, permissions, etc.) fields, while '--newer-mtime' tests only the 'mtime' field. To be precise, '--after-date' checks _both_ 'mtime' and 'ctime' and processes the file if either one is more recent than DATE, while '--newer-mtime' only checks 'mtime' and disregards 'ctime'. Neither does it use 'atime' (the last time the contents of the file were looked at). Date specifiers can have embedded spaces. Because of this, you may need to quote date arguments to keep the shell from parsing them as separate arguments. For example, the following command will add to the archive all the files modified less than two days ago: $ tar -cf foo.tar --newer-mtime '2 days ago' When any of these options is used with the option '--verbose' (*note verbose tutorial::) GNU 'tar' will try to convert the specified date back to its textual representation and compare that with the one given with the option. If the two dates differ, 'tar' will print a warning saying what date it will use. This is to help user ensure he is using the right date. For example: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --after-date='10 days ago' . tar: Option --after-date: Treating date '10 days ago' as 2006-06-11 13:19:37.232434 *Please Note:* '--after-date' and '--newer-mtime' should not be used for incremental backups. *Note Incremental Dumps::, for proper way of creating incremental backups.  File: tar.info, Node: recurse, Next: one, Prev: after, Up: Choosing 6.9 Descending into Directories =============================== Usually, 'tar' will recursively explore all directories (either those given on the command line or through the '--files-from' option) for the various files they contain. However, you may not always want 'tar' to act this way. The '--no-recursion' option inhibits 'tar''s recursive descent into specified directories. If you specify '--no-recursion', you can use the 'find' (*note find: (find)Top.) utility for hunting through levels of directories to construct a list of file names which you could then pass to 'tar'. 'find' allows you to be more selective when choosing which files to archive; see *note files::, for more information on using 'find' with 'tar'. '--no-recursion' Prevents 'tar' from recursively descending directories. '--recursion' Requires 'tar' to recursively descend directories. This is the default. When you use '--no-recursion', GNU 'tar' grabs directory entries themselves, but does not descend on them recursively. Many people use 'find' for locating files they want to back up, and since 'tar' _usually_ recursively descends on directories, they have to use the '-not -type d' test in their 'find' invocation (*note Type: (find)Type.), as they usually do not want all the files in a directory. They then use the '--files-from' option to archive the files located via 'find'. The problem when restoring files archived in this manner is that the directories themselves are not in the archive; so the '--same-permissions' ('--preserve-permissions', '-p') option does not affect them--while users might really like it to. Specifying '--no-recursion' is a way to tell 'tar' to grab only the directory entries given to it, adding no new files on its own. To summarize, if you use 'find' to create a list of files to be stored in an archive, use it as follows: $ find DIR TESTS | \ tar -cf ARCHIVE -T - --no-recursion The '--no-recursion' option also applies when extracting: it causes 'tar' to extract only the matched directory entries, not the files under those directories. The '--no-recursion' option also affects how globbing patterns are interpreted (*note controlling pattern-matching::). The '--no-recursion' and '--recursion' options apply to later options and operands, and can be overridden by later occurrences of '--no-recursion' and '--recursion'. For example: $ tar -cf jams.tar --no-recursion grape --recursion grape/concord creates an archive with one entry for 'grape', and the recursive contents of 'grape/concord', but no entries under 'grape' other than 'grape/concord'.