GNU tar 1.34: GNU tar: an archiver tool

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GNU tar: an archiver tool

FTP release, version 1.34, 1 March 2021

John Gilmore, Jay Fenlason et al.


This manual is for GNU tar (version 1.34, 1 March 2021), which creates and extracts files from archives.

Copyright © 1992, 1994–1997, 1999–2001, 2003–2017, 2021 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.”


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GNU tar: an archiver tool

This manual is for GNU tar (version 1.34, 1 March 2021), which creates and extracts files from archives.

Copyright © 1992, 1994–1997, 1999–2001, 2003–2017, 2021 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.

1 Introduction   
2 Tutorial Introduction to tar   
3 Invoking GNU tar   
4 GNU tar Operations   
5 Performing Backups and Restoring Files   
6 Choosing Files and Names for tar   
7 Date input formats   
8 Controlling the Archive Format   
9 Tapes and Other Archive Media   
10 Reliability and Security   
Appendix A Changes   
Appendix B Recipes    Frequently used tar recipes
Appendix C Configuring Help Summary   
Appendix D Fixing Snapshot Files   
Appendix E Tar Internals   
Appendix F Genfile   
Appendix G GNU Free Documentation License   
Appendix H Index of Command Line Options   
Appendix I Index   
1.1 What this Book Contains   
1.2 Some Definitions   
1.3 What tar Does   
1.4 How tar Archives are Named   
1.5 GNU tar Authors   
1.6 Reporting bugs or suggestions   
2.1 Assumptions this Tutorial Makes   
2.2 Stylistic Conventions   
2.3 Basic tar Operations and Options   
2.4 The Three Most Frequently Used Operations   
2.5 Two Frequently Used Options   
2.6 How to Create Archives   
2.7 How to List Archives   
2.8 How to Extract Members from an Archive   
2.9 Going Further Ahead in this Manual   
The ‘--file’ Option   
The ‘--verbose’ Option   
Getting Help: Using the ‘--help’ Option   
2.6.1 Preparing a Practice Directory for Examples   
2.6.2 Creating the Archive   
2.6.3 Running ‘--create’ with ‘--verbose   
2.6.4 Short Forms with ‘create   
2.6.5 Archiving Directories   
Listing the Contents of a Stored Directory   
2.8.1 Extracting an Entire Archive   
2.8.2 Extracting Specific Files   
2.8.3 Extracting Files that are Directories   
2.8.4 Extracting Archives from Untrusted Sources   
2.8.5 Commands That Will Fail   
3.1 General Synopsis of tar   
3.2 Using tar Options   
3.3 The Three Option Styles   
3.4 All tar Options   
3.5 GNU tar documentation   
3.6 Obtaining GNU tar default values   
3.7 Checking tar progress   
3.8 Checkpoints   
3.9 Controlling Warning Messages   
3.10 Asking for Confirmation During Operations   
3.3.1 Long Option Style   
3.3.2 Short Option Style   
3.3.3 Old Option Style   
3.3.4 Mixing Option Styles   
3.4.1 Operations   
3.4.2 tar Options   
3.4.3 Short Options Cross Reference   
3.4.4 Position-Sensitive Options   
4.1 Basic GNU tar Operations   
4.2 Advanced GNU tar Operations   
4.3 Options Used by ‘--create   
4.4 Options Used by ‘--extract   
4.5 Backup options   
4.6 Looking Ahead: The Rest of this Manual   
4.2.1 The Five Advanced tar Operations   
4.2.2 How to Add Files to Existing Archives: ‘--append   
4.2.3 Updating an Archive   
4.2.4 Combining Archives with ‘--concatenate   
4.2.5 Removing Archive Members Using ‘--delete   
4.2.6 Comparing Archive Members with the File System   
4.2.2.1 Appending Files to an Archive   
4.2.2.2 Multiple Members with the Same Name   
4.2.3.1 How to Update an Archive Using ‘--update   
4.3.1 Overriding File Metadata   
4.3.2 Extended File Attributes   
4.3.3 Ignore Failed Read   
4.4.1 Options to Help Read Archives   
4.4.2 Changing How tar Writes Files   
4.4.3 Coping with Scarce Resources   
Reading Full Records   
Ignoring Blocks of Zeros   
Options Controlling the Overwriting of Existing Files   
Overwrite Old Files   
Keep Old Files   
Keep Newer Files   
Unlink First   
Recursive Unlink   
Setting Data Modification Times   
Setting Access Permissions   
Directory Modification Times and Permissions   
Writing to Standard Output   
Writing to an External Program   
Removing Files   
Starting File   
Same Order   
5.1 Using tar to Perform Full Dumps   
5.2 Using tar to Perform Incremental Dumps   
5.3 Levels of Backups   
5.4 Setting Parameters for Backups and Restoration   
5.5 Using the Backup Scripts   
5.6 Using the Restore Script   
5.4.1 General-Purpose Variables   
5.4.2 Magnetic Tape Control   
5.4.3 User Hooks   
5.4.4 An Example Text of ‘Backup-specs’   
6.1 Choosing and Naming Archive Files    Choosing the Archive’s Name
6.2 Selecting Archive Members   
6.3 Reading Names from a File   
6.4 Excluding Some Files   
6.5 Wildcards Patterns and Matching   
6.6 Quoting Member Names    Ways of Quoting Special Characters in Names
6.7 Modifying File and Member Names   
6.8 Operating Only on New Files   
6.9 Descending into Directories   
6.10 Crossing File System Boundaries   
6.3.1 NUL-Terminated File Names   
Problems with Using the exclude Options   
Controlling Pattern-Matching   
6.10.1 Changing the Working Directory    Changing Directory
6.10.2 Absolute File Names   
7.1 General date syntax    Common rules.
7.2 Calendar date items    19 Dec 1994.
7.3 Time of day items    9:20pm.
7.4 Time zone items    EST, PDT, GMT.
7.6 Day of week items    Monday and others.
7.7 Relative items in date strings    next tuesday, 2 years ago.
7.8 Pure numbers in date strings    19931219, 1440.
7.9 Seconds since the Epoch    @1078100502.
7.10 Specifying time zone rules    TZ="America/New_York", TZ="UTC0".
7.11 Authors of parse_datetime    Bellovin, Eggert, Salz, Berets, et al.
8.1 Using Less Space through Compression   
8.2 Handling File Attributes   
8.3 Making tar Archives More Portable   
8.4 Comparison of tar and cpio   
8.1.1 Creating and Reading Compressed Archives   
8.1.2 Archiving Sparse Files   
8.1.1.1 Using lbzip2 with GNU tar.   
8.3.1 Portable Names   
8.3.2 Symbolic Links   
8.3.3 Hard Links   
8.3.4 Old V7 Archives   
8.3.5 Ustar Archive Format    Ustar Archives
8.3.6 GNU and old GNU tar format    GNU and old GNU format archives.
8.3.7 GNU tar and POSIX tar    POSIX archives
8.3.8 Checksumming Problems   
8.3.9 Large or Negative Values    Large files, negative time stamps, etc.
8.3.10 How to Extract GNU-Specific Data Using Other tar Implementations   
8.3.7.1 Controlling Extended Header Keywords   
8.3.10.1 Extracting Members Split Between Volumes    Members Split Between Volumes
8.3.10.2 Extracting Sparse Members    Sparse Members
9.1 Device Selection and Switching    Device selection and switching
9.2 Remote Tape Server   
9.3 Some Common Problems and their Solutions   
9.4 Blocking   
9.5 Many Archives on One Tape    Many archives on one tape
9.6 Using Multiple Tapes   
9.7 Including a Label in the Archive   
9.8 Verifying Data as It is Stored   
9.9 Write Protection   
9.4.1 Format Variations   
9.4.2 The Blocking Factor of an Archive   
9.5.1 Tape Positions and Tape Marks   
9.5.2 The mt Utility   
9.6.1 Archives Longer than One Tape or Disk   
9.6.2 Tape Files   
9.6.3 Concatenate Volumes into a Single Archive   
Basic Tar Format   
GNU Extensions to the Archive Format   
Storing Sparse Files   
Format of the Incremental Snapshot Files   
Dumpdir   
E.0.1 Old GNU Format   
E.0.2 PAX Format, Versions 0.0 and 0.1   
E.0.3 PAX Format, Version 1.0   
F.1 Generate Mode    File Generation Mode.
F.2 Status Mode    File Status Mode.
F.3 Exec Mode    Synchronous Execution mode.
Appendix G GNU Free Documentation License    License for copying this manual



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