GNU tar: an archiver tool ************************* This manual is for GNU ‘tar’ (version 1.35, 22 August 2023), which creates and extracts files from archives. Copyright © 1992, 1994–1997, 1999–2001, 2003–2017, 2021–2023 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 ************** 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. 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.) 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’. 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. 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. 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, François 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’. François 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 1.35 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. 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. 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. 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. 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’. 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. 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. 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.) 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::. 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 ‘--verbose’ option also enables several “warning messages”, that tar does not issue otherwise, such as the warning about record size being used (*note Blocking Factor::), selecting the decompress program and the like. If these are of no interest to you, you can suppress them using the ‘--warning’ option _after_ ‘--verbose’, e.g.: $ tar -c -v --warning=no-verbose -f afiles.tar apple angst aspic *Note verbose: Warning Classes, for details. 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: (coreutils)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 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. 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. 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. 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::. 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 three output 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. 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. 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.) 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 --list --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 --list --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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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’). 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. 2.9 Going Further Ahead in this Manual ====================================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ 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::). 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::). 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. 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. ---------- 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. 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’. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 as ‘--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::. 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’). totals Print statistics (see *note totals::). wait=SIGNO Wait for signal SIGNO. 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 reading failed. *Note Ignore Failed Read::. ‘--ignore-zeros’ ‘-i’ With this option, ‘tar’ will ignore zeroed blocks in the archive, which normally signals EOF. This option also suppresses warnings about missing or incomplete zero blocks at the end of the archive. *Note Ignore Zeros::. ‘--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 1.35, 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 be used only for files with modification times 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 Same Order::.) ‘--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 Same Order::. ‘--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 more reproducible. *Note Reproducibility::. ‘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 globbing pattern, e.g. ‘--xattrs-include='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::. ‘--zstd’ Use ‘zstd’ 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. 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 extracting, same as *note --no-same-owner::. When creating, – *note --old-archive::. 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::. 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/* During archive creation, GNU ‘tar’ keeps track of positional options used and arguments affected by them. If it finds out that any such options are used in an obviously erroneous way, the fact is reported and exit code is set to 2. E.g.: $ tar -cf a.tar . --exclude '*.o' tar: The following options were used after any non-optional arguments in archive create or update mode. These options are positional and affect only arguments that follow them. Please, rearrange them properly. tar: --exclude '*.o' has no effect tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors 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/* 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) 1.35 Copyright (C) 2013-2020 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 check the spelling or meaning of some particular ‘tar’ option, without resorting to this manual, 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. Since 2014, GNU ‘tar’ also has a ‘man’ page. It briefly explains all the options and operations. This might be preferable when you don’t need any background. But 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, one of these days ‘--version’ might output ‘tar (GNU paxutils) 3.2’. 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. 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) Notice, that since ‘tar’ operates on “records”, the number of bytes reported can be rounded up to the nearest full record. This can happen, in particular, when the last record in the archive is partial. *Note Blocking::. 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. 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 The ‘wait=SIGNO’ action stops further execution until the signal SIGNO is delivered. Valid values for SIGNO are: ‘SIGHUP’, ‘SIGQUIT’, ‘SIGINT’, ‘SIGUSR1’ and ‘SIGUSR2’. The ‘SIG’ prefix is optional. For example: $ tar -c -f arc --checkpoint=1000 --checkpoint-action wait=USR1 . In this example, GNU ‘tar’ will stop archivation at each 1000th checkpoint. wait until the ‘SIGUSR1’ signal is delivered, and resume processing. This action is used by the ‘genfile’ utility to perform modifications on the input files upon hitting certain checkpoints (*note genfile: Exec Mode.). 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. 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’ options accumulate. By default, GNU ‘tar’ enables all messages, except those that are enabled in verbose mode (*note verbose tutorial::). *Note Warning Defaults::, for details. The subsections below discuss allowed values for KEYWORD along with the warning messages they control. 3.9.1 Keywords controlling ‘tar’ operation ------------------------------------------ These keywords control warnings that may appear in any GNU ‘tar’ operation mode: -- warning: filename-with-nuls ‘file name read contains nul character’ -- warning: filename-with-nuls ‘%s: file name read contains nul character’ -- warning: alone-zero-block ‘A lone zero block at %s’. Notice, that this warning is suppressed if ‘--ignore-zeros’ is in effect (*note Ignore Zeros::). -- warning: missing-zero-blocks ‘Terminating zero blocks missing at %s’. This warning is suppressed if ‘--ignore-zeros’ is in effect (*note Ignore Zeros::). 3.9.2 Keywords applicable for ‘tar --create’ -------------------------------------------- The following keywords control messages that can be issued while creating archives. -- warning: cachedir ‘%s: contains a cache directory tag %s; %s’ -- warning: file-shrank ‘%s: File shrank by %s bytes; padding with zeros’ -- warning: xdev ‘%s: file is on a different filesystem; not dumped’ -- warning: file-ignored ‘%s: Unknown file type; file ignored’ ‘%s: socket ignored’ ‘%s: door ignored’ -- warning: file-unchanged ‘%s: file is unchanged; not dumped’ -- warning: ignore-archive ‘%s: archive cannot contain itself; not dumped’ -- warning: file-removed ‘%s: File removed before we read it’ -- warning: file-changed ‘%s: file changed as we read it’ Suppresses warnings about read failures, which can occur if files or directories are unreadable, or if they change while being read. This keyword applies only if used together with the ‘--ignore-failed-read’ option. *Note Ignore Failed Read::. 3.9.3 Keywords applicable for ‘tar --extract’ --------------------------------------------- The following keywords control warnings that can be issued during archive extraction. -- warning: existing-file ‘%s: skipping existing file’ -- warning: timestamp ‘%s: implausibly old time stamp %s’ ‘%s: time stamp %s is %s s in the future’ -- warning: contiguous-cast ‘Extracting contiguous files as regular files’ -- warning: symlink-cast ‘Attempting extraction of symbolic links as hard links’, warning message ‘Attempting extraction of symbolic links as hard links’ -- warning: unknown-cast ‘%s: Unknown file type '%c', extracted as normal file’ -- warning: ignore-newer ‘Current %s is newer or same age’ -- warning: unknown-keyword ‘Ignoring unknown extended header keyword '%s'’ -- warning: 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’. -- warning: record-size ‘Record size = %lu blocks’ 3.9.4 Keywords controlling incremental extraction ------------------------------------------------- These keywords control warnings that may appear when extracting from incremental archives. -- warning: rename-directory ‘%s: Directory has been renamed from %s’ ‘%s: Directory has been renamed’ -- warning: new-directory ‘%s: Directory is new’ -- warning: xdev ‘%s: directory is on a different device: not purging’ -- warning: bad-dumpdir ‘Malformed dumpdir: 'X' never used’ 3.9.5 Warning Classes --------------------- These convenience keywords define “warning classes”. When used, they affect several warnings at once. -- warning: all Enable all warning messages. -- warning: none Disable all warning messages. -- warning: verbose A shorthand for all messages enabled when ‘--verbose’ (*note verbose tutorial::) is in effect. These are: ‘decompress-program’, ‘existing-file’, ‘new-directory’, ‘record-size’, ‘rename-directory’. 3.9.6 Default Warning Settings ------------------------------ GNU ‘tar’ default settings correspond to: --warning=all --warning=no-verbose --warning=no-missing-zero-blocks 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. 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’. 4 GNU ‘tar’ 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. 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. 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. 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.) ---------- 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. 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 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. 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. 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 that 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::. 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’: $ 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::. 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’. 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::. 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’. 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: (coreutils)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’ uses 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 is used. The following example sets the modification date to 00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970: $ tar -c -f archive.tar --mtime='@0' . When used with ‘--verbose’ (*note verbose tutorial::) GNU ‘tar’ converts the specified date back to a textual form and compares it with the one given with ‘--mtime’. If the two forms differ, ‘tar’ prints both forms in a message, to help the user check that the right date is being used. 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’ sets the modification date to DATE only on files whose actual modification date is later than DATE. This makes it easier to build reproducible archives given a common timestamp for generated files while still retaining the original timestamps of untouched files. *Note Reproducibility::. $ tar -c -f archive.tar --clamp-mtime --mtime="$SOURCE_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. 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 ‘--xattrs’ is used, all names are stored in the archive (with ‘--create’), but only ‘user’ namespace is extracted (if using ‘--extract’). The reason for this behavior is that any other, system defined attributes don’t provide us sufficient compatibility promise. Storing all attributes is safe operation for the archiving purposes. Though extracting those (often security related) attributes on a different system than originally archived can lead to extraction failures, or even misinterpretations. This behavior 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 a globbing pattern. For example, the following command: $ tar --xattrs --xattrs-exclude='user.*' -cf a.tar . will include in the archive ‘a.tar’ all attributes, except those from the ‘user’ namespace. Users shall check the attributes are binary compatible with the target system before any other namespace is extracted with an explicit ‘--xattrs-include’ option. Any number of these options can be given, thereby creating lists of include and exclude patterns. When both options are used, first ‘--xattrs-include’ 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-include’ 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 sign 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. 4.3.3 Ignore Failed Read ------------------------ ‘--ignore-failed-read’ Do not exit with nonzero if there are mild problems while reading. This option has effect only during creation. It instructs tar to treat as mild conditions any missing or unreadable files (directories), or files that change while reading. Such failures don’t affect the program exit code, and the corresponding diagnostic messages are marked as warnings, not errors. These warnings can be suppressed using the ‘--warning=failed-read’ option (*note warnings::). 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. 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::. 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. 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). This option also suppresses warnings about missing or incomplete zero blocks at the end of the archive. This can be turned on, if the need be, using the ‘--warning=alone-zero-block --warning=missing-zero-blocks’ options (*note warnings::). 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’. 4.4.2 Changing How ‘tar’ Writes Files ------------------------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ 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. 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. 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::). 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’). 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. 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. 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’). 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’). 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. 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. 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. Removing Files .............. ‘--remove-files’ Remove files after adding them to the archive. 4.4.3 Coping with Scarce Resources ---------------------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ 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::. 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. 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. 4.6 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::. 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”. 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. 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. 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. 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 (https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html). See also *note Bash Features: (bashref)Top. The shell variables controlling behavior of ‘backup’ and ‘restore’ are described in the following subsections. 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. 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 } 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. 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]" 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 400 blocks in length(1) 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(2). Only a subset of GNU ‘tar’ options is allowed for use in file lists. For a list of such options, *note Position-Sensitive Options::. 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. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) A file system block is usually 512 bytes, so this amounts to 200K. Use the ‘c’ suffix to specify size in _bytes_. Also, when using GNU find, you can specify other size units, such as ‘k’, ‘m’, etc. *Note (find.info)Size::, for details. (2) 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. 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 800 blocks 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. 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 1.35, 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 ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) According to the Bazaar docs, globbing-patterns are Korn-shell style and regular expressions are perl-style. As of GNU ‘tar’ version 1.35, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 and backslash. 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, 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. 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/,' 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 want ‘tar’ to make the date comparison based only 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’ Act like ‘--after-date’, but look only 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’ checks only ‘mtime’ and disregards ‘ctime’. Neither option uses ‘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’ converts the specified date back to a textual form and compares that with the one given with the option. If the two forms differ, ‘tar’ prints both forms in a message, to help the user check that the right date is being used. 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. 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 --no-recursion -T - 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’. 6.10 Crossing File System Boundaries ==================================== ‘tar’ will normally automatically cross file system boundaries in order to archive files which are part of a directory tree. You can change this behavior by running ‘tar’ and specifying ‘--one-file-system’. This option only affects files that are archived because they are in a directory that is being archived; ‘tar’ will still archive files explicitly named on the command line or through ‘--files-from’, regardless of where they reside. ‘--one-file-system’ Prevents ‘tar’ from crossing file system boundaries when archiving. Use in conjunction with any write operation. The ‘--one-file-system’ option causes ‘tar’ to modify its normal behavior in archiving the contents of directories. If a file in a directory is not on the same file system as the directory itself, then ‘tar’ will not archive that file. If the file is a directory itself, ‘tar’ will not archive anything beneath it; in other words, ‘tar’ will not cross mount points. This option is useful for making full or incremental archival backups of a file system. If this option is used in conjunction with ‘--verbose’ (‘-v’), files that are excluded are mentioned by name on the standard error. 6.10.1 Changing the Working Directory ------------------------------------- To change the working directory in the middle of a list of file names, either on the command line or in a file specified using ‘--files-from’ (‘-T’), use ‘--directory’ (‘-C’). This will change the working directory to the specified directory after that point in the list. ‘--directory=DIRECTORY’ ‘-C DIRECTORY’ Changes the working directory in the middle of a command line. For example, $ tar -c -f jams.tar grape prune -C food cherry will place the files ‘grape’ and ‘prune’ from the current directory into the archive ‘jams.tar’, followed by the file ‘cherry’ from the directory ‘food’. This option is especially useful when you have several widely separated files that you want to store in the same archive. Note that the file ‘cherry’ is recorded in the archive under the precise name ‘cherry’, _not_ ‘food/cherry’. Thus, the archive will contain three files that all appear to have come from the same directory; if the archive is extracted with plain ‘tar --extract’, all three files will be written in the current directory. Contrast this with the command, $ tar -c -f jams.tar grape prune -C food red/cherry which records the third file in the archive under the name ‘red/cherry’ so that, if the archive is extracted using ‘tar --extract’, the third file will be written in a subdirectory named ‘red’. You can use the ‘--directory’ option to make the archive independent of the original name of the directory holding the files. The following command places the files ‘/etc/passwd’, ‘/etc/hosts’, and ‘/lib/libc.a’ into the archive ‘foo.tar’: $ tar -c -f foo.tar -C /etc passwd hosts -C /lib libc.a However, the names of the archive members will be exactly what they were on the command line: ‘passwd’, ‘hosts’, and ‘libc.a’. They will not appear to be related by file name to the original directories where those files were located. Note that ‘--directory’ options are interpreted consecutively. If ‘--directory’ specifies a relative file name, it is interpreted relative to the then current directory, which might not be the same as the original current working directory of ‘tar’, due to a previous ‘--directory’ option. When using ‘--files-from’ (*note files::), you can put various ‘tar’ options (including ‘-C’) in the file list. Notice, however, that in this case the option and its argument may not be separated by whitespace. If you use short option, its argument must either follow the option letter immediately, without any intervening whitespace, or occupy the next line. Otherwise, if you use long option, separate its argument by an equal sign. For instance, the file list for the above example will be: -C/etc passwd hosts --directory=/lib libc.a To use it, you would invoke ‘tar’ as follows: $ tar -c -f foo.tar --files-from list The interpretation of options in file lists is disabled by ‘--verbatim-files-from’ and ‘--null’ options. 6.10.2 Absolute File Names -------------------------- By default, GNU ‘tar’ drops a leading ‘/’ on input or output, and complains about file names containing a ‘..’ component. There is an option that turns off this behavior: ‘--absolute-names’ ‘-P’ Do not strip leading slashes from file names, and permit file names containing a ‘..’ file name component. When ‘tar’ extracts archive members from an archive, it strips any leading slashes (‘/’) from the member name. This causes absolute member names in the archive to be treated as relative file names. This allows you to have such members extracted wherever you want, instead of being restricted to extracting the member in the exact directory named in the archive. For example, if the archive member has the name ‘/etc/passwd’, ‘tar’ will extract it as if the name were really ‘etc/passwd’. File names containing ‘..’ can cause problems when extracting, so ‘tar’ normally warns you about such files when creating an archive, and rejects attempts to extracts such files. Other ‘tar’ programs do not do this. As a result, if you create an archive whose member names start with a slash, they will be difficult for other people with a non-GNU ‘tar’ program to use. Therefore, GNU ‘tar’ also strips leading slashes from member names when putting members into the archive. For example, if you ask ‘tar’ to add the file ‘/bin/ls’ to an archive, it will do so, but the member name will be ‘bin/ls’(1). Symbolic links containing ‘..’ or leading ‘/’ can also cause problems when extracting, so ‘tar’ normally extracts them last; it may create empty files as placeholders during extraction. If you use the ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’) option, ‘tar’ will do none of these transformations. To archive or extract files relative to the root directory, specify the ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’) option. Normally, ‘tar’ acts on files relative to the working directory—ignoring superior directory names when archiving, and ignoring leading slashes when extracting. When you specify ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’), ‘tar’ stores file names including all superior directory names, and preserves leading slashes. If you only invoked ‘tar’ from the root directory you would never need the ‘--absolute-names’ option, but using this option may be more convenient than switching to root. ‘--absolute-names’ Preserves full file names (including superior directory names) when archiving and extracting files. ‘tar’ prints out a message about removing the ‘/’ from file names. This message appears once per GNU ‘tar’ invocation. It represents something which ought to be told; ignoring what it means can cause very serious surprises, later. Some people, nevertheless, do not want to see this message. Wanting to play really dangerously, one may of course redirect ‘tar’ standard error to the sink. For example, under ‘sh’: $ tar -c -f archive.tar /home 2> /dev/null Another solution, both nicer and simpler, would be to change to the ‘/’ directory first, and then avoid absolute notation. For example: $ tar -c -f archive.tar -C / home *Note Integrity::, for some of the security-related implications of using this option. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) A side effect of this is that when ‘--create’ is used with ‘--verbose’ the resulting output is not, generally speaking, the same as the one you’d get running ‘tar --list’ command. This may be important if you use some scripts for comparing both outputs. *Note listing member and file names::, for the information on how to handle this case. 7 Date input formats ******************** First, a quote: Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months, are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible. Indeed, had some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to make it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done better than handing down our present system. It is like a set of trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy circumlocutions. Unlike the more successful patterns of language and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and persistently encourages our terror of time. ... It is as though architects had to measure length in feet, width in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction manuals demanded a knowledge of five different languages. It is no wonder then that we often look into our own immediate past or future, last Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of helpless confusion. ... —Robert Grudin, ‘Time and the Art of Living’. This section describes the textual date representations that GNU programs accept. These are the strings you, as a user, can supply as arguments to the various programs. The C interface (via the ‘parse_datetime’ function) is not described here. 7.1 General date syntax ======================= A “date” is a string, possibly empty, containing many items separated by whitespace. The whitespace may be omitted when no ambiguity arises. The empty string means the beginning of today (i.e., midnight). Order of the items is immaterial. A date string may contain many flavors of items: • calendar date items • time of day items • time zone items • combined date and time of day items • day of the week items • relative items • pure numbers. We describe each of these item types in turn, below. A few ordinal numbers may be written out in words in some contexts. This is most useful for specifying day of the week items or relative items (see below). Among the most commonly used ordinal numbers, the word ‘last’ stands for -1, ‘this’ stands for 0, and ‘first’ and ‘next’ both stand for 1. Because the word ‘second’ stands for the unit of time there is no way to write the ordinal number 2, but for convenience ‘third’ stands for 3, ‘fourth’ for 4, ‘fifth’ for 5, ‘sixth’ for 6, ‘seventh’ for 7, ‘eighth’ for 8, ‘ninth’ for 9, ‘tenth’ for 10, ‘eleventh’ for 11 and ‘twelfth’ for 12. When a month is written this way, it is still considered to be written numerically, instead of being “spelled in full”; this changes the allowed strings. In the current implementation, only English is supported for words and abbreviations like ‘AM’, ‘DST’, ‘EST’, ‘first’, ‘January’, ‘Sunday’, ‘tomorrow’, and ‘year’. The output of the ‘date’ command is not always acceptable as a date string, not only because of the language problem, but also because there is no standard meaning for time zone items like ‘IST’. When using ‘date’ to generate a date string intended to be parsed later, specify a date format that is independent of language and that does not use time zone items other than ‘UTC’ and ‘Z’. Here are some ways to do this: $ LC_ALL=C TZ=UTC0 date Tue Nov 15 02:02:42 UTC 2022 $ TZ=UTC0 date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%SZ' 2022-11-15 02:02:42Z $ date --rfc-3339=ns # --rfc-3339 is a GNU extension. 2022-11-14 21:02:42.000000000-05:00 $ date --rfc-email # a GNU extension Mon, 14 Nov 2022 21:02:42 -0500 $ date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z' # %z is a GNU extension. 2022-11-14 21:02:42 -0500 $ date +'@%s.%N' # %s and %N are GNU extensions. @1668477762.692722128 Alphabetic case is completely ignored in dates. Comments may be introduced between round parentheses, as long as included parentheses are properly nested. Hyphens not followed by a digit are currently ignored. Leading zeros on numbers are ignored. Invalid dates like ‘2022-02-29’ or times like ‘24:00’ are rejected. In the typical case of a host that does not support leap seconds, a time like ‘23:59:60’ is rejected even if it corresponds to a valid leap second. 7.2 Calendar date items ======================= A “calendar date item” specifies a day of the year. It is specified differently, depending on whether the month is specified numerically or literally. All these strings specify the same calendar date: 2022-11-14 # ISO 8601. 22-11-14 # Assume 19xx for 69 through 99, # 20xx for 00 through 68 (not recommended). 11/14/2022 # Common U.S. writing. 14 November 2022 14 Nov 2022 # Three-letter abbreviations always allowed. November 14, 2022 14-nov-2022 14nov2022 The year can also be omitted. In this case, the last specified year is used, or the current year if none. For example: 11/14 nov 14 Here are the rules. For numeric months, the ISO 8601 format ‘YEAR-MONTH-DAY’ is allowed, where YEAR is any positive number, MONTH is a number between 01 and 12, and DAY is a number between 01 and 31. A leading zero must be present if a number is less than ten. If YEAR is 68 or smaller, then 2000 is added to it; otherwise, if YEAR is less than 100, then 1900 is added to it. The construct ‘MONTH/DAY/YEAR’, popular in the United States, is accepted. Also ‘MONTH/DAY’, omitting the year. Literal months may be spelled out in full: ‘January’, ‘February’, ‘March’, ‘April’, ‘May’, ‘June’, ‘July’, ‘August’, ‘September’, ‘October’, ‘November’ or ‘December’. Literal months may be abbreviated to their first three letters, possibly followed by an abbreviating dot. It is also permitted to write ‘Sept’ instead of ‘September’. When months are written literally, the calendar date may be given as any of the following: DAY MONTH YEAR DAY MONTH MONTH DAY YEAR DAY-MONTH-YEAR Or, omitting the year: MONTH DAY 7.3 Time of day items ===================== A “time of day item” in date strings specifies the time on a given day. Here are some examples, all of which represent the same time: 20:02:00.000000 20:02 8:02pm 20:02-0500 # In EST (U.S. Eastern Standard Time). More generally, the time of day may be given as ‘HOUR:MINUTE:SECOND’, where HOUR is a number between 0 and 23, MINUTE is a number between 0 and 59, and SECOND is a number between 0 and 59 possibly followed by ‘.’ or ‘,’ and a fraction containing one or more digits. Alternatively, ‘:SECOND’ can be omitted, in which case it is taken to be zero. On the rare hosts that support leap seconds, SECOND may be 60. If the time is followed by ‘am’ or ‘pm’ (or ‘a.m.’ or ‘p.m.’), HOUR is restricted to run from 1 to 12, and ‘:MINUTE’ may be omitted (taken to be zero). ‘am’ indicates the first half of the day, ‘pm’ indicates the second half of the day. In this notation, 12 is the predecessor of 1: midnight is ‘12am’ while noon is ‘12pm’. (This is the zero-oriented interpretation of ‘12am’ and ‘12pm’, as opposed to the old tradition derived from Latin which uses ‘12m’ for noon and ‘12pm’ for midnight.) The time may alternatively be followed by a time zone correction, expressed as ‘SHHMM’, where S is ‘+’ or ‘-’, HH is a number of zone hours and MM is a number of zone minutes. The zone minutes term, MM, may be omitted, in which case the one- or two-digit correction is interpreted as a number of hours. You can also separate HH from MM with a colon. When a time zone correction is given this way, it forces interpretation of the time relative to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), overriding any previous specification for the time zone or the local time zone. For example, ‘+0530’ and ‘+05:30’ both stand for the time zone 5.5 hours ahead of UTC (e.g., India). This is the best way to specify a time zone correction by fractional parts of an hour. The maximum zone correction is 24 hours. Either ‘am’/‘pm’ or a time zone correction may be specified, but not both. 7.4 Time zone items =================== A “time zone item” specifies an international time zone, indicated by a small set of letters, e.g., ‘UTC’ or ‘Z’ for Coordinated Universal Time. Any included periods are ignored. By following a non-daylight-saving time zone by the string ‘DST’ in a separate word (that is, separated by some white space), the corresponding daylight saving time zone may be specified. Alternatively, a non-daylight-saving time zone can be followed by a time zone correction, to add the two values. This is normally done only for ‘UTC’; for example, ‘UTC+05:30’ is equivalent to ‘+05:30’. Time zone items other than ‘UTC’ and ‘Z’ are obsolescent and are not recommended, because they are ambiguous; for example, ‘EST’ has a different meaning in Australia than in the United States, and ‘A’ has different meaning as a military time zone than as an obsolete RFC 822 time zone. Instead, it’s better to use unambiguous numeric time zone corrections like ‘-0500’, as described in the previous section. If neither a time zone item nor a time zone correction is supplied, timestamps are interpreted using the rules of the default time zone (*note Specifying time zone rules::). 7.5 Combined date and time of day items ======================================= The ISO 8601 date and time of day extended format consists of an ISO 8601 date, a ‘T’ character separator, and an ISO 8601 time of day. This format is also recognized if the ‘T’ is replaced by a space. In this format, the time of day should use 24-hour notation. Fractional seconds are allowed, with either comma or period preceding the fraction. ISO 8601 fractional minutes and hours are not supported. Typically, hosts support nanosecond timestamp resolution; excess precision is silently discarded. Here are some examples: 2022-09-24T20:02:00.052-05:00 2022-12-31T23:59:59,999999999+11:00 1970-01-01 00:00Z 7.6 Day of week items ===================== The explicit mention of a day of the week will forward the date (only if necessary) to reach that day of the week in the future. Days of the week may be spelled out in full: ‘Sunday’, ‘Monday’, ‘Tuesday’, ‘Wednesday’, ‘Thursday’, ‘Friday’ or ‘Saturday’. Days may be abbreviated to their first three letters, optionally followed by a period. The special abbreviations ‘Tues’ for ‘Tuesday’, ‘Wednes’ for ‘Wednesday’ and ‘Thur’ or ‘Thurs’ for ‘Thursday’ are also allowed. A number may precede a day of the week item to move forward supplementary weeks. It is best used in expression like ‘third monday’. In this context, ‘last DAY’ or ‘next DAY’ is also acceptable; they move one week before or after the day that DAY by itself would represent. A comma following a day of the week item is ignored. 7.7 Relative items in date strings ================================== “Relative items” adjust a date (or the current date if none) forward or backward. The effects of relative items accumulate. Here are some examples: 1 year 1 year ago 3 years 2 days The unit of time displacement may be selected by the string ‘year’ or ‘month’ for moving by whole years or months. These are fuzzy units, as years and months are not all of equal duration. More precise units are ‘fortnight’ which is worth 14 days, ‘week’ worth 7 days, ‘day’ worth 24 hours, ‘hour’ worth 60 minutes, ‘minute’ or ‘min’ worth 60 seconds, and ‘second’ or ‘sec’ worth one second. An ‘s’ suffix on these units is accepted and ignored. The unit of time may be preceded by a multiplier, given as an optionally signed number. Unsigned numbers are taken as positively signed. No number at all implies 1 for a multiplier. Following a relative item by the string ‘ago’ is equivalent to preceding the unit by a multiplier with value -1. The string ‘tomorrow’ is worth one day in the future (equivalent to ‘day’), the string ‘yesterday’ is worth one day in the past (equivalent to ‘day ago’). The strings ‘now’ or ‘today’ are relative items corresponding to zero-valued time displacement, these strings come from the fact a zero-valued time displacement represents the current time when not otherwise changed by previous items. They may be used to stress other items, like in ‘12:00 today’. The string ‘this’ also has the meaning of a zero-valued time displacement, but is preferred in date strings like ‘this thursday’. When a relative item causes the resulting date to cross a boundary where the clocks were adjusted, typically for daylight saving time, the resulting date and time are adjusted accordingly. The fuzz in units can cause problems with relative items. For example, ‘2022-12-31 -1 month’ might evaluate to 2022-12-01, because 2022-11-31 is an invalid date. To determine the previous month more reliably, you can ask for the month before the 15th of the current month. For example: $ date -R Thu, 31 Dec 2022 13:02:39 -0400 $ date --date='-1 month' +'Last month was %B?' Last month was December? $ date --date="$(date +%Y-%m-15) -1 month" +'Last month was %B!' Last month was November! Also, take care when manipulating dates around clock changes such as daylight saving leaps. In a few cases these have added or subtracted as much as 24 hours from the clock, so it is often wise to adopt universal time by setting the ‘TZ’ environment variable to ‘UTC0’ before embarking on calendrical calculations. 7.8 Pure numbers in date strings ================================ The precise interpretation of a pure decimal number depends on the context in the date string. If the decimal number is of the form YYYYMMDD and no other calendar date item (*note Calendar date items::) appears before it in the date string, then YYYY is read as the year, MM as the month number and DD as the day of the month, for the specified calendar date. If the decimal number is of the form HHMM and no other time of day item appears before it in the date string, then HH is read as the hour of the day and MM as the minute of the hour, for the specified time of day. MM can also be omitted. If both a calendar date and a time of day appear to the left of a number in the date string, but no relative item, then the number overrides the year. 7.9 Seconds since the Epoch =========================== If you precede a number with ‘@’, it represents an internal timestamp as a count of seconds. The number can contain an internal decimal point (either ‘.’ or ‘,’); any excess precision not supported by the internal representation is truncated toward minus infinity. Such a number cannot be combined with any other date item, as it specifies a complete timestamp. Internally, computer times are represented as a count of seconds since an Epoch—a well-defined point of time. On GNU and POSIX systems, the Epoch is 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, so ‘@0’ represents this time, ‘@1’ represents 1970-01-01 00:00:01 UTC, and so forth. GNU and most other POSIX-compliant systems support such times as an extension to POSIX, using negative counts, so that ‘@-1’ represents 1969-12-31 23:59:59 UTC. Most modern systems count seconds with 64-bit two’s-complement integers of seconds with nanosecond subcounts, which is a range that includes the known lifetime of the universe with nanosecond resolution. Some obsolescent systems count seconds with 32-bit two’s-complement integers and can represent times from 1901-12-13 20:45:52 through 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC. A few systems sport other time ranges. On most hosts, these counts ignore the presence of leap seconds. For example, on most hosts ‘@1483228799’ represents 2016-12-31 23:59:59 UTC, ‘@1483228800’ represents 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, and there is no way to represent the intervening leap second 2016-12-31 23:59:60 UTC. 7.10 Specifying time zone rules =============================== Normally, dates are interpreted using the rules of the current time zone, which in turn are specified by the ‘TZ’ environment variable, or by a system default if ‘TZ’ is not set. To specify a different set of default time zone rules that apply just to one date, start the date with a string of the form ‘TZ="RULE"’. The two quote characters (‘"’) must be present in the date, and any quotes or backslashes within RULE must be escaped by a backslash. For example, with the GNU ‘date’ command you can answer the question “What time is it in New York when a Paris clock shows 6:30am on October 31, 2022?” by using a date beginning with ‘TZ="Europe/Paris"’ as shown in the following shell transcript: $ export TZ="America/New_York" $ date --date='TZ="Europe/Paris" 2022-10-31 06:30' Mon Oct 31 01:30:00 EDT 2022 In this example, the ‘--date’ operand begins with its own ‘TZ’ setting, so the rest of that operand is processed according to ‘Europe/Paris’ rules, treating the string ‘2022-11-14 06:30’ as if it were in Paris. However, since the output of the ‘date’ command is processed according to the overall time zone rules, it uses New York time. (Paris was normally six hours ahead of New York in 2022, but this example refers to a brief Halloween period when the gap was five hours.) A ‘TZ’ value is a rule that typically names a location in the ‘tz’ database (https://www.iana.org/time-zones). A recent catalog of location names appears in the TWiki Date and Time Gateway (https://twiki.org/cgi-bin/xtra/tzdatepick.html). A few non-GNU hosts require a colon before a location name in a ‘TZ’ setting, e.g., ‘TZ=":America/New_York"’. The ‘tz’ database includes a wide variety of locations ranging from ‘Africa/Abidjan’ to ‘Pacific/Tongatapu’, but if you are at sea and have your own private time zone, or if you are using a non-GNU host that does not support the ‘tz’ database, you may need to use a POSIX rule instead. The previously-mentioned POSIX rule ‘UTC0’ says that the time zone abbreviation is ‘UTC’, the zone is zero hours away from Greenwich, and there is no daylight saving time. POSIX rules can also specify nonzero Greenwich offsets. For example, the following shell transcript answers the question “What time is it five and a half hours east of Greenwich when a clock seven hours west of Greenwich shows 9:50pm on July 12, 2022?” $ TZ="<+0530>-5:30" date --date='TZ="<-07>+7" 2022-07-12 21:50' Wed Jul 13 10:20:00 +0530 2022 This example uses the somewhat-confusing POSIX convention for rules. ‘TZ="<-07>+7"’ says that the time zone abbreviation is ‘-07’ and the time zone is 7 hours west of Greenwich, and ‘TZ="<+0530>-5:30"’ says that the time zone abbreviation is ‘+0530’ and the time zone is 5 hours 30 minutes east of Greenwich. (One should never use a setting like ‘TZ="UTC-5"’, since this would incorrectly imply that local time is five hours east of Greenwich and the time zone is called “UTC”.) Although trickier POSIX ‘TZ’ settings like ‘TZ="<-05>+5<-04>,M3.2.0/2,M11.1.0/2"’ can specify some daylight saving regimes, location-based settings like ‘TZ="America/New_York"’ are typically simpler and more accurate historically. *Note Specifying the Time Zone with ‘TZ’: (libc)TZ Variable. 7.11 Authors of ‘parse_datetime’ ================================ ‘parse_datetime’ started life as ‘getdate’, as originally implemented by Steven M. Bellovin () while at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The code was later tweaked by a couple of people on Usenet, then completely overhauled by Rich $alz () and Jim Berets () in August, 1990. Various revisions for the GNU system were made by David MacKenzie, Jim Meyering, Paul Eggert and others, including renaming it to ‘get_date’ to avoid a conflict with the alternative Posix function ‘getdate’, and a later rename to ‘parse_datetime’. The Posix function ‘getdate’ can parse more locale-specific dates using ‘strptime’, but relies on an environment variable and external file, and lacks the thread-safety of ‘parse_datetime’. This chapter was originally produced by François Pinard () from the ‘parse_datetime.y’ source code, and then edited by K. Berry (). 8 Controlling the Archive Format ******************************** Due to historical reasons, there are several formats of tar archives. All of them are based on the same principles, but have some subtle differences that often make them incompatible with each other. GNU tar is able to create and handle archives in a variety of formats. The most frequently used formats are (in alphabetical order): gnu Format used by GNU ‘tar’ versions up to 1.13.25. This format derived from an early POSIX standard, adding some improvements such as sparse file handling and incremental archives. Unfortunately these features were implemented in a way incompatible with other archive formats. Archives in ‘gnu’ format are able to hold file names of unlimited length. oldgnu Format used by GNU ‘tar’ of versions prior to 1.12. v7 Archive format, compatible with the V7 implementation of tar. This format imposes a number of limitations. The most important of them are: 1. File names and symbolic links can contain at most 100 bytes. 2. File sizes must be less than 8 GiB (2^33 bytes = 8,589,934,592 bytes). 3. It is impossible to store special files (block and character devices, fifos etc.) 4. UIDs and GIDs must be less than 2^21 (2,097,152). 5. V7 archives do not contain symbolic ownership information (user and group name of the file owner). This format has traditionally been used by Automake when producing Makefiles. This practice will change in the future, in the meantime, however this means that projects containing file names more than 100 bytes long will not be able to use GNU ‘tar’ 1.35 and Automake prior to 1.9. ustar Archive format defined by POSIX.1-1988 and later. It stores symbolic ownership information. It is also able to store special files. However, it imposes several restrictions as well: 1. File names can contain at most 255 bytes. 2. File names longer than 100 bytes must be split at a directory separator in two parts, the first being at most 155 bytes long. So, in most cases file names must be a bit shorter than 255 bytes. 3. Symbolic links can contain at most 100 bytes. 4. Files can contain at most 8 GiB (2^33 bytes = 8,589,934,592 bytes). 5. UIDs, GIDs, device major numbers, and device minor numbers must be less than 2^21 (2,097,152). star The format used by the late Jörg Schilling’s ‘star’ implementation. GNU ‘tar’ is able to read ‘star’ archives but currently does not produce them. posix The format defined by POSIX.1-2001 and later. This is the most flexible and feature-rich format. It does not impose arbitrary restrictions on file sizes or file name lengths. This format is more recent, so some ‘tar’ implementations cannot handle it properly. However, any ‘tar’ implementation able to read ‘ustar’ archives should be able to read most ‘posix’ archives as well, except that it will extract any additional information (such as long file names) as extra plain text files. This archive format will be the default format for future versions of GNU ‘tar’. The following table summarizes the limitations of each of these formats: Format UID File Size File Name Devn -------------------------------------------------------------------- gnu 1.8e19 Unlimited Unlimited 63 oldgnu 1.8e19 Unlimited Unlimited 63 v7 2097151 8 GiB − 1 99 n/a ustar 2097151 8 GiB − 1 255 21 posix Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited The default format for GNU ‘tar’ is defined at compilation time. You may check it by running ‘tar --help’, and examining the last lines of its output. Usually, GNU ‘tar’ is configured to create archives in ‘gnu’ format, however, a future version will switch to ‘posix’. 8.1 Using Less Space through Compression ======================================== 8.1.1 Creating and Reading Compressed Archives ---------------------------------------------- GNU ‘tar’ is able to create and read compressed archives. It supports a wide variety of compression programs, namely: ‘gzip’, ‘bzip2’, ‘lzip’, ‘lzma’, ‘lzop’, ‘zstd’, ‘xz’ and traditional ‘compress’. The latter is supported mostly for backward compatibility, and we recommend against using it, because it is by far less effective than the other compression programs(1). Creating a compressed archive is simple: you just specify a “compression option” along with the usual archive creation commands. Available compression options are summarized in the table below: Long Short Archive format --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘--gzip’ ‘-z’ ‘gzip’ ‘--bzip2’ ‘-j’ ‘bzip2’ ‘--xz’ ‘-J’ ‘xz’ ‘--lzip’ ‘lzip’ ‘--lzma’ ‘lzma’ ‘--lzop’ ‘lzop’ ‘--zstd’ ‘zstd’ ‘--compress’ ‘-Z’ ‘compress’ For example: $ tar czf archive.tar.gz . You can also let GNU ‘tar’ select the compression program based on the suffix of the archive file name. This is done using ‘--auto-compress’ (‘-a’) command line option. For example, the following invocation will use ‘bzip2’ for compression: $ tar caf archive.tar.bz2 . whereas the following one will use ‘lzma’: $ tar caf archive.tar.lzma . For a complete list of file name suffixes recognized by GNU ‘tar’, see *note auto-compress::. Reading compressed archive is even simpler: you don’t need to specify any additional options as GNU ‘tar’ recognizes its format automatically. Thus, the following commands will list and extract the archive created in previous example: # List the compressed archive $ tar tf archive.tar.gz # Extract the compressed archive $ tar xf archive.tar.gz The format recognition algorithm is based on “signatures”, a special byte sequences in the beginning of file, that are specific for certain compression formats. If this approach fails, ‘tar’ falls back to using archive name suffix to determine its format (*note auto-compress::, for a list of recognized suffixes). Some compression programs are able to handle different compression formats. GNU ‘tar’ uses this, if the principal decompressor for the given format is not available. For example, if ‘compress’ is not installed, ‘tar’ will try to use ‘gzip’. As of version 1.35 the following alternatives are tried(2): Format Main decompressor Alternatives --------------------------------------------------------------------- compress compress gzip lzma lzma xz bzip2 bzip2 lbzip2 The only case when you have to specify a decompression option while reading the archive is when reading from a pipe or from a tape drive that does not support random access. However, in this case GNU ‘tar’ will indicate which option you should use. For example: $ cat archive.tar.gz | tar tf - tar: Archive is compressed. Use -z option tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now If you see such diagnostics, just add the suggested option to the invocation of GNU ‘tar’: $ cat archive.tar.gz | tar tzf - Notice also, that there are several restrictions on operations on compressed archives. First of all, compressed archives cannot be modified, i.e., you cannot update (‘--update’, alias ‘-u’) them or delete (‘--delete’) members from them or add (‘--append’, alias ‘-r’) members to them. Likewise, you cannot append another ‘tar’ archive to a compressed archive using ‘--concatenate’ (‘-A’). Secondly, multi-volume archives cannot be compressed. The following options allow to select a particular compressor program: ‘-z’ ‘--gzip’ ‘--ungzip’ Filter the archive through ‘gzip’. ‘-J’ ‘--xz’ Filter the archive through ‘xz’. ‘-j’ ‘--bzip2’ Filter the archive through ‘bzip2’. ‘--lzip’ Filter the archive through ‘lzip’. ‘--lzma’ Filter the archive through ‘lzma’. ‘--lzop’ Filter the archive through ‘lzop’. ‘--zstd’ Filter the archive through ‘zstd’. ‘-Z’ ‘--compress’ ‘--uncompress’ Filter the archive through ‘compress’. When any of these options is given, GNU ‘tar’ searches the compressor binary in the current path and invokes it. The name of the compressor program is specified at compilation time using a corresponding ‘--with-COMPNAME’ option to ‘configure’, e.g. ‘--with-bzip2’ to select a specific ‘bzip2’ binary. *Note lbzip2::, for a detailed discussion. The output produced by ‘tar --help’ shows the actual compressor names along with each of these options. You can use any of these options on physical devices (tape drives, etc.) and remote files as well as on normal files; data to or from such devices or remote files is reblocked by another copy of the ‘tar’ program to enforce the specified (or default) record size. The default compression parameters are used. You can override them by using the ‘-I’ option (see below), e.g.: $ tar -cf archive.tar.gz -I 'gzip -9 -n' subdir A more traditional way to do this is to use a pipe: $ tar cf - subdir | gzip -9 -n > archive.tar.gz Compressed archives are easily corrupted, because compressed files have little redundancy. The adaptive nature of the compression scheme means that the compression tables are implicitly spread all over the archive. If you lose a few blocks, the dynamic construction of the compression tables becomes unsynchronized, and there is little chance that you could recover later in the archive. Other compression options provide better control over creating compressed archives. These are: ‘--auto-compress’ ‘-a’ Select a compression program to use by the archive file name suffix. The following suffixes are recognized: Suffix Compression program ------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘.gz’ ‘gzip’ ‘.tgz’ ‘gzip’ ‘.taz’ ‘gzip’ ‘.Z’ ‘compress’ ‘.taZ’ ‘compress’ ‘.bz2’ ‘bzip2’ ‘.tz2’ ‘bzip2’ ‘.tbz2’ ‘bzip2’ ‘.tbz’ ‘bzip2’ ‘.lz’ ‘lzip’ ‘.lzma’ ‘lzma’ ‘.tlz’ ‘lzma’ ‘.lzo’ ‘lzop’ ‘.xz’ ‘xz’ ‘.zst’ ‘zstd’ ‘.tzst’ ‘zstd’ ‘--use-compress-program=COMMAND’ ‘-I=COMMAND’ Use external compression program COMMAND. Use this option if you want to specify options for the compression program, or if you are not happy with the compression program associated with the suffix at compile time, or if you have a compression program that GNU ‘tar’ does not support. The COMMAND argument is a valid command invocation, as you would type it at the command line prompt, with any additional options as needed. Enclose it in quotes if it contains white space (*note Running External Commands: external.). The COMMAND should follow two conventions: First, when invoked without additional options, it should read data from standard input, compress it and output it on standard output. Secondly, if invoked with the additional ‘-d’ option, it should do exactly the opposite, i.e., read the compressed data from the standard input and produce uncompressed data on the standard output. The latter requirement means that you must not use the ‘-d’ option as a part of the COMMAND itself. The ‘--use-compress-program’ option, in particular, lets you implement your own filters, not necessarily dealing with compression/decompression. For example, suppose you wish to implement PGP encryption on top of compression, using ‘gpg’ (*note gpg: (gpg)Top.). The following script does that: #! /bin/sh case $1 in -d) gpg --decrypt - | gzip -d -c;; '') gzip -c | gpg -s;; *) echo "Unknown option $1">&2; exit 1;; esac Suppose you name it ‘gpgz’ and save it somewhere in your ‘PATH’. Then the following command will create a compressed archive signed with your private key: $ tar -cf foo.tar.gpgz -Igpgz . Likewise, the command below will list its contents: $ tar -tf foo.tar.gpgz -Igpgz . ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) It also had patent problems in the past. (2) To verbosely trace the decompressor selection, use the ‘--warning=decompress-program’ option (*note decompress-program: warnings.). 8.1.1.1 Using lbzip2 with GNU ‘tar’. .................................... ‘Lbzip2’ is a multithreaded utility for handling ‘bzip2’ compression, written by Laszlo Ersek. It makes use of multiple processors to speed up its operation and in general works considerably faster than ‘bzip2’. For a detailed description of ‘lbzip2’ see and lbzip2: parallel bzip2 utility (http://www.linuxinsight.com/lbzip2-parallel-bzip2-utility.html). Recent versions of ‘lbzip2’ are mostly command line compatible with ‘bzip2’, which makes it possible to automatically invoke it via the ‘--bzip2’ GNU ‘tar’ command line option. To do so, GNU ‘tar’ must be configured with the ‘--with-bzip2’ command line option, like this: $ ./configure --with-bzip2=lbzip2 [OTHER-OPTIONS] Once configured and compiled this way, ‘tar --help’ will show the following: $ tar --help | grep -- --bzip2 -j, --bzip2 filter the archive through lbzip2 which means that running ‘tar --bzip2’ will invoke ‘lbzip2’. 8.1.2 Archiving Sparse Files ---------------------------- Files in the file system occasionally have “holes”. A “hole” in a file is a section of the file’s contents which was never written. The contents of a hole reads as all zeros. On many operating systems, actual disk storage is not allocated for holes, but they are counted in the length of the file. If you archive such a file, ‘tar’ could create an archive longer than the original. To have ‘tar’ attempt to recognize the holes in a file, use ‘--sparse’ (‘-S’). When you use this option, then, for any file using less disk space than would be expected from its length, ‘tar’ searches the file for holes. It then records in the archive for the file where the holes (consecutive stretches of zeros) are, and only archives the “real contents” of the file. On extraction (using ‘--sparse’ is not needed on extraction) any such files have also holes created wherever the holes were found. Thus, if you use ‘--sparse’, ‘tar’ archives won’t take more space than the original. GNU ‘tar’ uses two methods for detecting holes in sparse files. These methods are described later in this subsection. ‘-S’ ‘--sparse’ This option instructs ‘tar’ to test each file for sparseness before attempting to archive it. If the file is found to be sparse it is treated specially, thus allowing to decrease the amount of space used by its image in the archive. This option is meaningful only when creating or updating archives. It has no effect on extraction. Consider using ‘--sparse’ when performing file system backups, to avoid archiving the expanded forms of files stored sparsely in the system. Even if your system has no sparse files currently, some may be created in the future. If you use ‘--sparse’ while making file system backups as a matter of course, you can be assured the archive will never take more space on the media than the files take on disk (otherwise, archiving a disk filled with sparse files might take hundreds of tapes). *Note Incremental Dumps::. However, be aware that ‘--sparse’ option may present a serious drawback. Namely, in order to determine the positions of holes in a file ‘tar’ may have to read it before trying to archive it, so in total the file may be read *twice*. This may happen when your OS or your FS does not support “SEEK_HOLE/SEEK_DATA” feature in “lseek” (See ‘--hole-detection’, below). When using ‘POSIX’ archive format, GNU ‘tar’ is able to store sparse files using in three distinct ways, called “sparse formats”. A sparse format is identified by its “number”, consisting, as usual of two decimal numbers, delimited by a dot. By default, format ‘1.0’ is used. If, for some reason, you wish to use an earlier format, you can select it using ‘--sparse-version’ option. ‘--sparse-version=VERSION’ Select the format to store sparse files in. Valid VERSION values are: ‘0.0’, ‘0.1’ and ‘1.0’. *Note Sparse Formats::, for a detailed description of each format. Using ‘--sparse-format’ option implies ‘--sparse’. ‘--hole-detection=METHOD’ Enforce concrete hole detection method. Before the real contents of sparse file are stored, ‘tar’ needs to gather knowledge about file sparseness. This is because it needs to have the file’s map of holes stored into tar header before it starts archiving the file contents. Currently, two methods of hole detection are implemented: • ‘--hole-detection=seek’ Seeking the file for data and holes. It uses enhancement of the ‘lseek’ system call (‘SEEK_HOLE’ and ‘SEEK_DATA’) which is able to reuse file system knowledge about sparse file contents - so the detection is usually very fast. To use this feature, your file system and operating system must support it. At the time of this writing (2015) this feature, in spite of not being accepted by POSIX, is fairly widely supported by different operating systems. • ‘--hole-detection=raw’ Reading byte-by-byte the whole sparse file before the archiving. This method detects holes like consecutive stretches of zeroes. Comparing to the previous method, it is usually much slower, although more portable. When no ‘--hole-detection’ option is given, ‘tar’ uses the ‘seek’, if supported by the operating system. Using ‘--hole-detection’ option implies ‘--sparse’. 8.2 Handling File Attributes ============================ When ‘tar’ reads files, it updates their access times. To avoid this, use the ‘--atime-preserve[=METHOD]’ option, which can either reset the access time retroactively or avoid changing it in the first place. ‘--atime-preserve’ ‘--atime-preserve=replace’ ‘--atime-preserve=system’ Preserve the access times of files that are read. This works only for files that you own, unless you have superuser privileges. ‘--atime-preserve=replace’ works on most systems, but it also restores the data modification time and updates the status change time. Hence it doesn’t interact with incremental dumps nicely (*note Incremental Dumps::), and it can set access or data modification times incorrectly if other programs access the file while ‘tar’ is running. ‘--atime-preserve=system’ avoids changing the access time in the first place, if the operating system supports this. Unfortunately, this may or may not work on any given operating system or file system. If ‘tar’ knows for sure it won’t work, it complains right away. Currently ‘--atime-preserve’ with no operand defaults to ‘--atime-preserve=replace’, but this is intended to change to ‘--atime-preserve=system’ when the latter is better-supported. ‘-m’ ‘--touch’ Do not extract data modification time. When this option is used, ‘tar’ leaves the data modification times of the files it extracts as the times when the files were extracted, instead of setting it to the times recorded in the archive. This option is meaningless with ‘--list’ (‘-t’). ‘--same-owner’ Create extracted files with the same ownership they have in the archive. This is the default behavior for the superuser, so this option is meaningful only for non-root users, when ‘tar’ is executed on those systems able to give files away. This is considered as a security flaw by many people, at least because it makes quite difficult to correctly account users for the disk space they occupy. Also, the ‘suid’ or ‘sgid’ attributes of files are easily and silently lost when files are given away. When writing an archive, ‘tar’ writes the user ID and user name separately. If it can’t find a user name (because the user ID is not in ‘/etc/passwd’), then it does not write one. When restoring, it tries to look the name (if one was written) up in ‘/etc/passwd’. If it fails, then it uses the user ID stored in the archive instead. ‘--no-same-owner’ ‘-o’ Do not attempt to restore ownership when extracting. This is the default behavior for ordinary users, so this option has an effect only for the superuser. ‘--numeric-owner’ The ‘--numeric-owner’ option allows (ANSI) archives to be written without user/group name information or such information to be ignored when extracting. It effectively disables the generation and/or use of user/group name information. This option forces extraction using the numeric ids from the archive, ignoring the names. This is useful in certain circumstances, when restoring a backup from an emergency floppy with different passwd/group files for example. It is otherwise impossible to extract files with the right ownerships if the password file in use during the extraction does not match the one belonging to the file system(s) being extracted. This occurs, for example, if you are restoring your files after a major crash and had booted from an emergency floppy with no password file or put your disk into another machine to do the restore. The numeric ids are _always_ saved into ‘tar’ archives. The identifying names are added at create time when provided by the system, unless ‘--format=oldgnu’ is used. Numeric ids could be used when moving archives between a collection of machines using a centralized management for attribution of numeric ids to users and groups. This is often made through using the NIS capabilities. When making a ‘tar’ file for distribution to other sites, it is sometimes cleaner to use a single owner for all files in the distribution, and nicer to specify the write permission bits of the files as stored in the archive independently of their actual value on the file system. The way to prepare a clean distribution is usually to have some Makefile rule creating a directory, copying all needed files in that directory, then setting ownership and permissions as wanted (there are a lot of possible schemes), and only then making a ‘tar’ archive out of this directory, before cleaning everything out. Of course, we could add a lot of options to GNU ‘tar’ for fine tuning permissions and ownership. This is not the good way, I think. GNU ‘tar’ is already crowded with options and moreover, the approach just explained gives you a great deal of control already. ‘-p’ ‘--same-permissions’ ‘--preserve-permissions’ Extract all protection information. This option causes ‘tar’ to set the modes (access permissions) of extracted files exactly as recorded in the archive. If this option is not used, the current ‘umask’ setting limits the permissions on extracted files. This option is by default enabled when ‘tar’ is executed by a superuser. This option is meaningless with ‘--list’ (‘-t’). 8.3 Making ‘tar’ Archives More Portable ======================================= Creating a ‘tar’ archive on a particular system that is meant to be useful later on many other machines and with other versions of ‘tar’ is more challenging than you might think. ‘tar’ archive formats have been evolving since the first versions of Unix. Many such formats are around, and are not always compatible with each other. This section discusses a few problems, and gives some advice about making ‘tar’ archives more portable. One golden rule is simplicity. For example, limit your ‘tar’ archives to contain only regular files and directories, avoiding other kind of special files. Do not attempt to save sparse files or contiguous files as such. Let’s discuss a few more problems, in turn. 8.3.1 Portable Names -------------------- Use portable file and member names. A name is portable if it contains only ASCII letters and digits, ‘/’, ‘.’, ‘_’, and ‘-’; it cannot be empty, start with ‘-’ or ‘//’, or contain ‘/-’. Avoid deep directory nesting. For portability to old Unix hosts, limit your file name components to 14 characters or less. If you intend to have your ‘tar’ archives to be read on case-insensitive file systems like FAT32, you should not rely on case distinction for file names. 8.3.2 Symbolic Links -------------------- Normally, when ‘tar’ archives a symbolic link, it writes a block to the archive naming the target of the link. In that way, the ‘tar’ archive is a faithful record of the file system contents. When ‘--dereference’ (‘-h’) is used with ‘--create’ (‘-c’), ‘tar’ archives the files symbolic links point to, instead of the links themselves. When creating portable archives, use ‘--dereference’ (‘-h’): some systems do not support symbolic links, and moreover, your distribution might be unusable if it contains unresolved symbolic links. When reading from an archive, the ‘--dereference’ (‘-h’) option causes ‘tar’ to follow an already-existing symbolic link when ‘tar’ writes or reads a file named in the archive. Ordinarily, ‘tar’ does not follow such a link, though it may remove the link before writing a new file. *Note Dealing with Old Files::. The ‘--dereference’ option is unsafe if an untrusted user can modify directories while ‘tar’ is running. *Note Security::. 8.3.3 Hard Links ---------------- Normally, when ‘tar’ archives a hard link, it writes a block to the archive naming the target of the link (a ‘1’ type block). In that way, the actual file contents is stored in file only once. For example, consider the following two files: $ ls -l -rw-r--r-- 2 gray staff 4 2007-10-30 15:11 one -rw-r--r-- 2 gray staff 4 2007-10-30 15:11 jeden Here, ‘jeden’ is a link to ‘one’. When archiving this directory with a verbose level 2, you will get an output similar to the following: $ tar cvvf ../archive.tar . drwxr-xr-x gray/staff 0 2007-10-30 15:13 ./ -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 4 2007-10-30 15:11 ./jeden hrw-r--r-- gray/staff 0 2007-10-30 15:11 ./one link to ./jeden The last line shows that, instead of storing two copies of the file, ‘tar’ stored it only once, under the name ‘jeden’, and stored file ‘one’ as a hard link to this file. It may be important to know that all hard links to the given file are stored in the archive. For example, this may be necessary for exact reproduction of the file system. The following option does that: ‘--check-links’ ‘-l’ 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, print a warning message. For example, trying to archive only file ‘jeden’ with this option produces the following diagnostics: $ tar -c -f ../archive.tar -l jeden tar: Missing links to 'jeden'. Although creating special records for hard links helps keep a faithful record of the file system contents and makes archives more compact, it may present some difficulties when extracting individual members from the archive. For example, trying to extract file ‘one’ from the archive created in previous examples produces, in the absence of file ‘jeden’: $ tar xf archive.tar ./one tar: ./one: Cannot hard link to './jeden': No such file or directory tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors The reason for this behavior is that ‘tar’ cannot seek back in the archive to the previous member (in this case, ‘one’), to extract it(1). If you wish to avoid such problems at the cost of a bigger archive, use the following option: ‘--hard-dereference’ Dereference hard links and store the files they refer to. For example, trying this option on our two sample files, we get two copies in the archive, each of which can then be extracted independently of the other: $ tar -c -vv -f ../archive.tar --hard-dereference . drwxr-xr-x gray/staff 0 2007-10-30 15:13 ./ -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 4 2007-10-30 15:11 ./jeden -rw-r--r-- gray/staff 4 2007-10-30 15:11 ./one ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) There are plans to fix this in future releases. 8.3.4 Old V7 Archives --------------------- Certain old versions of ‘tar’ cannot handle additional information recorded by newer ‘tar’ programs. To create an archive in V7 format (not ANSI), which can be read by these old versions, specify the ‘--format=v7’ option in conjunction with the ‘--create’ (‘-c’) (‘tar’ also accepts ‘--portability’ or ‘--old-archive’ for this option). When you specify it, ‘tar’ leaves out information about directories, pipes, fifos, contiguous files, and device files, and specifies file ownership by group and user IDs instead of group and user names. When updating an archive, do not use ‘--format=v7’ unless the archive was created using this option. In most cases, a _new_ format archive can be read by an _old_ ‘tar’ program without serious trouble, so this option should seldom be needed. On the other hand, most modern ‘tar’s are able to read old format archives, so it might be safer for you to always use ‘--format=v7’ for your distributions. Notice, however, that ‘ustar’ format is a better alternative, as it is free from many of ‘v7’’s drawbacks. 8.3.5 Ustar Archive Format -------------------------- The archive format defined by the POSIX.1-1988 specification is called ‘ustar’. Although it is more flexible than the V7 format, it still has many restrictions (*note ustar: Formats, for the detailed description of ‘ustar’ format). Along with V7 format, ‘ustar’ format is a good choice for archives intended to be read with other implementations of ‘tar’. To create an archive in ‘ustar’ format, use the ‘--format=ustar’ option in conjunction with ‘--create’ (‘-c’). 8.3.6 GNU and old GNU ‘tar’ format ---------------------------------- GNU ‘tar’ was based on an early draft of the POSIX 1003.1 ‘ustar’ standard. GNU extensions to ‘tar’, such as the support for file names longer than 100 characters, use portions of the ‘tar’ header record which were specified in that POSIX draft as unused. Subsequent changes in POSIX have allocated the same parts of the header record for other purposes. As a result, GNU ‘tar’ format is incompatible with the current POSIX specification, and with ‘tar’ programs that follow it. In the majority of cases, ‘tar’ will be configured to create this format by default. This will change in future releases, since we plan to make ‘POSIX’ format the default. To force creation a GNU ‘tar’ archive, use option ‘--format=gnu’. 8.3.7 GNU ‘tar’ and POSIX ‘tar’ ------------------------------- Starting from version 1.14 GNU ‘tar’ features full support for POSIX.1-2001 archives. A POSIX conformant archive will be created if ‘tar’ was given ‘--format=posix’ (‘--format=pax’) option. No special option is required to read and extract from a POSIX archive. 8.3.7.1 Controlling Extended Header Keywords ............................................ ‘--pax-option=KEYWORD-LIST’ Handle keywords in PAX extended headers. This option is equivalent to ‘-o’ option of the ‘pax’ utility. KEYWORD-LIST is a comma-separated list of keyword options, each keyword option taking one of the following forms: ‘delete=PATTERN’ When used with one of archive-creation commands, this option instructs ‘tar’ to omit from extended header records that it produces any keywords matching the string PATTERN. If the pattern contains shell metacharacters like ‘*’, it should be quoted to prevent the shell from expanding the pattern before ‘tar’ sees it. When used in extract or list mode, this option instructs tar to ignore any keywords matching the given PATTERN in the extended header records. In both cases, matching is performed using the pattern matching notation described in POSIX 1003.2, 3.13 (*note wildcards::). For example: --pax-option 'delete=security.*' would suppress security-related information. ‘exthdr.name=STRING’ This keyword allows user control over the name that is written into the ustar header blocks for the extended headers. The name is obtained from STRING after making the following substitutions: Meta-character Replaced By ------------------------------------------------------------ %d The directory name of the file, equivalent to the result of the ‘dirname’ utility on the translated file name. %f The name of the file with the directory information stripped, equivalent to the result of the ‘basename’ utility on the translated file name. %p The process ID of the ‘tar’ process. %% A ‘%’ character. Any other ‘%’ characters in STRING produce undefined results. If no option ‘exthdr.name=string’ is specified, ‘tar’ will use the following default value: %d/PaxHeaders/%f This default helps make the archive more reproducible. *Note Reproducibility::. POSIX recommends using ‘%d/PaxHeaders.%p/%f’ instead, which means the two archives created with the same set of options and containing the same set of files will be byte-to-byte different. This default will be used if the environment variable ‘POSIXLY_CORRECT’ is set. ‘exthdr.mtime=VALUE’ This keyword defines the value of the ‘mtime’ field that is written into the ustar header blocks for the extended headers. By default, the ‘mtime’ field is set to the modification time of the archive member described by that extended header (or to the value of the ‘--mtime’ option, if supplied). ‘globexthdr.name=STRING’ This keyword allows user control over the name that is written into the ustar header blocks for global extended header records. The name is obtained from the contents of STRING, after making the following substitutions: Meta-character Replaced By ------------------------------------------------------------ %n An integer that represents the sequence number of the global extended header record in the archive, starting at 1. %p The process ID of the ‘tar’ process. %% A ‘%’ character. Any other ‘%’ characters in STRING produce undefined results. If no option ‘globexthdr.name=string’ is specified, ‘tar’ will use the following default value: $TMPDIR/GlobalHead.%n If the environment variable ‘POSIXLY_CORRECT’ is set, the following value is used instead: $TMPDIR/GlobalHead.%p.%n In both cases, ‘$TMPDIR’ stands for the value of the TMPDIR environment variable. If TMPDIR is not set, ‘tar’ uses ‘/tmp’. ‘globexthdr.mtime=VALUE’ This keyword defines the value of the ‘mtime’ field that is written into the ustar header blocks for the global extended headers. By default, the ‘mtime’ field is set to the time when ‘tar’ was invoked. ‘KEYWORD=VALUE’ When used with one of archive-creation commands, these keyword/value pairs will be included at the beginning of the archive in a global extended header record. When used with one of archive-reading commands, ‘tar’ will behave as if it has encountered these keyword/value pairs at the beginning of the archive in a global extended header record. ‘KEYWORD:=VALUE’ When used with one of archive-creation commands, these keyword/value pairs will be included as records at the beginning of an extended header for each file. This is effectively equivalent to KEYWORD=VALUE form except that it creates no global extended header records. When used with one of archive-reading commands, ‘tar’ will behave as if these keyword/value pairs were included as records at the end of each extended header; thus, they will override any global or file-specific extended header record keywords of the same names. For example, in the command: tar --format=posix --create \ --file archive --pax-option gname:=user . the group name will be forced to a new value for all files stored in the archive. In any of the forms described above, the VALUE may be a string enclosed in curly braces. In that case, the string between the braces is understood either as a textual time representation, as described in *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. For example, to set all modification times to the current date, you use the following option: --pax-option 'mtime:={now}' As another example, the following option helps make the archive more reproducible. *Note Reproducibility::. --pax-option delete=atime If you extract files from such an archive and recreate the archive from them, you will also need to eliminate changes due to ctime: --pax-option 'delete=atime,delete=ctime' Normally ‘tar’ saves an mtime value with subsecond resolution in an extended header for any file with a timestamp that is not on a one-second boundary. This is in addition to the traditional mtime timestamp in the header block. Although you can suppress subsecond timestamp resolution with ‘--pax-option delete=mtime’, this hack will not work for timestamps before 1970 or after 2242-03-16 12:56:31 UTC. If the environment variable ‘POSIXLY_CORRECT’ is set, two POSIX archives created using the same options on the same set of files might not be byte-to-byte equivalent even with the above options. This is because the POSIX default for extended header names includes the ‘tar’ process ID, which typically differs at each run. To produce byte-to-byte equivalent archives in this case, either unset ‘POSIXLY_CORRECT’, or use the following option, which can be combined with the above options: --pax-option exthdr.name=%d/PaxHeaders/%f 8.3.8 Checksumming Problems --------------------------- SunOS and HP-UX ‘tar’ fail to accept archives created using GNU ‘tar’ and containing non-ASCII file names, that is, file names having characters with the eighth bit set, because they use signed checksums, while GNU ‘tar’ uses unsigned checksums while creating archives, as per POSIX standards. On reading, GNU ‘tar’ computes both checksums and accepts either of them. It is somewhat worrying that a lot of people may go around doing backup of their files using faulty (or at least non-standard) software, not learning about it until it’s time to restore their missing files with an incompatible file extractor, or vice versa. GNU ‘tar’ computes checksums both ways, and accepts either of them on read, so GNU tar can read Sun tapes even with their wrong checksums. GNU ‘tar’ produces the standard checksum, however, raising incompatibilities with Sun. That is to say, GNU ‘tar’ has not been modified to _produce_ incorrect archives to be read by buggy ‘tar’’s. I’ve been told that more recent Sun ‘tar’ now read standard archives, so maybe Sun did a similar patch, after all? The story seems to be that when Sun first imported ‘tar’ sources on their system, they recompiled it without realizing that the checksums were computed differently, because of a change in the default signing of ‘char’’s in their compiler. So they started computing checksums wrongly. When they later realized their mistake, they merely decided to stay compatible with it, and with themselves afterwards. Presumably, but I do not really know, HP-UX has chosen their ‘tar’ archives to be compatible with Sun’s. The current standards do not favor Sun ‘tar’ format. In any case, it now falls on the shoulders of SunOS and HP-UX users to get a ‘tar’ able to read the good archives they receive. 8.3.9 Large or Negative Values ------------------------------ _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ The above sections suggest to use ‘oldest possible’ archive format if in doubt. However, sometimes it is not possible. If you attempt to archive a file whose metadata cannot be represented using required format, GNU ‘tar’ will print error message and ignore such a file. You will than have to switch to a format that is able to handle such values. The format summary table (*note Formats::) will help you to do so. In particular, when trying to archive files 8 GiB or larger, or with timestamps not in the range 1970-01-01 00:00:00 through 2242-03-16 12:56:31 UTC, you will have to chose between GNU and POSIX archive formats. When considering which format to choose, bear in mind that the GNU format uses two’s-complement base-256 notation to store values that do not fit into standard ustar range. Such archives can generally be read only by a GNU ‘tar’ implementation. Moreover, they sometimes cannot be correctly restored on another hosts even by GNU ‘tar’. For example, using two’s complement representation for negative time stamps that assumes a signed 32-bit ‘time_t’ generates archives that are not portable to hosts with differing ‘time_t’ representations. On the other hand, POSIX archives, generally speaking, can be extracted by any tar implementation that understands older ustar format. The exceptions are files 8 GiB or larger, or files dated before 1970-01-01 00:00:00 or after 2242-03-16 12:56:31 UTC 8.3.10 How to Extract GNU-Specific Data Using Other ‘tar’ Implementations ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In previous sections you became acquainted with various quirks necessary to make your archives portable. Sometimes you may need to extract archives containing GNU-specific members using some third-party ‘tar’ implementation or an older version of GNU ‘tar’. Of course your best bet is to have GNU ‘tar’ installed, but if it is for some reason impossible, this section will explain how to cope without it. When we speak about “GNU-specific” members we mean two classes of them: members split between the volumes of a multi-volume archive and sparse members. You will be able to always recover such members if the archive is in PAX format. In addition split members can be recovered from archives in old GNU format. The following subsections describe the required procedures in detail. 8.3.10.1 Extracting Members Split Between Volumes ................................................. If a member is split between several volumes of an old GNU format archive most third party ‘tar’ implementation will fail to extract it. To extract it, use ‘tarcat’ program (*note Tarcat::). This program is available from GNU ‘tar’ home page (http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/utils/tarcat.html). It concatenates several archive volumes into a single valid archive. For example, if you have three volumes named from ‘vol-1.tar’ to ‘vol-3.tar’, you can do the following to extract them using a third-party ‘tar’: $ tarcat vol-1.tar vol-2.tar vol-3.tar | tar xf - You could use this approach for most (although not all) PAX format archives as well. However, extracting split members from a PAX archive is a much easier task, because PAX volumes are constructed in such a way that each part of a split member is extracted to a different file by ‘tar’ implementations that are not aware of GNU extensions. More specifically, the very first part retains its original name, and all subsequent parts are named using the pattern: %d/GNUFileParts/%f.%n where symbols preceded by ‘%’ are “macro characters” that have the following meaning: Meta-character Replaced By ------------------------------------------------------------ %d The directory name of the file, equivalent to the result of the ‘dirname’ utility on its full name. %f The file name of the file, equivalent to the result of the ‘basename’ utility on its full name. %p The process ID of the ‘tar’ process that created the archive. %n Ordinal number of this particular part. For example, if the file ‘var/longfile’ was split during archive creation between three volumes, then the member names will be: var/longfile var/GNUFileParts/longfile.1 var/GNUFileParts/longfile.2 When you extract your archive using a third-party ‘tar’, these files will be created on your disk, and the only thing you will need to do to restore your file in its original form is concatenate them in the proper order, for example: $ cd var $ cat GNUFileParts/longfile.1 \ GNUFileParts/longfile.2 >> longfile $ rm -f GNUFileParts Notice, that if the ‘tar’ implementation you use supports PAX format archives, it will probably emit warnings about unknown keywords during extraction. They will look like this: Tar file too small Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.volume.filename' ignored. Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.volume.size' ignored. Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.volume.offset' ignored. You can safely ignore these warnings. If your ‘tar’ implementation is not PAX-aware, you will get more warnings and more files generated on your disk, e.g.: $ tar xf vol-1.tar var/PaxHeaders/longfile: Unknown file type 'x', extracted as normal file Unexpected EOF in archive $ tar xf vol-2.tar tmp/GlobalHead.1: Unknown file type 'g', extracted as normal file GNUFileParts/PaxHeaders/sparsefile.1: Unknown file type 'x', extracted as normal file Ignore these warnings. The ‘PaxHeaders.*’ directories created will contain files with “extended header keywords” describing the extracted files. You can delete them, unless they describe sparse members. Read further to learn more about them. 8.3.10.2 Extracting Sparse Members .................................. Any ‘tar’ implementation will be able to extract sparse members from a PAX archive. However, the extracted files will be “condensed”, i.e., any zero blocks will be removed from them. When we restore such a condensed file to its original form, by adding zero blocks (or “holes”) back to their original locations, we call this process “expanding” a compressed sparse file. To expand a file, you will need a simple auxiliary program called ‘xsparse’. It is available in source form from GNU ‘tar’ home page (http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/utils/xsparse.html). Let’s begin with archive members in “sparse format version 1.0”(1), which are the easiest to expand. The condensed file will contain both file map and file data, so no additional data will be needed to restore it. If the original file name was ‘DIR/NAME’, then the condensed file will be named ‘DIR/GNUSparseFile.N/NAME’, where N is a decimal number(2). To expand a version 1.0 file, run ‘xsparse’ as follows: $ xsparse cond-file where ‘cond-file’ is the name of the condensed file. The utility will deduce the name for the resulting expanded file using the following algorithm: 1. If ‘cond-file’ does not contain any directories, ‘../cond-file’ will be used; 2. If ‘cond-file’ has the form ‘DIR/T/NAME’, where both T and NAME are simple names, with no ‘/’ characters in them, the output file name will be ‘DIR/NAME’. 3. Otherwise, if ‘cond-file’ has the form ‘DIR/NAME’, the output file name will be ‘NAME’. In the unlikely case when this algorithm does not suit your needs, you can explicitly specify output file name as a second argument to the command: $ xsparse cond-file out-file It is often a good idea to run ‘xsparse’ in “dry run” mode first. In this mode, the command does not actually expand the file, but verbosely lists all actions it would be taking to do so. The dry run mode is enabled by ‘-n’ command line argument: $ xsparse -n /home/gray/GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile Reading v.1.0 sparse map Expanding file '/home/gray/GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile' to '/home/gray/sparsefile' Finished dry run To actually expand the file, you would run: $ xsparse /home/gray/GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile The program behaves the same way all UNIX utilities do: it will keep quiet unless it has something important to tell you (e.g. an error condition or something). If you wish it to produce verbose output, similar to that from the dry run mode, use ‘-v’ option: $ xsparse -v /home/gray/GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile Reading v.1.0 sparse map Expanding file '/home/gray/GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile' to '/home/gray/sparsefile' Done Additionally, if your ‘tar’ implementation has extracted the “extended headers” for this file, you can instruct ‘xstar’ to use them in order to verify the integrity of the expanded file. The option ‘-x’ sets the name of the extended header file to use. Continuing our example: $ xsparse -v -x /home/gray/PaxHeaders/sparsefile \ /home/gray/GNUSparseFile/sparsefile Reading extended header file Found variable GNU.sparse.major = 1 Found variable GNU.sparse.minor = 0 Found variable GNU.sparse.name = sparsefile Found variable GNU.sparse.realsize = 217481216 Reading v.1.0 sparse map Expanding file '/home/gray/GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile' to '/home/gray/sparsefile' Done An “extended header” is a special ‘tar’ archive header that precedes an archive member and contains a set of “variables”, describing the member properties that cannot be stored in the standard ‘ustar’ header. While optional for expanding sparse version 1.0 members, the use of extended headers is mandatory when expanding sparse members in older sparse formats: v.0.0 and v.0.1 (The sparse formats are described in detail in *note Sparse Formats::.) So, for these formats, the question is: how to obtain extended headers from the archive? If you use a ‘tar’ implementation that does not support PAX format, extended headers for each member will be extracted as a separate file. If we represent the member name as ‘DIR/NAME’, then the extended header file will be named ‘DIR/PaxHeaders/NAME’. Things become more difficult if your ‘tar’ implementation does support PAX headers, because in this case you will have to manually extract the headers. We recommend the following algorithm: 1. Consult the documentation of your ‘tar’ implementation for an option that prints “block numbers” along with the archive listing (analogous to GNU ‘tar’’s ‘-R’ option). For example, ‘star’ has ‘-block-number’. 2. Obtain verbose listing using the ‘block number’ option, and find block numbers of the sparse member in question and the member immediately following it. For example, running ‘star’ on our archive we obtain: $ star -t -v -block-number -f arc.tar ... star: Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.sparse.size' ignored. star: Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.sparse.numblocks' ignored. star: Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.sparse.name' ignored. star: Unknown extended header keyword 'GNU.sparse.map' ignored. block 56: 425984 -rw-r--r-- gray/users Jun 25 14:46 2006 GNUSparseFile.28124/sparsefile block 897: 65391 -rw-r--r-- gray/users Jun 24 20:06 2006 README ... (as usual, ignore the warnings about unknown keywords.) 3. Let SIZE be the size of the sparse member, BS be its block number and BN be the block number of the next member. Compute: N = BS - BN - SIZE/512 - 2 This number gives the size of the extended header part in tar “blocks”. In our example, this formula gives: ‘897 - 56 - 425984 / 512 - 2 = 7’. 4. Use ‘dd’ to extract the headers: dd if=ARCHIVE of=HNAME bs=512 skip=BS count=N where ARCHIVE is the archive name, HNAME is a name of the file to store the extended header in, BS and N are computed in previous steps. In our example, this command will be $ dd if=arc.tar of=xhdr bs=512 skip=56 count=7 Finally, you can expand the condensed file, using the obtained header: $ xsparse -v -x xhdr GNUSparseFile.6058/sparsefile Reading extended header file Found variable GNU.sparse.size = 217481216 Found variable GNU.sparse.numblocks = 208 Found variable GNU.sparse.name = sparsefile Found variable GNU.sparse.map = 0,2048,1050624,2048,... Expanding file 'GNUSparseFile.28124/sparsefile' to 'sparsefile' Done ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) *Note PAX 1::. (2) Technically speaking, N is a “process ID” of the ‘tar’ process which created the archive (*note PAX keywords::). 8.4 Making ‘tar’ Archives More Reproducible =========================================== Sometimes it is important for an archive to be “reproducible”, so that one can easily verify it to have been derived solely from its input. We call an archive reproducible, if an archive created from the same set of input files with the same command line options is byte-to-byte equivalent to the original one. However, two archives created by GNU ‘tar’ from two sets of input files normally might differ even if the input files have the same contents and GNU ‘tar’ was invoked the same way on both sets of input. This can happen if the inputs have different modification dates or other metadata, or if the input directories’ entries are in different orders. To avoid this problem when creating an archive, and thus make the archive reproducible, you can run GNU ‘tar’ in the C locale with some or all of the following options: ‘--sort=name’ Omit irrelevant information about directory entry order. ‘--format=posix’ Avoid problems with large files or files with unusual timestamps. This also enables ‘--pax-option’ options mentioned below. ‘--pax-option='exthdr.name=%d/PaxHeaders/%f'’ Omit the process ID of ‘tar’. This option is needed only if ‘POSIXLY_CORRECT’ is set in the environment. ‘--pax-option='delete=atime,delete=ctime'’ Omit irrelevant information about file access or status change time. ‘--clamp-mtime --mtime="$SOURCE_EPOCH"’ Omit irrelevant information about file timestamps after ‘$SOURCE_EPOCH’, which should be a time no less than any timestamp of any source file. ‘--numeric-owner’ Omit irrelevant information about user and group names. ‘--owner=0’ ‘--group=0’ Omit irrelevant information about file ownership and group. ‘--mode='go+u,go-w'’ Omit irrelevant information about file permissions. When creating a reproducible archive from version-controlled source files, it can be useful to set each file’s modification time to be that of its last commit, so that the timestamps are reproducible from the version-control repository. If these timestamps are all on integer second boundaries, and if you use ‘--format=posix --pax-option='delete=atime,delete=ctime' --clamp-mtime --mtime="$SOURCE_EPOCH"’ where ‘$SOURCE_EPOCH’ is the the time of the most recent commit, and if all non-source files have timestamps greater than ‘$SOURCE_EPOCH’, then GNU ‘tar’ should generate an archive in ustar format, since no POSIX features will be needed and the archive will be in the ustar subset of posix format. Also, if compressing, use a reproducible compression format; e.g., with ‘gzip’ you should use the ‘--no-name’ (‘-n’) option. Here is an example set of shell commands to produce a reproducible tarball with ‘git’ and ‘gzip’, which you can tailor to your project’s needs. function get_commit_time() { TZ=UTC0 git log -1 \ --format=tformat:%cd \ --date=format:%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ \ "$@" } # # Set each source file timestamp to that of its latest commit. git ls-files | while read -r file; do commit_time=$(get_commit_time "$file") && touch -md $commit_time "$file" done # # Set timestamp of each directory under $FILES # to the latest timestamp of any descendant. find $FILES -depth -type d -exec sh -c \ 'touch -r "$0/$(ls -At "$0" | head -n 1)" "$0"' \ {} ';' # # Create $ARCHIVE.tgz from $FILES, pretending that # the modification time for each newer file # is that of the most recent commit of any source file. SOURCE_EPOCH=$(get_commit_time) TARFLAGS=" --sort=name --format=posix --pax-option=exthdr.name=%d/PaxHeaders/%f --pax-option=delete=atime,delete=ctime --clamp-mtime --mtime=$SOURCE_EPOCH --numeric-owner --owner=0 --group=0 --mode=go+u,go-w " GZIPFLAGS="--no-name --best" LC_ALL=C tar $TARFLAGS -cf - $FILES | gzip $GZIPFLAGS > $ARCHIVE.tgz 8.5 Comparison of ‘tar’ and ‘cpio’ ================================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ The ‘cpio’ archive formats, like ‘tar’, do have maximum file name lengths. The binary and old ASCII formats have a maximum file length of 256, and the new ASCII and CRC ASCII formats have a max file length of 1024. GNU ‘cpio’ can read and write archives with arbitrary file name lengths, but other ‘cpio’ implementations may crash unexplainedly trying to read them. ‘tar’ handles symbolic links in the form in which it comes in BSD; ‘cpio’ doesn’t handle symbolic links in the form in which it comes in System V prior to SVR4, and some vendors may have added symlinks to their system without enhancing ‘cpio’ to know about them. Others may have enhanced it in a way other than the way I did it at Sun, and which was adopted by AT&T (and which is, I think, also present in the ‘cpio’ that Berkeley picked up from AT&T and put into a later BSD release—I think I gave them my changes). (SVR4 does some funny stuff with ‘tar’; basically, its ‘cpio’ can handle ‘tar’ format input, and write it on output, and it probably handles symbolic links. They may not have bothered doing anything to enhance ‘tar’ as a result.) ‘cpio’ handles special files; traditional ‘tar’ doesn’t. ‘tar’ comes with V7, System III, System V, and BSD source; ‘cpio’ comes only with System III, System V, and later BSD (4.3-tahoe and later). ‘tar’’s way of handling multiple hard links to a file can handle file systems that support 32-bit i-numbers (e.g., the BSD file system); ‘cpio’s way requires you to play some games (in its “binary” format, i-numbers are only 16 bits, and in its “portable ASCII” format, they’re 18 bits—it would have to play games with the "file system ID" field of the header to make sure that the file system ID/i-number pairs of different files were always different), and I don’t know which ‘cpio’s, if any, play those games. Those that don’t might get confused and think two files are the same file when they’re not, and make hard links between them. ‘tar’s way of handling multiple hard links to a file places only one copy of the link on the tape, but the name attached to that copy is the _only_ one you can use to retrieve the file; ‘cpio’s way puts one copy for every link, but you can retrieve it using any of the names. What type of check sum (if any) is used, and how is this calculated. See the attached manual pages for ‘tar’ and ‘cpio’ format. ‘tar’ uses a checksum which is the sum of all the bytes in the ‘tar’ header for a file; ‘cpio’ uses no checksum. If anyone knows why ‘cpio’ was made when ‘tar’ was present at the unix scene, It wasn’t. ‘cpio’ first showed up in PWB/UNIX 1.0; no generally-available version of UNIX had ‘tar’ at the time. I don’t know whether any version that was generally available _within AT&T_ had ‘tar’, or, if so, whether the people within AT&T who did ‘cpio’ knew about it. On restore, if there is a corruption on a tape ‘tar’ will stop at that point, while ‘cpio’ will skip over it and try to restore the rest of the files. The main difference is just in the command syntax and header format. ‘tar’ is a little more tape-oriented in that everything is blocked to start on a record boundary. Is there any differences between the ability to recover crashed archives between the two of them. (Is there any chance of recovering crashed archives at all.) Theoretically it should be easier under ‘tar’ since the blocking lets you find a header with some variation of ‘dd skip=NN’. However, modern ‘cpio’’s and variations have an option to just search for the next file header after an error with a reasonable chance of resyncing. However, lots of tape driver software won’t allow you to continue past a media error which should be the only reason for getting out of sync unless a file changed sizes while you were writing the archive. If anyone knows why ‘cpio’ was made when ‘tar’ was present at the unix scene, please tell me about this too. Probably because it is more media efficient (by not blocking everything and using only the space needed for the headers where ‘tar’ always uses 512 bytes per file header) and it knows how to archive special files. You might want to look at the freely available alternatives. The major ones are ‘afio’, GNU ‘tar’, and ‘pax’, each of which have their own extensions with some backwards compatibility. Sparse files were ‘tar’red as sparse files (which you can easily test, because the resulting archive gets smaller, and GNU ‘cpio’ can no longer read it). 9 Tapes and Other Archive Media ******************************* _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ A few special cases about tape handling warrant more detailed description. These special cases are discussed below. Many complexities surround the use of ‘tar’ on tape drives. Since the creation and manipulation of archives located on magnetic tape was the original purpose of ‘tar’, it contains many features making such manipulation easier. Archives are usually written on dismountable media—tape cartridges, mag tapes, or floppy disks. The amount of data a tape or disk holds depends not only on its size, but also on how it is formatted. A 2400 foot long reel of mag tape holds 40 megabytes of data when formatted at 1600 bits per inch. The physically smaller EXABYTE tape cartridge holds 2.3 gigabytes. Magnetic media are re-usable—once the archive on a tape is no longer needed, the archive can be erased and the tape or disk used over. Media quality does deteriorate with use, however. Most tapes or disks should be discarded when they begin to produce data errors. EXABYTE tape cartridges should be discarded when they generate an “error count” (number of non-usable bits) of more than 10k. Magnetic media are written and erased using magnetic fields, and should be protected from such fields to avoid damage to stored data. Sticking a floppy disk to a filing cabinet using a magnet is probably not a good idea. 9.1 Device Selection and Switching ================================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ ‘-f [HOSTNAME:]FILE’ ‘--file=[HOSTNAME:]FILE’ Use archive file or device FILE on HOSTNAME. This option is used to specify the file name of the archive ‘tar’ works on. If the file name is ‘-’, ‘tar’ reads the archive from standard input (when listing or extracting), or writes it to standard output (when creating). If the ‘-’ file name is given when updating an archive, ‘tar’ will read the original archive from its standard input, and will write the entire new archive to its standard output. If the file name contains a ‘:’, it is interpreted as ‘hostname:file name’. If the HOSTNAME contains an “at” sign (‘@’), it is treated as ‘user@hostname:file name’. In either case, ‘tar’ will invoke the command ‘rsh’ (or ‘remsh’) to start up an ‘/usr/libexec/rmt’ on the remote machine. If you give an alternate login name, it will be given to the ‘rsh’. Naturally, the remote machine must have an executable ‘/usr/libexec/rmt’. This program is free software from the University of California, and a copy of the source code can be found with the sources for ‘tar’; it’s compiled and installed by default. The exact path to this utility is determined when configuring the package. It is ‘PREFIX/libexec/rmt’, where PREFIX stands for your installation prefix. This location may also be overridden at runtime by using the ‘--rmt-command=COMMAND’ option (*Note —rmt-command: Option Summary, for detailed description of this option. *Note Remote Tape Server::, for the description of ‘rmt’ command). If this option is not given, but the environment variable ‘TAPE’ is set, its value is used; otherwise, old versions of ‘tar’ used a default archive name (which was picked when ‘tar’ was compiled). The default is normally set up to be the “first” tape drive or other transportable I/O medium on the system. Starting with version 1.11.5, GNU ‘tar’ uses standard input and standard output as the default device, and I will not try anymore supporting automatic device detection at installation time. This was failing really in too many cases, it was hopeless. This is now completely left to the installer to override standard input and standard output for default device, if this seems preferable. Further, I think _most_ actual usages of ‘tar’ are done with pipes or disks, not really tapes, cartridges or diskettes. Some users think that using standard input and output is running after trouble. This could lead to a nasty surprise on your screen if you forget to specify an output file name—especially if you are going through a network or terminal server capable of buffering large amounts of output. We had so many bug reports in that area of configuring default tapes automatically, and so many contradicting requests, that we finally consider the problem to be portably intractable. We could of course use something like ‘/dev/tape’ as a default, but this is _also_ running after various kind of trouble, going from hung processes to accidental destruction of real tapes. After having seen all this mess, using standard input and output as a default really sounds like the only clean choice left, and a very useful one too. GNU ‘tar’ reads and writes archive in records, I suspect this is the main reason why block devices are preferred over character devices. Most probably, block devices are more efficient too. The installer could also check for ‘DEFTAPE’ in ‘’. ‘--force-local’ Archive file is local even if it contains a colon. ‘--rsh-command=COMMAND’ Use remote COMMAND instead of ‘rsh’. This option exists so that people who use something other than the standard ‘rsh’ (e.g., a Kerberized ‘rsh’) can access a remote device. When this command is not used, the shell command found when the ‘tar’ program was installed is used instead. This is the first found of ‘/usr/ucb/rsh’, ‘/usr/bin/remsh’, ‘/usr/bin/rsh’, ‘/usr/bsd/rsh’ or ‘/usr/bin/nsh’. The installer may have overridden this by defining the environment variable ‘RSH’ _at installation time_. ‘-[0-7][lmh]’ Specify drive and density. ‘-M’ ‘--multi-volume’ Create/list/extract multi-volume archive. This option causes ‘tar’ to write a “multi-volume” archive—one that may be larger than will fit on the medium used to hold it. *Note Multi-Volume Archives::. ‘-L NUM’ ‘--tape-length=SIZE[SUF]’ Change tape after writing SIZE units of data. Unless SUF is given, SIZE is treated as kilobytes, i.e. ‘SIZE x 1024’ bytes. The following suffixes alter this behavior: Suffix Units Byte Equivalent ------------------------------------------------------------- b Blocks SIZE x 512 B Kilobytes SIZE x 1024 c Bytes SIZE G Gigabytes SIZE x 1024^3 K Kilobytes SIZE x 1024 k Kilobytes SIZE x 1024 M Megabytes SIZE x 1024^2 P Petabytes SIZE x 1024^5 T Terabytes SIZE x 1024^4 w Words SIZE x 2 Table 9.1: Size Suffixes This option might be useful when your tape drivers do not properly detect end of physical tapes. By being slightly conservative on the maximum tape length, you might avoid the problem entirely. ‘-F COMMAND’ ‘--info-script=COMMAND’ ‘--new-volume-script=COMMAND’ Execute COMMAND at end of each tape. This implies ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’). *Note info-script::, for a detailed description of this option. 9.2 Remote Tape Server ====================== In order to access the tape drive on a remote machine, ‘tar’ uses the remote tape server written at the University of California at Berkeley. The remote tape server must be installed as ‘PREFIX/libexec/rmt’ on any machine whose tape drive you want to use. ‘tar’ calls ‘rmt’ by running an ‘rsh’ or ‘remsh’ to the remote machine, optionally using a different login name if one is supplied. A copy of the source for the remote tape server is provided. Its source code can be freely distributed. It is compiled and installed by default. Unless you use the ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’) option, GNU ‘tar’ will not allow you to create an archive that contains absolute file names (a file name beginning with ‘/’). If you try, ‘tar’ will automatically remove the leading ‘/’ from the file names it stores in the archive. It will also type a warning message telling you what it is doing. When reading an archive that was created with a different ‘tar’ program, GNU ‘tar’ automatically extracts entries in the archive which have absolute file names as if the file names were not absolute. This is an important feature. A visitor here once gave a ‘tar’ tape to an operator to restore; the operator used Sun ‘tar’ instead of GNU ‘tar’, and the result was that it replaced large portions of our ‘/bin’ and friends with versions from the tape; needless to say, we were unhappy about having to recover the file system from backup tapes. For example, if the archive contained a file ‘/usr/bin/computoy’, GNU ‘tar’ would extract the file to ‘usr/bin/computoy’, relative to the current directory. If you want to extract the files in an archive to the same absolute names that they had when the archive was created, you should do a ‘cd /’ before extracting the files from the archive, or you should either use the ‘--absolute-names’ option, or use the command ‘tar -C / ...’. Some versions of Unix (Ultrix 3.1 is known to have this problem), can claim that a short write near the end of a tape succeeded, when it actually failed. This will result in the -M option not working correctly. The best workaround at the moment is to use a significantly larger blocking factor than the default 20. In order to update an archive, ‘tar’ must be able to backspace the archive in order to reread or rewrite a record that was just read (or written). This is currently possible only on two kinds of files: normal disk files (or any other file that can be backspaced with ‘lseek’), and industry-standard 9-track magnetic tape (or any other kind of tape that can be backspaced with the ‘MTIOCTOP’ ‘ioctl’). This means that the ‘--append’, ‘--concatenate’, and ‘--delete’ commands will not work on any other kind of file. Some media simply cannot be backspaced, which means these commands and options will never be able to work on them. These non-backspacing media include pipes and cartridge tape drives. Some other media can be backspaced, and ‘tar’ will work on them once ‘tar’ is modified to do so. Archives created with the ‘--multi-volume’, ‘--label’, and ‘--incremental’ (‘-G’) options may not be readable by other version of ‘tar’. In particular, restoring a file that was split over a volume boundary will require some careful work with ‘dd’, if it can be done at all. Other versions of ‘tar’ may also create an empty file whose name is that of the volume header. Some versions of ‘tar’ may create normal files instead of directories archived with the ‘--incremental’ (‘-G’) option. 9.3 Some Common Problems and their Solutions ============================================ errors from system: permission denied no such file or directory not owner errors from ‘tar’: directory checksum error header format error errors from media/system: i/o error device busy 9.4 Blocking ============ “Block” and “record” terminology is rather confused, and it is also confusing to the expert reader. On the other hand, readers who are new to the field have a fresh mind, and they may safely skip the next two paragraphs, as the remainder of this manual uses those two terms in a quite consistent way. John Gilmore, the writer of the public domain ‘tar’ from which GNU ‘tar’ was originally derived, wrote (June 1995): The nomenclature of tape drives comes from IBM, where I believe they were invented for the IBM 650 or so. On IBM mainframes, what is recorded on tape are tape blocks. The logical organization of data is into records. There are various ways of putting records into blocks, including ‘F’ (fixed sized records), ‘V’ (variable sized records), ‘FB’ (fixed blocked: fixed size records, N to a block), ‘VB’ (variable size records, N to a block), ‘VSB’ (variable spanned blocked: variable sized records that can occupy more than one block), etc. The ‘JCL’ ‘DD RECFORM=’ parameter specified this to the operating system. The Unix man page on ‘tar’ was totally confused about this. When I wrote ‘PD TAR’, I used the historically correct terminology (‘tar’ writes data records, which are grouped into blocks). It appears that the bogus terminology made it into POSIX (no surprise here), and now François has migrated that terminology back into the source code too. The term “physical block” means the basic transfer chunk from or to a device, after which reading or writing may stop without anything being lost. In this manual, the term “block” usually refers to a disk physical block, _assuming_ that each disk block is 512 bytes in length. It is true that some disk devices have different physical blocks, but ‘tar’ ignore these differences in its own format, which is meant to be portable, so a ‘tar’ block is always 512 bytes in length, and “block” always mean a ‘tar’ block. The term “logical block” often represents the basic chunk of allocation of many disk blocks as a single entity, which the operating system treats somewhat atomically; this concept is only barely used in GNU ‘tar’. The term “physical record” is another way to speak of a physical block, those two terms are somewhat interchangeable. In this manual, the term “record” usually refers to a tape physical block, _assuming_ that the ‘tar’ archive is kept on magnetic tape. It is true that archives may be put on disk or used with pipes, but nevertheless, ‘tar’ tries to read and write the archive one “record” at a time, whatever the medium in use. One record is made up of an integral number of blocks, and this operation of putting many disk blocks into a single tape block is called “reblocking”, or more simply, “blocking”. The term “logical record” refers to the logical organization of many characters into something meaningful to the application. The term “unit record” describes a small set of characters which are transmitted whole to or by the application, and often refers to a line of text. Those two last terms are unrelated to what we call a “record” in GNU ‘tar’. When writing to tapes, ‘tar’ writes the contents of the archive in chunks known as “records”. To change the default blocking factor, use the ‘--blocking-factor=512-SIZE’ (‘-b 512-SIZE’) option. Each record will then be composed of 512-SIZE blocks. (Each ‘tar’ block is 512 bytes. *Note Standard::.) Each file written to the archive uses at least one full record. As a result, using a larger record size can result in more wasted space for small files. On the other hand, a larger record size can often be read and written much more efficiently. Further complicating the problem is that some tape drives ignore the blocking entirely. For these, a larger record size can still improve performance (because the software layers above the tape drive still honor the blocking), but not as dramatically as on tape drives that honor blocking. When reading an archive, ‘tar’ can usually figure out the record size on itself. When this is the case, and a non-standard record size was used when the archive was created, ‘tar’ will print a message about a non-standard blocking factor, and then operate normally(1). On some tape devices, however, ‘tar’ cannot figure out the record size itself. On most of those, you can specify a blocking factor (with ‘--blocking-factor’) larger than the actual blocking factor, and then use the ‘--read-full-records’ (‘-B’) option. (If you specify a blocking factor with ‘--blocking-factor’ and don’t use the ‘--read-full-records’ option, then ‘tar’ will not attempt to figure out the recording size itself.) On some devices, you must always specify the record size exactly with ‘--blocking-factor’ when reading, because ‘tar’ cannot figure it out. In any case, use ‘--list’ (‘-t’) before doing any extractions to see whether ‘tar’ is reading the archive correctly. ‘tar’ blocks are all fixed size (512 bytes), and its scheme for putting them into records is to put a whole number of them (one or more) into each record. ‘tar’ records are all the same size; at the end of the file there’s a block containing all zeros, which is how you tell that the remainder of the last record(s) are garbage. In a standard ‘tar’ file (no options), the block size is 512 and the record size is 10240, for a blocking factor of 20. What the ‘--blocking-factor’ option does is sets the blocking factor, changing the record size while leaving the block size at 512 bytes. 20 was fine for ancient 800 or 1600 bpi reel-to-reel tape drives; most tape drives these days prefer much bigger records in order to stream and not waste tape. When writing tapes for myself, some tend to use a factor of the order of 2048, say, giving a record size of around one megabyte. If you use a blocking factor larger than 20, older ‘tar’ programs might not be able to read the archive, so we recommend this as a limit to use in practice. GNU ‘tar’, however, will support arbitrarily large record sizes, limited only by the amount of virtual memory or the physical characteristics of the tape device. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) If this message is not needed, you can turn it off using the ‘--warning=no-record-size’ option. 9.4.1 Format Variations ----------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ Format parameters specify how an archive is written on the archive media. The best choice of format parameters will vary depending on the type and number of files being archived, and on the media used to store the archive. To specify format parameters when accessing or creating an archive, you can use the options described in the following sections. If you do not specify any format parameters, ‘tar’ uses default parameters. You cannot modify a compressed archive. If you create an archive with the ‘--blocking-factor’ option specified (*note Blocking Factor::), you must specify that blocking-factor when operating on the archive. *Note Formats::, for other examples of format parameter considerations. 9.4.2 The Blocking Factor of an Archive --------------------------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ The data in an archive is grouped into blocks, which are 512 bytes. Blocks are read and written in whole number multiples called “records”. The number of blocks in a record (i.e., the size of a record in units of 512 bytes) is called the “blocking factor”. The ‘--blocking-factor=512-SIZE’ (‘-b 512-SIZE’) option specifies the blocking factor of an archive. The default blocking factor is typically 20 (i.e., 10240 bytes), but can be specified at installation. To find out the blocking factor of an existing archive, use ‘tar --list --file=ARCHIVE-NAME’. This may not work on some devices. Records are separated by gaps, which waste space on the archive media. If you are archiving on magnetic tape, using a larger blocking factor (and therefore larger records) provides faster throughput and allows you to fit more data on a tape (because there are fewer gaps). If you are archiving on cartridge, a very large blocking factor (say 126 or more) greatly increases performance. A smaller blocking factor, on the other hand, may be useful when archiving small files, to avoid archiving lots of nulls as ‘tar’ fills out the archive to the end of the record. In general, the ideal record size depends on the size of the inter-record gaps on the tape you are using, and the average size of the files you are archiving. *Note create::, for information on writing archives. Archives with blocking factors larger than 20 cannot be read by very old versions of ‘tar’, or by some newer versions of ‘tar’ running on old machines with small address spaces. With GNU ‘tar’, the blocking factor of an archive is limited only by the maximum record size of the device containing the archive, or by the amount of available virtual memory. Also, on some systems, not using adequate blocking factors, as sometimes imposed by the device drivers, may yield unexpected diagnostics. For example, this has been reported: Cannot write to /dev/dlt: Invalid argument In such cases, it sometimes happen that the ‘tar’ bundled by the system is aware of block size idiosyncrasies, while GNU ‘tar’ requires an explicit specification for the block size, which it cannot guess. This yields some people to consider GNU ‘tar’ is misbehaving, because by comparison, ‘the bundle ‘tar’ works OK’. Adding ‘-b 256’, for example, might resolve the problem. If you use a non-default blocking factor when you create an archive, you must specify the same blocking factor when you modify that archive. Some archive devices will also require you to specify the blocking factor when reading that archive, however this is not typically the case. Usually, you can use ‘--list’ (‘-t’) without specifying a blocking factor—‘tar’ reports a non-default record size and then lists the archive members as it would normally. To extract files from an archive with a non-standard blocking factor (particularly if you’re not sure what the blocking factor is), you can usually use the ‘--read-full-records’ (‘-B’) option while specifying a blocking factor larger then the blocking factor of the archive (i.e., ‘tar --extract --read-full-records --blocking-factor=300’). *Note list::, for more information on the ‘--list’ (‘-t’) operation. *Note Reading::, for a more detailed explanation of that option. ‘--blocking-factor=NUMBER’ ‘-b NUMBER’ Specifies the blocking factor of an archive. Can be used with any operation, but is usually not necessary with ‘--list’ (‘-t’). Device blocking ‘-b BLOCKS’ ‘--blocking-factor=BLOCKS’ Set record size to BLOCKS*512 bytes. This option is used to specify a “blocking factor” for the archive. When reading or writing the archive, ‘tar’, will do reads and writes of the archive in records of BLOCK*512 bytes. This is true even when the archive is compressed. Some devices requires that all write operations be a multiple of a certain size, and so, ‘tar’ pads the archive out to the next record boundary. The default blocking factor is set when ‘tar’ is compiled, and is typically 20. Blocking factors larger than 20 cannot be read by very old versions of ‘tar’, or by some newer versions of ‘tar’ running on old machines with small address spaces. With a magnetic tape, larger records give faster throughput and fit more data on a tape (because there are fewer inter-record gaps). If the archive is in a disk file or a pipe, you may want to specify a smaller blocking factor, since a large one will result in a large number of null bytes at the end of the archive. When writing cartridge or other streaming tapes, a much larger blocking factor (say 126 or more) will greatly increase performance. However, you must specify the same blocking factor when reading or updating the archive. Apparently, Exabyte drives have a physical block size of 8K bytes. If we choose our blocksize as a multiple of 8k bytes, then the problem seems to disappear. Id est, we are using block size of 112 right now, and we haven’t had the problem since we switched... With GNU ‘tar’ the blocking factor is limited only by the maximum record size of the device containing the archive, or by the amount of available virtual memory. However, deblocking or reblocking is virtually avoided in a special case which often occurs in practice, but which requires all the following conditions to be simultaneously true: • the archive is subject to a compression option, • the archive is not handled through standard input or output, nor redirected nor piped, • the archive is directly handled to a local disk, instead of any special device, • ‘--blocking-factor’ is not explicitly specified on the ‘tar’ invocation. If the output goes directly to a local disk, and not through stdout, then the last write is not extended to a full record size. Otherwise, reblocking occurs. Here are a few other remarks on this topic: • ‘gzip’ will complain about trailing garbage if asked to uncompress a compressed archive on tape, there is an option to turn the message off, but it breaks the regularity of simply having to use ‘PROG -d’ for decompression. It would be nice if gzip was silently ignoring any number of trailing zeros. I’ll ask Jean-loup Gailly, by sending a copy of this message to him. • ‘compress’ does not show this problem, but as Jean-loup pointed out to Michael, ‘compress -d’ silently adds garbage after the result of decompression, which tar ignores because it already recognized its end-of-file indicator. So this bug may be safely ignored. • ‘gzip -d -q’ will be silent about the trailing zeros indeed, but will still return an exit status of 2 which tar reports in turn. ‘tar’ might ignore the exit status returned, but I hate doing that, as it weakens the protection ‘tar’ offers users against other possible problems at decompression time. If ‘gzip’ was silently skipping trailing zeros _and_ also avoiding setting the exit status in this innocuous case, that would solve this situation. • ‘tar’ should become more solid at not stopping to read a pipe at the first null block encountered. This inelegantly breaks the pipe. ‘tar’ should rather drain the pipe out before exiting itself. ‘-i’ ‘--ignore-zeros’ Ignore blocks of zeros in archive (means EOF). The ‘--ignore-zeros’ (‘-i’) option causes ‘tar’ to ignore blocks of zeros in the archive. Normally a block of zeros indicates the end of the archive, but when reading a damaged archive, or one which was created by concatenating several archives together, this option allows ‘tar’ to read the entire archive. This option is not on by default because many versions of ‘tar’ write garbage after the zeroed blocks. Note that this option causes ‘tar’ to read to the end of the archive file, which may sometimes avoid problems when multiple files are stored on a single physical tape. ‘-B’ ‘--read-full-records’ Reblock as we read (for reading 4.2BSD pipes). If ‘--read-full-records’ is used, ‘tar’ will not panic if an attempt to read a record from the archive does not return a full record. Instead, ‘tar’ will keep reading until it has obtained a full record. This option is turned on by default when ‘tar’ is reading an archive from standard input, or from a remote machine. This is because on BSD Unix systems, a read of a pipe will return however much happens to be in the pipe, even if it is less than ‘tar’ requested. If this option was not used, ‘tar’ would fail as soon as it read an incomplete record from the pipe. This option is also useful with the commands for updating an archive. Tape blocking When handling various tapes or cartridges, you have to take care of selecting a proper blocking, that is, the number of disk blocks you put together as a single tape block on the tape, without intervening tape gaps. A “tape gap” is a small landing area on the tape with no information on it, used for decelerating the tape to a full stop, and for later regaining the reading or writing speed. When the tape driver starts reading a record, the record has to be read whole without stopping, as a tape gap is needed to stop the tape motion without losing information. Using higher blocking (putting more disk blocks per tape block) will use the tape more efficiently as there will be less tape gaps. But reading such tapes may be more difficult for the system, as more memory will be required to receive at once the whole record. Further, if there is a reading error on a huge record, this is less likely that the system will succeed in recovering the information. So, blocking should not be too low, nor it should be too high. ‘tar’ uses by default a blocking of 20 for historical reasons, and it does not really matter when reading or writing to disk. Current tape technology would easily accommodate higher blockings. Sun recommends a blocking of 126 for Exabytes and 96 for DATs. We were told that for some DLT drives, the blocking should be a multiple of 4Kb, preferably 64Kb (‘-b 128’) or 256 for decent performance. Other manufacturers may use different recommendations for the same tapes. This might also depends of the buffering techniques used inside modern tape controllers. Some imposes a minimum blocking, or a maximum blocking. Others request blocking to be some exponent of two. So, there is no fixed rule for blocking. But blocking at read time should ideally be the same as blocking used at write time. At one place I know, with a wide variety of equipment, they found it best to use a blocking of 32 to guarantee that their tapes are fully interchangeable. I was also told that, for recycled tapes, prior erasure (by the same drive unit that will be used to create the archives) sometimes lowers the error rates observed at rewriting time. I might also use ‘--number-blocks’ instead of ‘--block-number’, so ‘--block’ will then expand to ‘--blocking-factor’ unambiguously. 9.5 Many Archives on One Tape ============================= Most tape devices have two entries in the ‘/dev’ directory, or entries that come in pairs, which differ only in the minor number for this device. Let’s take for example ‘/dev/tape’, which often points to the only or usual tape device of a given system. There might be a corresponding ‘/dev/nrtape’ or ‘/dev/ntape’. The simpler name is the _rewinding_ version of the device, while the name having ‘nr’ in it is the _no rewinding_ version of the same device. A rewinding tape device will bring back the tape to its beginning point automatically when this device is opened or closed. Since ‘tar’ opens the archive file before using it and closes it afterwards, this means that a simple: $ tar cf /dev/tape DIRECTORY will reposition the tape to its beginning both prior and after saving DIRECTORY contents to it, thus erasing prior tape contents and making it so that any subsequent write operation will destroy what has just been saved. So, a rewinding device is normally meant to hold one and only one file. If you want to put more than one ‘tar’ archive on a given tape, you will need to avoid using the rewinding version of the tape device. You will also have to pay special attention to tape positioning. Errors in positioning may overwrite the valuable data already on your tape. Many people, burnt by past experiences, will only use rewinding devices and limit themselves to one file per tape, precisely to avoid the risk of such errors. Be fully aware that writing at the wrong position on a tape loses all information past this point and most probably until the end of the tape, and this destroyed information _cannot_ be recovered. To save DIRECTORY-1 as a first archive at the beginning of a tape, and leave that tape ready for a second archive, you should use: $ mt -f /dev/nrtape rewind $ tar cf /dev/nrtape DIRECTORY-1 “Tape marks” are special magnetic patterns written on the tape media, which are later recognizable by the reading hardware. These marks are used after each file, when there are many on a single tape. An empty file (that is to say, two tape marks in a row) signal the logical end of the tape, after which no file exist. Usually, non-rewinding tape device drivers will react to the close request issued by ‘tar’ by first writing two tape marks after your archive, and by backspacing over one of these. So, if you remove the tape at that time from the tape drive, it is properly terminated. But if you write another file at the current position, the second tape mark will be erased by the new information, leaving only one tape mark between files. So, you may now save DIRECTORY-2 as a second archive after the first on the same tape by issuing the command: $ tar cf /dev/nrtape DIRECTORY-2 and so on for all the archives you want to put on the same tape. Another usual case is that you do not write all the archives the same day, and you need to remove and store the tape between two archive sessions. In general, you must remember how many files are already saved on your tape. Suppose your tape already has 16 files on it, and that you are ready to write the 17th. You have to take care of skipping the first 16 tape marks before saving DIRECTORY-17, say, by using these commands: $ mt -f /dev/nrtape rewind $ mt -f /dev/nrtape fsf 16 $ tar cf /dev/nrtape DIRECTORY-17 In all the previous examples, we put aside blocking considerations, but you should do the proper things for that as well. *Note Blocking::. 9.5.1 Tape Positions and Tape Marks ----------------------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ Just as archives can store more than one file from the file system, tapes can store more than one archive file. To keep track of where archive files (or any other type of file stored on tape) begin and end, tape archive devices write magnetic “tape marks” on the archive media. Tape drives write one tape mark between files, two at the end of all the file entries. If you think of data as a series of records "rrrr"’s, and tape marks as "*"’s, a tape might look like the following: rrrr*rrrrrr*rrrrr*rr*rrrrr**------------------------- Tape devices read and write tapes using a read/write “tape head”—a physical part of the device which can only access one point on the tape at a time. When you use ‘tar’ to read or write archive data from a tape device, the device will begin reading or writing from wherever on the tape the tape head happens to be, regardless of which archive or what part of the archive the tape head is on. Before writing an archive, you should make sure that no data on the tape will be overwritten (unless it is no longer needed). Before reading an archive, you should make sure the tape head is at the beginning of the archive you want to read. You can do it manually via ‘mt’ utility (*note mt::). The ‘restore’ script does that automatically (*note Scripted Restoration::). If you want to add new archive file entries to a tape, you should advance the tape to the end of the existing file entries, backspace over the last tape mark, and write the new archive file. If you were to add two archives to the example above, the tape might look like the following: rrrr*rrrrrr*rrrrr*rr*rrrrr*rrr*rrrr**---------------- 9.5.2 The ‘mt’ Utility ---------------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ *Note Blocking Factor::. You can use the ‘mt’ utility to advance or rewind a tape past a specified number of archive files on the tape. This will allow you to move to the beginning of an archive before extracting or reading it, or to the end of all the archives before writing a new one. The syntax of the ‘mt’ command is: mt [-f TAPENAME] OPERATION [NUMBER] where TAPENAME is the name of the tape device, NUMBER is the number of times an operation is performed (with a default of one), and OPERATION is one of the following: ‘eof’ ‘weof’ Writes NUMBER tape marks at the current position on the tape. ‘fsf’ Moves tape position forward NUMBER files. ‘bsf’ Moves tape position back NUMBER files. ‘rewind’ Rewinds the tape. (Ignores NUMBER.) ‘offline’ ‘rewoff1’ Rewinds the tape and takes the tape device off-line. (Ignores NUMBER.) ‘status’ Prints status information about the tape unit. If you don’t specify a TAPENAME, ‘mt’ uses the environment variable ‘TAPE’; if ‘TAPE’ is not set, ‘mt’ will use the default device specified in your ‘sys/mtio.h’ file (‘DEFTAPE’ variable). If this is not defined, the program will display a descriptive error message and exit with code 1. ‘mt’ returns a 0 exit status when the operation(s) were successful, 1 if the command was unrecognized, and 2 if an operation failed. 9.6 Using Multiple Tapes ======================== Often you might want to write a large archive, one larger than will fit on the actual tape you are using. In such a case, you can run multiple ‘tar’ commands, but this can be inconvenient, particularly if you are using options like ‘--exclude=PATTERN’ or dumping entire file systems. Therefore, ‘tar’ provides a special mode for creating multi-volume archives. “Multi-volume” archive is a single ‘tar’ archive, stored on several media volumes of fixed size. Although in this section we will often call ‘volume’ a “tape”, there is absolutely no requirement for multi-volume archives to be stored on tapes. Instead, they can use whatever media type the user finds convenient, they can even be located on files. When creating a multi-volume archive, GNU ‘tar’ continues to fill current volume until it runs out of space, then it switches to next volume (usually the operator is queried to replace the tape on this point), and continues working on the new volume. This operation continues until all requested files are dumped. If GNU ‘tar’ detects end of media while dumping a file, such a file is archived in split form. Some very big files can even be split across several volumes. Each volume is itself a valid GNU ‘tar’ archive, so it can be read without any special options. Consequently any file member residing entirely on one volume can be extracted or otherwise operated upon without needing the other volume. Sure enough, to extract a split member you would need all volumes its parts reside on. Multi-volume archives suffer from several limitations. In particular, they cannot be compressed. GNU ‘tar’ is able to create multi-volume archives of two formats (*note Formats::): ‘GNU’ and ‘POSIX’. 9.6.1 Archives Longer than One Tape or Disk ------------------------------------------- To create an archive that is larger than will fit on a single unit of the media, use the ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’) option in conjunction with the ‘--create’ option (*note create::). A “multi-volume” archive can be manipulated like any other archive (provided the ‘--multi-volume’ option is specified), but is stored on more than one tape or file. When you specify ‘--multi-volume’, ‘tar’ does not report an error when it comes to the end of an archive volume (when reading), or the end of the media (when writing). Instead, it prompts you to load a new storage volume. If the archive is on a magnetic tape, you should change tapes when you see the prompt; if the archive is on a floppy disk, you should change disks; etc. ‘--multi-volume’ ‘-M’ Creates a multi-volume archive, when used in conjunction with ‘--create’ (‘-c’). To perform any other operation on a multi-volume archive, specify ‘--multi-volume’ in conjunction with that operation. For example: $ tar --create --multi-volume --file=/dev/tape FILES The method ‘tar’ uses to detect end of tape is not perfect, and fails on some operating systems or on some devices. If ‘tar’ cannot detect the end of the tape itself, you can use ‘--tape-length’ option to inform it about the capacity of the tape: ‘--tape-length=SIZE[SUF]’ ‘-L SIZE[SUF]’ Set maximum length of a volume. The SUF, if given, specifies units in which SIZE is expressed, e.g. ‘2M’ mean 2 megabytes (*note Table 9.1: size-suffixes, for a list of allowed size suffixes). Without SUF, units of 1024 bytes (kilobyte) are assumed. This option selects ‘--multi-volume’ automatically. For example: $ tar --create --tape-length=41943040 --file=/dev/tape FILES or, which is equivalent: $ tar --create --tape-length=4G --file=/dev/tape FILES When GNU ‘tar’ comes to the end of a storage media, it asks you to change the volume. The built-in prompt for POSIX locale is(1): Prepare volume #N for 'ARCHIVE' and hit return: where N is the ordinal number of the volume to be created and ARCHIVE is archive file or device name. When prompting for a new tape, ‘tar’ accepts any of the following responses: ‘?’ Request ‘tar’ to explain possible responses. ‘q’ Request ‘tar’ to exit immediately. ‘n FILE-NAME’ Request ‘tar’ to write the next volume on the file FILE-NAME. ‘!’ Request ‘tar’ to run a subshell. This option can be disabled by giving ‘--restrict’ command line option to ‘tar’(2). ‘y’ Request ‘tar’ to begin writing the next volume. (You should only type ‘y’ after you have changed the tape; otherwise ‘tar’ will write over the volume it just finished.) The volume number used by ‘tar’ in its tape-changing prompt can be changed; if you give the ‘--volno-file=FILE-OF-NUMBER’ option, then FILE-OF-NUMBER should be an non-existing file to be created, or else, a file already containing a decimal number. That number will be used as the volume number of the first volume written. When ‘tar’ is finished, it will rewrite the file with the now-current volume number. (This does not change the volume number written on a tape label, as per *note label::, it _only_ affects the number used in the prompt.) If you want more elaborate behavior than this, you can write a special “new volume script”, that will be responsible for changing the volume, and instruct ‘tar’ to use it instead of its normal prompting procedure: ‘--info-script=COMMAND’ ‘--new-volume-script=COMMAND’ ‘-F COMMAND’ Specify the command to invoke when switching volumes. The COMMAND can be used to eject cassettes, or to broadcast messages such as ‘Someone please come change my tape’ when performing unattended backups. The COMMAND can contain additional options, if such are needed. *Note Running External Commands: external, for a detailed discussion of the way GNU ‘tar’ runs external commands. It inherits ‘tar’’s shell environment. Additional data is passed to it via the following environment 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_VOLUME’ Ordinal number of the volume ‘tar’ is about to start. ‘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. ‘TAR_FD’ File descriptor which can be used to communicate the new volume name to ‘tar’. These variables can be used in the COMMAND itself, provided that they are properly quoted to prevent them from being expanded by the shell that invokes ‘tar’. The volume script can instruct ‘tar’ to use new archive name, by writing in to file descriptor ‘$TAR_FD’ (see below for an example). If the info script fails, ‘tar’ exits; otherwise, it begins writing the next volume. If you want ‘tar’ to cycle through a series of files or tape drives, there are three approaches to choose from. First of all, you can give ‘tar’ multiple ‘--file’ options. In this case the specified files will be used, in sequence, as the successive volumes of the archive. Only when the first one in the sequence needs to be used again will ‘tar’ prompt for a tape change (or run the info script). For example, suppose someone has two tape drives on a system named ‘/dev/tape0’ and ‘/dev/tape1’. For having GNU ‘tar’ to switch to the second drive when it needs to write the second tape, and then back to the first tape, etc., just do either of: $ tar --create --multi-volume --file=/dev/tape0 --file=/dev/tape1 FILES $ tar -cM -f /dev/tape0 -f /dev/tape1 FILES The second method is to use the ‘n’ response to the tape-change prompt. Finally, the most flexible approach is to use a volume script, that writes new archive name to the file descriptor ‘$TAR_FD’. For example, the following volume script will create a series of archive files, named ‘ARCHIVE-VOL’, where ARCHIVE is the name of the archive being created (as given by ‘--file’ option) and VOL is the ordinal number of the archive being created: #! /bin/bash # For this script it's advisable to use a shell, such as Bash, # that supports a TAR_FD value greater than 9. echo Preparing volume $TAR_VOLUME of $TAR_ARCHIVE. name=`expr $TAR_ARCHIVE : '\(.*\)-.*'` case $TAR_SUBCOMMAND in -c) ;; -d|-x|-t) test -r ${name:-$TAR_ARCHIVE}-$TAR_VOLUME || exit 1 ;; *) exit 1 esac echo ${name:-$TAR_ARCHIVE}-$TAR_VOLUME >&$TAR_FD The same script can be used while listing, comparing or extracting from the created archive. For example: # Create a multi-volume archive: $ tar -c -L1024 -f archive.tar -F new-volume . # Extract from the created archive: $ tar -x -f archive.tar -F new-volume . Notice, that the first command had to use ‘-L’ option, since otherwise GNU ‘tar’ will end up writing everything to file ‘archive.tar’. You can read each individual volume of a multi-volume archive as if it were an archive by itself. For example, to list the contents of one volume, use ‘--list’, without ‘--multi-volume’ specified. To extract an archive member from one volume (assuming it is described that volume), use ‘--extract’, again without ‘--multi-volume’. If an archive member is split across volumes (i.e., its entry begins on one volume of the media and ends on another), you need to specify ‘--multi-volume’ to extract it successfully. In this case, you should load the volume where the archive member starts, and use ‘tar --extract --multi-volume’—‘tar’ will prompt for later volumes as it needs them. *Note extracting archives::, for more information about extracting archives. Multi-volume archives can be modified like any other archive. To add files to a multi-volume archive, you need to only mount the last volume of the archive media (and new volumes, if needed). For all other operations, you need to use the entire archive. If a multi-volume archive was labeled using ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ (*note label::) when it was created, ‘tar’ will not automatically label volumes which are added later. To label subsequent volumes, specify ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ again in conjunction with the ‘--append’, ‘--update’ or ‘--concatenate’ operation. Notice that multi-volume support is a GNU extension and the archives created in this mode should be read only using GNU ‘tar’. If you absolutely have to process such archives using a third-party ‘tar’ implementation, read *note Split Recovery::. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) If you run GNU ‘tar’ under a different locale, the translation to the locale’s language will be used. (2) *Note --restrict::, for more information about this option. 9.6.2 Tape Files ---------------- _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ To give the archive a name which will be recorded in it, use the ‘--label=VOLUME-LABEL’ (‘-V VOLUME-LABEL’) option. This will write a special block identifying VOLUME-LABEL as the name of the archive to the front of the archive which will be displayed when the archive is listed with ‘--list’. If you are creating a multi-volume archive with ‘--multi-volume’ (*note Using Multiple Tapes::), then the volume label will have ‘Volume NNN’ appended to the name you give, where NNN is the number of the volume of the archive. If you use the ‘--label=VOLUME-LABEL’ option when reading an archive, it checks to make sure the label on the tape matches the one you gave. *Note label::. When ‘tar’ writes an archive to tape, it creates a single tape file. If multiple archives are written to the same tape, one after the other, they each get written as separate tape files. When extracting, it is necessary to position the tape at the right place before running ‘tar’. To do this, use the ‘mt’ command. For more information on the ‘mt’ command and on the organization of tapes into a sequence of tape files, see *note mt::. People seem to often do: --label="SOME-PREFIX `date +SOME-FORMAT`" or such, for pushing a common date in all volumes or an archive set. 9.6.3 Concatenate Volumes into a Single Archive ----------------------------------------------- Sometimes it is necessary to convert existing GNU ‘tar’ multi-volume archive to a single ‘tar’ archive. Simply concatenating all volumes into one will not work, since each volume carries an additional information at the beginning. GNU ‘tar’ is shipped with the shell script ‘tarcat’ designed for this purpose. The script takes a list of files comprising a multi-volume archive and creates the resulting archive at the standard output. For example: tarcat vol.1 vol.2 vol.3 | tar tf - The script implements a simple heuristics to determine the format of the first volume file and to decide how to process the rest of the files. However, it makes no attempt to verify whether the files are given in order or even if they are valid ‘tar’ archives. It uses ‘dd’ and does not filter its standard error, so you will usually see lots of spurious messages. 9.7 Including a Label in the Archive ==================================== To avoid problems caused by misplaced paper labels on the archive media, you can include a “label” entry — an archive member which contains the name of the archive — in the archive itself. Use the ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ (‘-V ARCHIVE-LABEL’) option(1) in conjunction with the ‘--create’ operation to include a label entry in the archive as it is being created. ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ ‘-V ARCHIVE-LABEL’ Includes an “archive-label” at the beginning of the archive when the archive is being created, when used in conjunction with the ‘--create’ operation. Checks to make sure the archive label matches the one specified (when used in conjunction with any other operation). If you create an archive using both ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ (‘-V ARCHIVE-LABEL’) and ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’), each volume of the archive will have an archive label of the form ‘ARCHIVE-LABEL Volume N’, where N is 1 for the first volume, 2 for the next, and so on. *Note Using Multiple Tapes::, for information on creating multiple volume archives. The volume label will be displayed by ‘--list’ along with the file contents. If verbose display is requested, it will also be explicitly marked as in the example below: $ tar --verbose --list --file=iamanarchive V--------- 0/0 0 1992-03-07 12:01 iamalabel--Volume Header-- -rw-r--r-- ringo/user 40 1990-05-21 13:30 iamafilename However, ‘--list’ option will cause listing entire contents of the archive, which may be undesirable (for example, if the archive is stored on a tape). You can request checking only the volume label by specifying ‘--test-label’ option. This option reads only the first block of an archive, so it can be used with slow storage devices. For example: $ tar --test-label --file=iamanarchive iamalabel If ‘--test-label’ is used with one or more command line arguments, ‘tar’ compares the volume label with each argument. It exits with code 0 if a match is found, and with code 1 otherwise(2). No output is displayed, unless you also used the ‘--verbose’ option. For example: $ tar --test-label --file=iamanarchive 'iamalabel' ⇒ 0 $ tar --test-label --file=iamanarchive 'alabel' ⇒ 1 When used with the ‘--verbose’ option, ‘tar’ prints the actual volume label (if any), and a verbose diagnostics in case of a mismatch: $ tar --test-label --verbose --file=iamanarchive 'iamalabel' iamalabel ⇒ 0 $ tar --test-label --verbose --file=iamanarchive 'alabel' iamalabel tar: Archive label mismatch ⇒ 1 If you request any operation, other than ‘--create’, along with using ‘--label’ option, ‘tar’ will first check if the archive label matches the one specified and will refuse to proceed if it does not. Use this as a safety precaution to avoid accidentally overwriting existing archives. For example, if you wish to add files to ‘archive’, presumably labeled with string ‘My volume’, you will get: $ tar -rf archive --label 'My volume' . tar: Archive not labeled to match 'My volume' in case its label does not match. This will work even if ‘archive’ is not labeled at all. Similarly, ‘tar’ will refuse to list or extract the archive if its label doesn’t match the ARCHIVE-LABEL specified. In those cases, ARCHIVE-LABEL argument is interpreted as a globbing-style pattern which must match the actual magnetic volume label. *Note exclude::, for a precise description of how match is attempted(3). If the switch ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’) is being used, the volume label matcher will also suffix ARCHIVE-LABEL by ‘ Volume [1-9]*’ if the initial match fails, before giving up. Since the volume numbering is automatically added in labels at creation time, it sounded logical to equally help the user taking care of it when the archive is being read. You can also use ‘--label’ to get a common information on all tapes of a series. For having this information different in each series created through a single script used on a regular basis, just manage to get some date string as part of the label. For example: $ tar -cM -f /dev/tape -V "Daily backup for `date +%Y-%m-%d`" $ tar --create --file=/dev/tape --multi-volume \ --label="Daily backup for `date +%Y-%m-%d`" Some more notes about volume labels: • Each label has its own date and time, which corresponds to the time when GNU ‘tar’ initially attempted to write it, often soon after the operator launches ‘tar’ or types the carriage return telling that the next tape is ready. • Comparing date labels to get an idea of tape throughput is unreliable. It gives correct results only if the delays for rewinding tapes and the operator switching them were negligible, which is usually not the case. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Until version 1.10, that option was called ‘--volume’, but is not available under that name anymore. (2) Note that GNU ‘tar’ versions up to 1.23 indicated mismatch with an exit code 2 and printed a spurious diagnostics on stderr. (3) Previous versions of ‘tar’ used full regular expression matching, or before that, only exact string matching, instead of wildcard matchers. We decided for the sake of simplicity to use a uniform matching device through ‘tar’. 9.8 Verifying Data as It is Stored ================================== ‘-W’ ‘--verify’ Attempt to verify the archive after writing. This option causes ‘tar’ to verify the archive after writing it. Each volume is checked after it is written, and any discrepancies are recorded on the standard error output. Verification requires that the archive be on a back-space-able medium. This means pipes, some cartridge tape drives, and some other devices cannot be verified. You can insure the accuracy of an archive by comparing files in the system with archive members. ‘tar’ can compare an archive to the file system as the archive is being written, to verify a write operation, or can compare a previously written archive, to insure that it is up to date. To check for discrepancies in an archive immediately after it is written, use the ‘--verify’ (‘-W’) option in conjunction with the ‘--create’ operation. When this option is specified, ‘tar’ checks archive members against their counterparts in the file system, and reports discrepancies on the standard error. To verify an archive, you must be able to read it from before the end of the last written entry. This option is useful for detecting data errors on some tapes. Archives written to pipes, some cartridge tape drives, and some other devices cannot be verified. One can explicitly compare an already made archive with the file system by using the ‘--compare’ (‘--diff’, ‘-d’) option, instead of using the more automatic ‘--verify’ option. *Note compare::. Note that these two options have a slightly different intent. The ‘--compare’ option checks how identical are the logical contents of some archive with what is on your disks, while the ‘--verify’ option is really for checking if the physical contents agree and if the recording media itself is of dependable quality. So, for the ‘--verify’ operation, ‘tar’ tries to defeat all in-memory cache pertaining to the archive, while it lets the speed optimization undisturbed for the ‘--compare’ option. If you nevertheless use ‘--compare’ for media verification, you may have to defeat the in-memory cache yourself, maybe by opening and reclosing the door latch of your recording unit, forcing some doubt in your operating system about the fact this is really the same volume as the one just written or read. The ‘--verify’ option would not be necessary if drivers were indeed able to detect dependably all write failures. This sometimes require many magnetic heads, some able to read after the writes occurred. One would not say that drivers unable to detect all cases are necessarily flawed, as long as programming is concerned. The ‘--verify’ (‘-W’) option will not work in conjunction with the ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’) option or the ‘--append’ (‘-r’), ‘--update’ (‘-u’) and ‘--delete’ operations. *Note Operations::, for more information on these operations. Also, since ‘tar’ normally strips leading ‘/’ from file names (*note absolute::), a command like ‘tar --verify -cf /tmp/foo.tar /etc’ will work as desired only if the working directory is ‘/’, as ‘tar’ uses the archive’s relative member names (e.g., ‘etc/motd’) when verifying the archive. 9.9 Write Protection ==================== Almost all tapes and diskettes, and in a few rare cases, even disks can be “write protected”, to protect data on them from being changed. Once an archive is written, you should write protect the media to prevent the archive from being accidentally overwritten or deleted. (This will protect the archive from being changed with a tape or floppy drive—it will not protect it from magnet fields or other physical hazards.) The write protection device itself is usually an integral part of the physical media, and can be a two position (write enabled/write disabled) switch, a notch which can be popped out or covered, a ring which can be removed from the center of a tape reel, or some other changeable feature. 10 Reliability and Security *************************** The ‘tar’ command reads and writes files as any other application does, and is subject to the usual caveats about reliability and security. This section contains some commonsense advice on the topic. 10.1 Reliability ================ Ideally, when ‘tar’ is creating an archive, it reads from a file system that is not being modified, and encounters no errors or inconsistencies while reading and writing. If this is the case, the archive should faithfully reflect what was read. Similarly, when extracting from an archive, ideally ‘tar’ ideally encounters no errors and the extracted files faithfully reflect what was in the archive. However, when reading or writing real-world file systems, several things can go wrong; these include permissions problems, corruption of data, and race conditions. 10.1.1 Permissions Problems --------------------------- If ‘tar’ encounters errors while reading or writing files, it normally reports an error and exits with nonzero status. The work it does may therefore be incomplete. For example, when creating an archive, if ‘tar’ cannot read a file then it cannot copy the file into the archive. 10.1.2 Data Corruption and Repair --------------------------------- If an archive becomes corrupted by an I/O error, this may corrupt the data in an extracted file. Worse, it may corrupt the file’s metadata, which may cause later parts of the archive to become misinterpreted. An tar-format archive contains a checksum that most likely will detect errors in the metadata, but it will not detect errors in the data. If data corruption is a concern, you can compute and check your own checksums of an archive by using other programs, such as ‘cksum’. When attempting to recover from a read error or data corruption in an archive, you may need to skip past the questionable data and read the rest of the archive. This requires some expertise in the archive format and in other software tools. 10.1.3 Race conditions ---------------------- If some other process is modifying the file system while ‘tar’ is reading or writing files, the result may well be inconsistent due to race conditions. For example, if another process creates some files in a directory while ‘tar’ is creating an archive containing the directory’s files, ‘tar’ may see some of the files but not others, or it may see a file that is in the process of being created. The resulting archive may not be a snapshot of the file system at any point in time. If an application such as a database system depends on an accurate snapshot, restoring from the ‘tar’ archive of a live file system may therefore break that consistency and may break the application. The simplest way to avoid the consistency issues is to avoid making other changes to the file system while tar is reading it or writing it. When creating an archive, several options are available to avoid race conditions. Some hosts have a way of snapshotting a file system, or of temporarily suspending all changes to a file system, by (say) suspending the only virtual machine that can modify a file system; if you use these facilities and have ‘tar -c’ read from a snapshot when creating an archive, you can avoid inconsistency problems. More drastically, before starting ‘tar’ you could suspend or shut down all processes other than ‘tar’ that have access to the file system, or you could unmount the file system and then mount it read-only. When extracting from an archive, one approach to avoid race conditions is to create a directory that no other process can write to, and extract into that. 10.2 Security ============= In some cases ‘tar’ may be used in an adversarial situation, where an untrusted user is attempting to gain information about or modify otherwise-inaccessible files. Dealing with untrusted data (that is, data generated by an untrusted user) typically requires extra care, because even the smallest mistake in the use of ‘tar’ is more likely to be exploited by an adversary than by a race condition. 10.2.1 Privacy -------------- Standard privacy concerns apply when using ‘tar’. For example, suppose you are archiving your home directory into a file ‘/archive/myhome.tar’. Any secret information in your home directory, such as your SSH secret keys, are copied faithfully into the archive. Therefore, if your home directory contains any file that should not be read by some other user, the archive itself should be not be readable by that user. And even if the archive’s data are inaccessible to untrusted users, its metadata (such as size or last-modified date) may reveal some information about your home directory; if the metadata are intended to be private, the archive’s parent directory should also be inaccessible to untrusted users. One precaution is to create ‘/archive’ so that it is not accessible to any user, unless that user also has permission to access all the files in your home directory. Similarly, when extracting from an archive, take care that the permissions of the extracted files are not more generous than what you want. Even if the archive itself is readable only to you, files extracted from it have their own permissions that may differ. 10.2.2 Integrity ---------------- When creating archives, take care that they are not writable by a untrusted user; otherwise, that user could modify the archive, and when you later extract from the archive you will get incorrect data. When ‘tar’ extracts from an archive, by default it writes into files relative to the working directory. If the archive was generated by an untrusted user, that user therefore can write into any file under the working directory. If the working directory contains a symbolic link to another directory, the untrusted user can also write into any file under the referenced directory. When extracting from an untrusted archive, it is therefore good practice to create an empty directory and run ‘tar’ in that directory. When extracting from two or more untrusted archives, each one should be extracted independently, into different empty directories. Otherwise, the first archive could create a symbolic link into an area outside the working directory, and the second one could follow the link and overwrite data that is not under the working directory. For example, when restoring from a series of incremental dumps, the archives should have been created by a trusted process, as otherwise the incremental restores might alter data outside the working directory. If you use the ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’) option when extracting, ‘tar’ respects any file names in the archive, even file names that begin with ‘/’ or contain ‘..’. As this lets the archive overwrite any file in your system that you can write, the ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’) option should be used only for trusted archives. Conversely, with the ‘--keep-old-files’ (‘-k’) and ‘--skip-old-files’ options, ‘tar’ refuses to replace existing files when extracting. The difference between the two options is that the former treats existing files as errors whereas the latter just silently ignores them. Finally, with the ‘--no-overwrite-dir’ option, ‘tar’ refuses to replace the permissions or ownership of already-existing directories. These options may help when extracting from untrusted archives. 10.2.3 Dealing with Live Untrusted Data --------------------------------------- Extra care is required when creating from or extracting into a file system that is accessible to untrusted users. For example, superusers who invoke ‘tar’ must be wary about its actions being hijacked by an adversary who is reading or writing the file system at the same time that ‘tar’ is operating. When creating an archive from a live file system, ‘tar’ is vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks. For example, an adversarial user could create the illusion of an indefinitely-deep directory hierarchy ‘d/e/f/g/...’ by creating directories one step ahead of ‘tar’, or the illusion of an indefinitely-long file by creating a sparse file but arranging for blocks to be allocated just before ‘tar’ reads them. There is no easy way for ‘tar’ to distinguish these scenarios from legitimate uses, so you may need to monitor ‘tar’, just as you’d need to monitor any other system service, to detect such attacks. While a superuser is extracting from an archive into a live file system, an untrusted user might replace a directory with a symbolic link, in hopes that ‘tar’ will follow the symbolic link and extract data into files that the untrusted user does not have access to. Even if the archive was generated by the superuser, it may contain a file such as ‘d/etc/passwd’ that the untrusted user earlier created in order to break in; if the untrusted user replaces the directory ‘d/etc’ with a symbolic link to ‘/etc’ while ‘tar’ is running, ‘tar’ will overwrite ‘/etc/passwd’. This attack can be prevented by extracting into a directory that is inaccessible to untrusted users. Similar attacks via symbolic links are also possible when creating an archive, if the untrusted user can modify an ancestor of a top-level argument of ‘tar’. For example, an untrusted user that can modify ‘/home/eve’ can hijack a running instance of ‘tar -cf - /home/eve/Documents/yesterday’ by replacing ‘/home/eve/Documents’ with a symbolic link to some other location. Attacks like these can be prevented by making sure that untrusted users cannot modify any files that are top-level arguments to ‘tar’, or any ancestor directories of these files. 10.2.4 Security Rules of Thumb ------------------------------ This section briefly summarizes rules of thumb for avoiding security pitfalls. • Protect archives at least as much as you protect any of the files being archived. • Extract from an untrusted archive only into an otherwise-empty directory. This directory and its parent should be accessible only to trusted users. For example: $ chmod go-rwx . $ mkdir -m go-rwx dir $ cd dir $ tar -xvf /archives/got-it-off-the-net.tar.gz As a corollary, do not do an incremental restore from an untrusted archive. • Do not let untrusted users access files extracted from untrusted archives without checking first for problems such as setuid programs. • Do not let untrusted users modify directories that are ancestors of top-level arguments of ‘tar’. For example, while you are executing ‘tar -cf /archive/u-home.tar /u/home’, do not let an untrusted user modify ‘/’, ‘/archive’, or ‘/u’. • Pay attention to the diagnostics and exit status of ‘tar’. • When archiving live file systems, monitor running instances of ‘tar’ to detect denial-of-service attacks. • Avoid unusual options such as ‘--absolute-names’ (‘-P’), ‘--dereference’ (‘-h’), ‘--overwrite’, ‘--recursive-unlink’, and ‘--remove-files’ unless you understand their security implications. Appendix A Changes ****************** This appendix lists some important user-visible changes between various versions of GNU ‘tar’. An up-to-date version of this document is available at the GNU ‘tar’ documentation page (http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/changes.html). Use of globbing patterns when listing and extracting. Previous versions of GNU tar assumed shell-style globbing when extracting from or listing an archive. For example: $ tar xf foo.tar '*.c' would extract all files whose names end in ‘.c’. This behavior was not documented and was incompatible with traditional tar implementations. Therefore, starting from version 1.15.91, GNU tar no longer uses globbing by default. For example, the above invocation is now interpreted as a request to extract from the archive the file named ‘*.c’. To facilitate transition to the new behavior for those users who got used to the previous incorrect one, ‘tar’ will print a warning if it finds out that a requested member was not found in the archive and its name looks like a globbing pattern. For example: $ tar xf foo.tar '*.c' tar: Pattern matching characters used in file names. Please, tar: use --wildcards to enable pattern matching, or --no-wildcards to tar: suppress this warning. tar: *.c: Not found in archive tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors To treat member names as globbing patterns, use the ‘--wildcards’ option. If you want to tar to mimic the behavior of versions prior to 1.15.91, add this option to your ‘TAR_OPTIONS’ variable. *Note wildcards::, for the detailed discussion of the use of globbing patterns by GNU ‘tar’. Use of short option ‘-o’. Earlier versions of GNU ‘tar’ understood ‘-o’ command line option as a synonym for ‘--old-archive’. GNU ‘tar’ starting from version 1.13.90 understands this option as a synonym for ‘--no-same-owner’. This is compatible with UNIX98 ‘tar’ implementations. However, to facilitate transition, ‘-o’ option retains its old semantics when it is used with one of archive-creation commands. Users are encouraged to use ‘--format=oldgnu’ instead. It is especially important, since versions of GNU Automake up to and including 1.8.4 invoke tar with this option to produce distribution tarballs. *Note v7: Formats, for the detailed discussion of this issue and its implications. *Note tar-formats: (automake)Options, for a description on how to use various archive formats with ‘automake’. Future versions of GNU ‘tar’ will understand ‘-o’ only as a synonym for ‘--no-same-owner’. Use of short option ‘-l’ Earlier versions of GNU ‘tar’ understood ‘-l’ option as a synonym for ‘--one-file-system’. Since such usage contradicted to UNIX98 specification and harmed compatibility with other implementations, it was declared deprecated in version 1.14. However, to facilitate transition to its new semantics, it was supported by versions 1.15 and 1.15.90. The present use of ‘-l’ as a short variant of ‘--check-links’ was introduced in version 1.15.91. Use of options ‘--portability’ and ‘--old-archive’ These options are deprecated. Please use ‘--format=v7’ instead. Use of option ‘--posix’ This option is deprecated. Please use ‘--format=posix’ instead. Appendix B Recipes ****************** This appendix provides several recipes for performing common tasks using GNU ‘tar’. B.1 Copying directory hierarchies ================================= This is a traditional way to copy a directory hierarchy preserving the dates, modes, owners and link-structure of all the files therein. It was used back when the ‘cp’ command lacked the ‘-a’ option: $ (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 same command 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=- B.2 Restoring Intermediate Directories ====================================== A common concern is how to extract permissions and ownerships of intermediate directories when extracting only selected members from the archive. To illustrate this, consider the following archive: # tar tvf A.tar drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2017-11-16 14:39 foo/ dr-xr-x--- gray/user 0 2017-11-16 14:39 foo/bar/ -rw-r--r-- gray/user 10 2017-11-16 14:40 foo/bar/file Suppose you extract only the file ‘foo/bar/file’, while being ‘root’: # tar xvf A.tar foo/bar/file foo/bar/file Now, let’s inspect the content of the created directories: # find foo -ls 427257 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 16 Nov 17 16:10 foo 427258 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 17 Nov 17 16:10 foo/bar 427259 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 gray user 10 Nov 6 14:40 foo/bar/file The requested file is restored, including its ownership and permissions. The intermediate directories, however, are created with the default permissions, current timestamp and owned by the current user. This is because by the time ‘tar’ has reached the requested file, it had already skipped the entries for its parent directories, so it has no iformation about their ownership and modes. To restore meta information about the intermediate directories, you’ll need to specify them explicitly in the command line and use the ‘--no-recursive’ option (*note recurse::) to avoid extracting their content. To automate this process, ‘Neal P. Murphy’ proposed the following shell script(1): #! /bin/sh (while read path do path=`dirname $path` while [ -n "$path" -a "$path" != "." ] do echo $path path=`dirname $path` done done < $2 | sort | uniq) | tar -x --no-recursion -v -f $1 -T - -T $2 The script takes two arguments: the name of the archive file, and the name of the file list file. To complete our example, the file list will contain single line: foo/bar/file Supposing its name is ‘file.list’ and the script is named ‘restore.sh’, you can invoke it as follows: # sh restore.sh A.tar file.list ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) The original version of the script can be seen at Appendix C Configuring Help Summary *********************************** Running ‘tar --help’ displays the short ‘tar’ option summary (*note help::). This summary is organized by “groups” of semantically close options. The options within each group are printed in the following order: a short option, eventually followed by a list of corresponding long option names, followed by a short description of the option. For example, here is an excerpt from the actual ‘tar --help’ output: Main operation mode: -A, --catenate, --concatenate append tar files to an archive -c, --create create a new archive -d, --diff, --compare find differences between archive and file system --delete delete from the archive The exact visual representation of the help output is configurable via ‘ARGP_HELP_FMT’ environment variable. The value of this variable is a comma-separated list of “format variable” assignments. There are two kinds of format variables. An “offset variable” keeps the offset of some part of help output text from the leftmost column on the screen. A “boolean” variable is a flag that toggles some output feature on or off. Depending on the type of the corresponding variable, there are two kinds of assignments: Offset assignment The assignment to an offset variable has the following syntax: VARIABLE=VALUE where VARIABLE is the variable name, and VALUE is a numeric value to be assigned to the variable. Boolean assignment To assign ‘true’ value to a variable, simply put this variable name. To assign ‘false’ value, prefix the variable name with ‘no-’. For example: # Assign true value: dup-args # Assign false value: no-dup-args Following variables are declared: -- Help Output: boolean dup-args If true, arguments for an option are shown with both short and long options, even when a given option has both forms, for example: -f ARCHIVE, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE If false, then if an option has both short and long forms, the argument is only shown with the long one, for example: -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE and a message indicating that the argument is applicable to both forms is printed below the options. This message can be disabled using ‘dup-args-note’ (see below). The default is false. -- Help Output: boolean dup-args-note If this variable is true, which is the default, the following notice is displayed at the end of the help output: Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are also mandatory or optional for any corresponding short options. Setting ‘no-dup-args-note’ inhibits this message. Normally, only one of variables ‘dup-args’ or ‘dup-args-note’ should be set. -- Help Output: offset short-opt-col Column in which short options start. Default is 2. $ tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE $ ARGP_HELP_FMT=short-opt-col=6 tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE -- Help Output: offset long-opt-col Column in which long options start. Default is 6. For example: $ tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE $ ARGP_HELP_FMT=long-opt-col=16 tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE -- Help Output: offset doc-opt-col Column in which “doc options” start. A doc option isn’t actually an option, but rather an arbitrary piece of documentation that is displayed in much the same manner as the options. For example, in the description of ‘--format’ option: -H, --format=FORMAT create archive of the given format. FORMAT is one of the following: gnu GNU tar 1.13.x format oldgnu GNU format as per tar <= 1.12 pax POSIX 1003.1-2001 (pax) format posix same as pax ustar POSIX 1003.1-1988 (ustar) format v7 old V7 tar format the format names are doc options. Thus, if you set ‘ARGP_HELP_FMT=doc-opt-col=6’ the above part of the help output will look as follows: -H, --format=FORMAT create archive of the given format. FORMAT is one of the following: gnu GNU tar 1.13.x format oldgnu GNU format as per tar <= 1.12 pax POSIX 1003.1-2001 (pax) format posix same as pax ustar POSIX 1003.1-1988 (ustar) format v7 old V7 tar format -- Help Output: offset opt-doc-col Column in which option description starts. Default is 29. $ tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE $ ARGP_HELP_FMT=opt-doc-col=19 tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE $ ARGP_HELP_FMT=opt-doc-col=9 tar --help|grep ARCHIVE -f, --file=ARCHIVE use archive file or device ARCHIVE Notice, that the description starts on a separate line if ‘opt-doc-col’ value is too small. -- Help Output: offset header-col Column in which “group headers” are printed. A group header is a descriptive text preceding an option group. For example, in the following text: Main operation mode: -A, --catenate, --concatenate append tar files to an archive -c, --create create a new archive ‘Main operation mode:’ is the group header. The default value is 1. -- Help Output: offset usage-indent Indentation of wrapped usage lines. Affects ‘--usage’ output. Default is 12. -- Help Output: offset rmargin Right margin of the text output. Used for wrapping. Appendix D Fixing Snapshot Files ******************************** Various situations can cause device numbers to change: upgrading your kernel version, reconfiguring your hardware, loading kernel modules in a different order, using virtual volumes that are assembled dynamically (such as with LVM or RAID), hot-plugging drives (e.g. external USB or Firewire drives), etc. In the majority of cases this change is unnoticed by the users. However, it influences ‘tar’ incremental backups: the device number is stored in tar snapshot files (*note Snapshot Files::) and is used to determine whether the file has changed since the last backup. If the device numbers change for some reason, by default the next backup you run will be a full backup. To minimize the impact in these cases, GNU ‘tar’ comes with the ‘tar-snapshot-edit’ utility for inspecting and updating device numbers in snapshot files. (The utility, written by Dustin J. Mitchell, is also available from the GNU ‘tar’ home page (http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/utils/tar-snapshot-edit.html).) To obtain a summary of the device numbers found in the snapshot file, run $ tar-snapshot-edit SNAPFILE where SNAPFILE is the name of the snapshot file (you can supply as many files as you wish in a single command line). You can then compare the numbers across snapshot files, or against those currently in use on the live filesystem (using ‘ls -l’ or ‘stat’). Assuming the device numbers have indeed changed, it’s often possible to simply tell GNU ‘tar’ to ignore the device number when processing the incremental snapshot files for these backups, using the ‘--no-check-device’ option (*note device numbers::). Alternatively, you can use the ‘tar-edit-snapshot’ script’s ‘-r’ option to update all occurrences of the given device number in the snapshot file(s). It takes a single argument of the form ‘OLDDEV-NEWDEV’, where OLDDEV is the device number used in the snapshot file, and NEWDEV is the corresponding new device number. Both numbers may be specified in hex (e.g., ‘0xfe01’), decimal (e.g., ‘65025’), or as a major:minor number pair (e.g., ‘254:1’). To change several device numbers at once, specify them in a single comma-separated list, as in ‘-r 0x3060-0x4500,0x307-0x4600’. Before updating the snapshot file, it is a good idea to create a backup copy of it. This is accomplished by ‘-b’ option. The name of the backup file is obtained by appending ‘~’ to the original file name. An example session: $ tar-snapshot-edit root_snap.0 boot_snap.0 File: root_snap.0 Detected snapshot file version: 2 Device 0x0000 occurs 1 times. Device 0x0003 occurs 1 times. Device 0x0005 occurs 1 times. Device 0x0013 occurs 1 times. Device 0x6801 occurs 1 times. Device 0x6803 occurs 6626 times. Device 0xfb00 occurs 1 times. File: boot_snap.0 Detected snapshot file version: 2 Device 0x6801 occurs 3 times. $ tar-snapshot-edit -b -r 0x6801-0x6901,0x6803-0x6903 root_snap.0 boot_snap.0 File: root_snap.0 Detected snapshot file version: 2 Updated 6627 records. File: boot_snap.0 Detected snapshot file version: 2 Updated 3 records. Appendix E Tar Internals ************************ Basic Tar Format ================ _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ While an archive may contain many files, the archive itself is a single ordinary file. Like any other file, an archive file can be written to a storage device such as a tape or disk, sent through a pipe or over a network, saved on the active file system, or even stored in another archive. An archive file is not easy to read or manipulate without using the ‘tar’ utility or Tar mode in GNU Emacs. Physically, an archive consists of a series of file entries terminated by an end-of-archive entry, which consists of two 512 blocks of zero bytes. A file entry usually describes one of the files in the archive (an “archive member”), and consists of a file header and the contents of the file. File headers contain file names and statistics, checksum information which ‘tar’ uses to detect file corruption, and information about file types. Archives are permitted to have more than one member with the same member name. One way this situation can occur is if more than one version of a file has been stored in the archive. For information about adding new versions of a file to an archive, see *note update::. In addition to entries describing archive members, an archive may contain entries which ‘tar’ itself uses to store information. *Note label::, for an example of such an archive entry. A ‘tar’ archive file contains a series of blocks. Each block contains ‘BLOCKSIZE’ bytes. Although this format may be thought of as being on magnetic tape, other media are often used. Each file archived is represented by a header block which describes the file, followed by zero or more blocks which give the contents of the file. At the end of the archive file there are two 512-byte blocks filled with binary zeros as an end-of-file marker. A reasonable system should write such end-of-file marker at the end of an archive, but must not assume that such a block exists when reading an archive. In particular, GNU ‘tar’ does not treat missing end-of-file marker as an error and silently ignores the fact. You can instruct it to issue a warning, however, by using the ‘--warning=missing-zero-blocks’ option (*note missing-zero-blocks: General Warnings.). The blocks may be “blocked” for physical I/O operations. Each record of N blocks (where N is set by the ‘--blocking-factor=512-SIZE’ (‘-b 512-SIZE’) option to ‘tar’) is written with a single ‘write ()’ operation. On magnetic tapes, the result of such a write is a single record. When writing an archive, the last record of blocks should be written at the full size, with blocks after the zero block containing all zeros. When reading an archive, a reasonable system should properly handle an archive whose last record is shorter than the rest, or which contains garbage records after a zero block. The header block is defined in C as follows. In the GNU ‘tar’ distribution, this is part of file ‘src/tar.h’: /* tar Header Block, from POSIX 1003.1-1990. */ /* POSIX header. */ struct posix_header { /* byte offset */ char name[100]; /* 0 */ char mode[8]; /* 100 */ char uid[8]; /* 108 */ char gid[8]; /* 116 */ char size[12]; /* 124 */ char mtime[12]; /* 136 */ char chksum[8]; /* 148 */ char typeflag; /* 156 */ char linkname[100]; /* 157 */ char magic[6]; /* 257 */ char version[2]; /* 263 */ char uname[32]; /* 265 */ char gname[32]; /* 297 */ char devmajor[8]; /* 329 */ char devminor[8]; /* 337 */ char prefix[155]; /* 345 */ /* 500 */ }; #define TMAGIC "ustar" /* ustar and a null */ #define TMAGLEN 6 #define TVERSION "00" /* 00 and no null */ #define TVERSLEN 2 /* Values used in typeflag field. */ #define REGTYPE '0' /* regular file */ #define AREGTYPE '\0' /* regular file */ #define LNKTYPE '1' /* link */ #define SYMTYPE '2' /* reserved */ #define CHRTYPE '3' /* character special */ #define BLKTYPE '4' /* block special */ #define DIRTYPE '5' /* directory */ #define FIFOTYPE '6' /* FIFO special */ #define CONTTYPE '7' /* reserved */ #define XHDTYPE 'x' /* Extended header referring to the next file in the archive */ #define XGLTYPE 'g' /* Global extended header */ /* Bits used in the mode field, values in octal. */ #define TSUID 04000 /* set UID on execution */ #define TSGID 02000 /* set GID on execution */ #define TSVTX 01000 /* reserved */ /* file permissions */ #define TUREAD 00400 /* read by owner */ #define TUWRITE 00200 /* write by owner */ #define TUEXEC 00100 /* execute/search by owner */ #define TGREAD 00040 /* read by group */ #define TGWRITE 00020 /* write by group */ #define TGEXEC 00010 /* execute/search by group */ #define TOREAD 00004 /* read by other */ #define TOWRITE 00002 /* write by other */ #define TOEXEC 00001 /* execute/search by other */ /* tar Header Block, GNU extensions. */ /* In GNU tar, SYMTYPE is for to symbolic links, and CONTTYPE is for contiguous files, so maybe disobeying the "reserved" comment in POSIX header description. I suspect these were meant to be used this way, and should not have really been "reserved" in the published standards. */ /* *BEWARE* *BEWARE* *BEWARE* that the following information is still boiling, and may change. Even if the OLDGNU format description should be accurate, the so-called GNU format is not yet fully decided. It is surely meant to use only extensions allowed by POSIX, but the sketch below repeats some ugliness from the OLDGNU format, which should rather go away. Sparse files should be saved in such a way that they do *not* require two passes at archive creation time. Huge files get some POSIX fields to overflow, alternate solutions have to be sought for this. */ /* Descriptor for a single file hole. */ struct sparse { /* byte offset */ char offset[12]; /* 0 */ char numbytes[12]; /* 12 */ /* 24 */ }; /* Sparse files are not supported in POSIX ustar format. For sparse files with a POSIX header, a GNU extra header is provided which holds overall sparse information and a few sparse descriptors. When an old GNU header replaces both the POSIX header and the GNU extra header, it holds some sparse descriptors too. Whether POSIX or not, if more sparse descriptors are still needed, they are put into as many successive sparse headers as necessary. The following constants tell how many sparse descriptors fit in each kind of header able to hold them. */ #define SPARSES_IN_EXTRA_HEADER 16 #define SPARSES_IN_OLDGNU_HEADER 4 #define SPARSES_IN_SPARSE_HEADER 21 /* Extension header for sparse files, used immediately after the GNU extra header, and used only if all sparse information cannot fit into that extra header. There might even be many such extension headers, one after the other, until all sparse information has been recorded. */ struct sparse_header { /* byte offset */ struct sparse sp[SPARSES_IN_SPARSE_HEADER]; /* 0 */ char isextended; /* 504 */ /* 505 */ }; /* The old GNU format header conflicts with POSIX format in such a way that POSIX archives may fool old GNU tar’s, and POSIX tar’s might well be fooled by old GNU tar archives. An old GNU format header uses the space used by the prefix field in a POSIX header, and cumulates information normally found in a GNU extra header. With an old GNU tar header, we never see any POSIX header nor GNU extra header. Supplementary sparse headers are allowed, however. */ struct oldgnu_header { /* byte offset */ char unused_pad1[345]; /* 0 */ char atime[12]; /* 345 Incr. archive: atime of the file */ char ctime[12]; /* 357 Incr. archive: ctime of the file */ char offset[12]; /* 369 Multivolume archive: the offset of the start of this volume */ char longnames[4]; /* 381 Not used */ char unused_pad2; /* 385 */ struct sparse sp[SPARSES_IN_OLDGNU_HEADER]; /* 386 */ char isextended; /* 482 Sparse file: Extension sparse header follows */ char realsize[12]; /* 483 Sparse file: Real size*/ /* 495 */ }; /* OLDGNU_MAGIC uses both magic and version fields, which are contiguous. Found in an archive, it indicates an old GNU header format, which will be hopefully become obsolescent. With OLDGNU_MAGIC, uname and gname are valid, though the header is not truly POSIX conforming. */ #define OLDGNU_MAGIC "ustar " /* 7 chars and a null */ /* The standards committee allows only capital A through capital Z for user-defined expansion. Other letters in use include: ’A’ Solaris Access Control List ’E’ Solaris Extended Attribute File ’I’ Inode only, as in ’star’ ’N’ Obsolete GNU tar, for file names that do not fit into the main header. ’X’ POSIX 1003.1-2001 eXtended (VU version) */ /* This is a dir entry that contains the names of files that were in the dir at the time the dump was made. */ #define GNUTYPE_DUMPDIR 'D' /* Identifies the *next* file on the tape as having a long linkname. */ #define GNUTYPE_LONGLINK 'K' /* Identifies the *next* file on the tape as having a long name. */ #define GNUTYPE_LONGNAME 'L' /* This is the continuation of a file that began on another volume. */ #define GNUTYPE_MULTIVOL 'M' /* This is for sparse files. */ #define GNUTYPE_SPARSE 'S' /* This file is a tape/volume header. Ignore it on extraction. */ #define GNUTYPE_VOLHDR 'V' /* Solaris extended header */ #define SOLARIS_XHDTYPE 'X' /* Jörg Schilling star header */ struct star_header { /* byte offset */ char name[100]; /* 0 */ char mode[8]; /* 100 */ char uid[8]; /* 108 */ char gid[8]; /* 116 */ char size[12]; /* 124 */ char mtime[12]; /* 136 */ char chksum[8]; /* 148 */ char typeflag; /* 156 */ char linkname[100]; /* 157 */ char magic[6]; /* 257 */ char version[2]; /* 263 */ char uname[32]; /* 265 */ char gname[32]; /* 297 */ char devmajor[8]; /* 329 */ char devminor[8]; /* 337 */ char prefix[131]; /* 345 */ char atime[12]; /* 476 */ char ctime[12]; /* 488 */ /* 500 */ }; #define SPARSES_IN_STAR_HEADER 4 #define SPARSES_IN_STAR_EXT_HEADER 21 struct star_in_header { char fill[345]; /* 0 Everything that is before t_prefix */ char prefix[1]; /* 345 t_name prefix */ char fill2; /* 346 */ char fill3[8]; /* 347 */ char isextended; /* 355 */ struct sparse sp[SPARSES_IN_STAR_HEADER]; /* 356 */ char realsize[12]; /* 452 Actual size of the file */ char offset[12]; /* 464 Offset of multivolume contents */ char atime[12]; /* 476 */ char ctime[12]; /* 488 */ char mfill[8]; /* 500 */ char xmagic[4]; /* 508 "tar" */ }; struct star_ext_header { struct sparse sp[SPARSES_IN_STAR_EXT_HEADER]; char isextended; }; All characters in header blocks are represented by using 8-bit characters in the local variant of ASCII. Each field within the structure is contiguous; that is, there is no padding used within the structure. Each character on the archive medium is stored contiguously. Bytes representing the contents of files (after the header block of each file) are not translated in any way and are not constrained to represent characters in any character set. The ‘tar’ format does not distinguish text files from binary files, and no translation of file contents is performed. The ‘name’, ‘linkname’, ‘magic’, ‘uname’, and ‘gname’ are null-terminated character strings. All other fields are zero-filled octal numbers in ASCII. Each numeric field of width W contains W minus 1 digits, and a null. (In the extended GNU format, the numeric fields can take other forms.) The ‘name’ field is the file name of the file, with directory names (if any) preceding the file name, separated by slashes. The ‘mode’ field provides nine bits specifying file permissions and three bits to specify the Set UID, Set GID, and Save Text (“sticky”) modes. Values for these bits are defined above. When special permissions are required to create a file with a given mode, and the user restoring files from the archive does not hold such permissions, the mode bit(s) specifying those special permissions are ignored. Modes which are not supported by the operating system restoring files from the archive will be ignored. Unsupported modes should be faked up when creating or updating an archive; e.g., the group permission could be copied from the _other_ permission. The ‘uid’ and ‘gid’ fields are the numeric user and group ID of the file owners, respectively. If the operating system does not support numeric user or group IDs, these fields should be ignored. The ‘size’ field is the size of the file in bytes; for archive members that are symbolic or hard links to another file, this field is specified as zero. The ‘mtime’ field represents the data modification time of the file at the time it was archived. It represents the integer number of seconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00 Coordinated Universal Time. The ‘chksum’ field represents the simple sum of all bytes in the header block. Each 8-bit byte in the header is added to an unsigned integer, initialized to zero, the precision of which shall be no less than seventeen bits. When calculating the checksum, the ‘chksum’ field is treated as if it were filled with spaces (ASCII 32). The ‘typeflag’ field specifies the type of file archived. If a particular implementation does not recognize or permit the specified type, the file will be extracted as if it were a regular file. As this action occurs, ‘tar’ issues a warning to the standard error. The ‘atime’ and ‘ctime’ fields are used in making incremental backups; they store, respectively, the particular file’s access and status change times. The ‘offset’ is used by the ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’) option, when making a multi-volume archive. The offset is number of bytes into the file that we need to restart at to continue the file on the next tape, i.e., where we store the location that a continued file is continued at. The following fields were added to deal with sparse files. A file is “sparse” if it takes in unallocated blocks which end up being represented as zeros, i.e., no useful data. A test to see if a file is sparse is to look at the number blocks allocated for it versus the number of characters in the file; if there are fewer blocks allocated for the file than would normally be allocated for a file of that size, then the file is sparse. This is the method ‘tar’ uses to detect a sparse file, and once such a file is detected, it is treated differently from non-sparse files. Sparse files are often ‘dbm’ files, or other database-type files which have data at some points and emptiness in the greater part of the file. Such files can appear to be very large when an ‘ls -l’ is done on them, when in truth, there may be a very small amount of important data contained in the file. It is thus undesirable to have ‘tar’ think that it must back up this entire file, as great quantities of room are wasted on empty blocks, which can lead to running out of room on a tape far earlier than is necessary. Thus, sparse files are dealt with so that these empty blocks are not written to the tape. Instead, what is written to the tape is a description, of sorts, of the sparse file: where the holes are, how big the holes are, and how much data is found at the end of the hole. This way, the file takes up potentially far less room on the tape, and when the file is extracted later on, it will look exactly the way it looked beforehand. The following is a description of the fields used to handle a sparse file: The ‘sp’ is an array of ‘struct sparse’. Each ‘struct sparse’ contains two 12-character strings which represent an offset into the file and a number of bytes to be written at that offset. The offset is absolute, and not relative to the offset in preceding array element. The header can hold four of these ‘struct sparse’ at the moment; if more are needed, they are not stored in the header. The ‘isextended’ flag is set when an ‘extended_header’ is needed to deal with a file. Note that this means that this flag can only be set when dealing with a sparse file, and it is only set in the event that the description of the file will not fit in the allotted room for sparse structures in the header. In other words, an extended_header is needed. The ‘extended_header’ structure is used for sparse files which need more sparse structures than can fit in the header. The header can fit 4 such structures; if more are needed, the flag ‘isextended’ gets set and the next block is an ‘extended_header’. Each ‘extended_header’ structure contains an array of 21 sparse structures, along with a similar ‘isextended’ flag that the header had. There can be an indeterminate number of such ‘extended_header’s to describe a sparse file. ‘REGTYPE’ ‘AREGTYPE’ These flags represent a regular file. In order to be compatible with older versions of ‘tar’, a ‘typeflag’ value of ‘AREGTYPE’ should be silently recognized as a regular file. New archives should be created using ‘REGTYPE’. Also, for backward compatibility, ‘tar’ treats a regular file whose name ends with a slash as a directory. ‘LNKTYPE’ This flag represents a file linked to another file, of any type, previously archived. Such files are identified in Unix by each file having the same device and inode number. The linked-to name is specified in the ‘linkname’ field with a trailing null. ‘SYMTYPE’ This represents a symbolic link to another file. The linked-to name is specified in the ‘linkname’ field with a trailing null. ‘CHRTYPE’ ‘BLKTYPE’ These represent character special files and block special files respectively. In this case the ‘devmajor’ and ‘devminor’ fields will contain the major and minor device numbers respectively. Operating systems may map the device specifications to their own local specification, or may ignore the entry. ‘DIRTYPE’ This flag specifies a directory or sub-directory. The directory name in the ‘name’ field should end with a slash. On systems where disk allocation is performed on a directory basis, the ‘size’ field will contain the maximum number of bytes (which may be rounded to the nearest disk block allocation unit) which the directory may hold. A ‘size’ field of zero indicates no such limiting. Systems which do not support limiting in this manner should ignore the ‘size’ field. ‘FIFOTYPE’ This specifies a FIFO special file. Note that the archiving of a FIFO file archives the existence of this file and not its contents. ‘CONTTYPE’ This specifies a contiguous file, which is the same as a normal file except that, in operating systems which support it, all its space is allocated contiguously on the disk. Operating systems which do not allow contiguous allocation should silently treat this type as a normal file. ‘A’ ... ‘Z’ These are reserved for custom implementations. Some of these are used in the GNU modified format, as described below. Other values are reserved for specification in future revisions of the P1003 standard, and should not be used by any ‘tar’ program. The ‘magic’ field indicates that this archive was output in the P1003 archive format. If this field contains ‘TMAGIC’, the ‘uname’ and ‘gname’ fields will contain the ASCII representation of the owner and group of the file respectively. If found, the user and group IDs are used rather than the values in the ‘uid’ and ‘gid’ fields. For references, see ISO/IEC 9945-1:1990 or IEEE Std 1003.1-1990, pages 169-173 (section 10.1) for ‘Archive/Interchange File Format’; and IEEE Std 1003.2-1992, pages 380-388 (section 4.48) and pages 936-940 (section E.4.48) for ‘pax - Portable archive interchange’. GNU Extensions to the Archive Format ==================================== _(This message will disappear, once this node revised.)_ The GNU format uses additional file types to describe new types of files in an archive. These are listed below. ‘GNUTYPE_DUMPDIR’ ‘'D'’ This represents a directory and a list of files created by the ‘--incremental’ (‘-G’) option. The ‘size’ field gives the total size of the associated list of files. Each file name is preceded by either a ‘Y’ (the file should be in this archive) or an ‘N’. (The file is a directory, or is not stored in the archive.) Each file name is terminated by a null. There is an additional null after the last file name. ‘GNUTYPE_MULTIVOL’ ‘'M'’ This represents a file continued from another volume of a multi-volume archive created with the ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’) option. The original type of the file is not given here. The ‘size’ field gives the maximum size of this piece of the file (assuming the volume does not end before the file is written out). The ‘offset’ field gives the offset from the beginning of the file where this part of the file begins. Thus ‘size’ plus ‘offset’ should equal the original size of the file. ‘GNUTYPE_SPARSE’ ‘'S'’ This flag indicates that we are dealing with a sparse file. Note that archiving a sparse file requires special operations to find holes in the file, which mark the positions of these holes, along with the number of bytes of data to be found after the hole. ‘GNUTYPE_VOLHDR’ ‘'V'’ This file type is used to mark the volume header that was given with the ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ (‘-V ARCHIVE-LABEL’) option when the archive was created. The ‘name’ field contains the ‘name’ given after the ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ (‘-V ARCHIVE-LABEL’) option. The ‘size’ field is zero. Only the first file in each volume of an archive should have this type. For fields containing numbers or timestamps that are out of range for the basic format, the GNU format uses a base-256 representation instead of an ASCII octal number. If the leading byte is 0xff (255), all the bytes of the field (including the leading byte) are concatenated in big-endian order, with the result being a negative number expressed in two’s complement form. If the leading byte is 0x80 (128), the non-leading bytes of the field are concatenated in big-endian order, with the result being a positive number expressed in binary form. Leading bytes other than 0xff, 0x80 and ASCII octal digits are reserved for future use, as are base-256 representations of values that would be in range for the basic format. You may have trouble reading a GNU format archive on a non-GNU system if the options ‘--incremental’ (‘-G’), ‘--multi-volume’ (‘-M’), ‘--sparse’ (‘-S’), or ‘--label=ARCHIVE-LABEL’ (‘-V ARCHIVE-LABEL’) were used when writing the archive. In general, if ‘tar’ does not use the GNU-added fields of the header, other versions of ‘tar’ should be able to read the archive. Otherwise, the ‘tar’ program will give an error, the most likely one being a checksum error. Storing Sparse Files ==================== The notion of sparse file, and the ways of handling it from the point of view of GNU ‘tar’ user have been described in detail in *note sparse::. This chapter describes the internal format GNU ‘tar’ uses to store such files. The support for sparse files in GNU ‘tar’ has a long history. The earliest version featuring this support that I was able to find was 1.09, released in November, 1990. The format introduced back then is called “old GNU” sparse format and in spite of the fact that its design contained many flaws, it was the only format GNU ‘tar’ supported until version 1.14 (May, 2004), which introduced initial support for sparse archives in PAX archives (*note posix::). This format was not free from design flaws, either and it was subsequently improved in versions 1.15.2 (November, 2005) and 1.15.92 (June, 2006). In addition to GNU sparse format, GNU ‘tar’ is able to read and extract sparse files archived by ‘star’. The following subsections describe each format in detail. Old GNU Format -------------- The format introduced in November 1990 (v. 1.09) was designed on top of standard ‘ustar’ headers in such an unfortunate way that some of its fields overwrote fields required by POSIX. An old GNU sparse header is designated by type ‘S’ (‘GNUTYPE_SPARSE’) and has the following layout: Offset Size Name Data type Contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 345 N/A Not used. 345 12 atime Number ‘atime’ of the file. 357 12 ctime Number ‘ctime’ of the file . 369 12 offset Number For multivolume archives: the offset of the start of this volume. 381 4 N/A Not used. 385 1 N/A Not used. 386 96 sp ‘sparse_header’(4 entries) File map. 482 1 isextended Bool ‘1’ if an extension sparse header follows, ‘0’ otherwise. 483 12 realsize Number Real size of the file. Each of ‘sparse_header’ object at offset 386 describes a single data chunk. It has the following structure: Offset Size Data type Contents --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 12 Number Offset of the beginning of the chunk. 12 12 Number Size of the chunk. If the member contains more than four chunks, the ‘isextended’ field of the header has the value ‘1’ and the main header is followed by one or more “extension headers”. Each such header has the following structure: Offset Size Name Data type Contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 21 sp ‘sparse_header’(21 entries) File map. 504 1 isextended Bool ‘1’ if an extension sparse header follows, or ‘0’ otherwise. A header with ‘isextended=0’ ends the map. PAX Format, Versions 0.0 and 0.1 -------------------------------- There are two formats available in this branch. The version ‘0.0’ is the initial version of sparse format used by ‘tar’ versions 1.14–1.15.1. The sparse file map is kept in extended (‘x’) PAX header variables: ‘GNU.sparse.size’ Real size of the stored file; ‘GNU.sparse.numblocks’ Number of blocks in the sparse map; ‘GNU.sparse.offset’ Offset of the data block; ‘GNU.sparse.numbytes’ Size of the data block. The latter two variables repeat for each data block, so the overall structure is like this: GNU.sparse.size=SIZE GNU.sparse.numblocks=NUMBLOCKS repeat NUMBLOCKS times GNU.sparse.offset=OFFSET GNU.sparse.numbytes=NUMBYTES end repeat This format presented the following two problems: 1. Whereas the POSIX specification allows a variable to appear multiple times in a header, it requires that only the last occurrence be meaningful. Thus, multiple occurrences of ‘GNU.sparse.offset’ and ‘GNU.sparse.numbytes’ are conflicting with the POSIX specs. 2. Attempting to extract such archives using a third-party’s ‘tar’ results in extraction of sparse files in _condensed form_. If the ‘tar’ implementation in question does not support POSIX format, it will also extract a file containing extension header attributes. This file can be used to expand the file to its original state. However, posix-aware ‘tar’s will usually ignore the unknown variables, which makes restoring the file more difficult. *Note Extraction of sparse members in v.0.0 format: extracting sparse v0x, for the detailed description of how to restore such members using non-GNU ‘tar’s. GNU ‘tar’ 1.15.2 introduced sparse format version ‘0.1’, which attempted to solve these problems. As its predecessor, this format stores sparse map in the extended POSIX header. It retains ‘GNU.sparse.size’ and ‘GNU.sparse.numblocks’ variables, but instead of ‘GNU.sparse.offset’/‘GNU.sparse.numbytes’ pairs it uses a single variable: ‘GNU.sparse.map’ Map of non-null data chunks. It is a string consisting of comma-separated values "OFFSET,SIZE[,OFFSET-1,SIZE-1...]" To address the 2nd problem, the ‘name’ field in ‘ustar’ is replaced with a special name, constructed using the following pattern: %d/GNUSparseFile.%p/%f The real name of the sparse file is stored in the variable ‘GNU.sparse.name’. Thus, those ‘tar’ implementations that are not aware of GNU extensions will at least extract the files into separate directories, giving the user a possibility to expand it afterwards. *Note Extraction of sparse members in v.0.1 format: extracting sparse v0x, for the detailed description of how to restore such members using non-GNU ‘tar’s. The resulting ‘GNU.sparse.map’ string can be _very_ long. Although POSIX does not impose any limit on the length of a ‘x’ header variable, this possibly can confuse some ‘tar’s. PAX Format, Version 1.0 ----------------------- The version ‘1.0’ of sparse format was introduced with GNU ‘tar’ 1.15.92. Its main objective was to make the resulting file extractable with little effort even by non-posix aware ‘tar’ implementations. Starting from this version, the extended header preceding a sparse member always contains the following variables that identify the format being used: ‘GNU.sparse.major’ Major version ‘GNU.sparse.minor’ Minor version The ‘name’ field in ‘ustar’ header contains a special name, constructed using the following pattern: %d/GNUSparseFile.%p/%f The real name of the sparse file is stored in the variable ‘GNU.sparse.name’. The real size of the file is stored in the variable ‘GNU.sparse.realsize’. The sparse map itself is stored in the file data block, preceding the actual file data. It consists of a series of decimal numbers delimited by newlines. The map is padded with nulls to the nearest block boundary. The first number gives the number of entries in the map. Following are map entries, each one consisting of two numbers giving the offset and size of the data block it describes. The format is designed in such a way that non-posix aware ‘tar’s and ‘tar’s not supporting ‘GNU.sparse.*’ keywords will extract each sparse file in its condensed form with the file map prepended and will place it into a separate directory. Then, using a simple program it would be possible to expand the file to its original form even without GNU ‘tar’. *Note Sparse Recovery::, for the detailed information on how to extract sparse members without GNU ‘tar’. Format of the Incremental Snapshot Files ======================================== A “snapshot file” (or “directory file”) is created during incremental backups (*note Incremental Dumps::). It contains the status of the file system at the time of the dump and is used to determine which files were modified since the last backup. GNU ‘tar’ version 1.35 supports three snapshot file formats. The first format, called “format 0”, is the one used by GNU ‘tar’ versions up to and including 1.15.1. The second format, called “format 1” is an extended version of this format, that contains more metadata and allows for further extensions. It was used by alpha release version 1.15.90. For alpha version 1.15.91 and stable releases version 1.16 up through 1.35, the “format 2” is used. GNU ‘tar’ is able to read all three formats, but will create snapshots only in format 2. This appendix describes all three formats in detail. 0. ‘Format 0’ snapshot file begins with a line containing a decimal number that represents a UNIX timestamp of the beginning of the last archivation. This line is followed by directory metadata descriptions, one per line. Each description has the following format: [NFS]DEV INODE NAME where: NFS A single plus character (‘+’), if this directory is located on an NFS-mounted partition, otherwise empty. (That is, for non-NFS directories, the first character on the description line contains the start of the DEV field.) DEV Device number of the directory; INODE I-node number of the directory; NAME Name of the directory. Any special characters (white-space, backslashes, etc.) are quoted. 1. ‘Format 1’ snapshot file begins with a line specifying the format of the file. This line has the following structure: ‘GNU tar-’TAR-VERSION‘-’INCR-FORMAT-VERSION where TAR-VERSION is the version number of GNU ‘tar’ implementation that created this snapshot, and INCR-FORMAT-VERSION is the version number of the snapshot format (in this case ‘1’). Next line contains two decimal numbers, representing the time of the last backup. First number is the number of seconds, the second one is the number of nanoseconds, since the beginning of the epoch. Lines that follow contain directory metadata, one line per directory. Each line is formatted as follows: [NFS]MTIME-SEC MTIME-NSEC DEV INODE NAME where MTIME-SEC and MTIME-NSEC represent last modification time of this directory with nanosecond precision; NFS, DEV, INODE and NAME have the same meaning as with ‘format 0’. 2. ‘Format 2’ snapshot file begins with a format identifier, as described for version 1, e.g.: GNU tar-1.35-2 This line is followed by newline. Rest of file consists of records, separated by null (ASCII 0) characters. Thus, in contrast to the previous formats, format 2 snapshot is a binary file. First two records are decimal integers, representing the time of the last backup. First number is the number of seconds, the second one is the number of nanoseconds, since the beginning of the epoch. These are followed by arbitrary number of directory records. Each “directory record” contains a set of metadata describing a particular directory. Parts of a directory record are delimited with ASCII 0 characters. The following table describes each part. The “Number” type in this table stands for a decimal integer in ASCII notation. (Negative values are preceded with a "-" character, while positive values have no leading punctuation.) Field Type Description --------------------------------------------------------------------------- nfs Character ‘1’ if the directory is located on an NFS-mounted partition, or ‘0’ otherwise; timestamp_sec Number Modification time, seconds; timestamp_nsec Number Modification time, nanoseconds; dev Number Device number; ino Number I-node number; name String Directory name; in contrast to the previous versions it is not quoted; contents Dumpdir Contents of the directory; *Note Dumpdir::, for a description of its format. Dumpdirs stored in snapshot files contain only records of types ‘Y’, ‘N’ and ‘D’. The specific range of values allowed in each of the “Number” fields depends on the underlying C datatypes as determined when ‘tar’ is compiled. To see the specific ranges allowed for a particular ‘tar’ binary, you can use the ‘--show-snapshot-field-ranges’ option: $ tar --show-snapshot-field-ranges This tar's snapshot file field ranges are (field name => [ min, max ]): nfs => [ 0, 1 ], timestamp_sec => [ -9223372036854775808, 9223372036854775807 ], timestamp_nsec => [ 0, 999999999 ], dev => [ 0, 18446744073709551615 ], ino => [ 0, 18446744073709551615 ], (This example is from a GNU/Linux x86_64 system.) Dumpdir ======= Incremental archives keep information about contents of each dumped directory in special data blocks called “dumpdirs”. Dumpdir is a sequence of entries of the following form: C FILENAME \0 where C is one of the “control codes” described below, FILENAME is the name of the file C operates upon, and ‘\0’ represents a nul character (ASCII 0). The white space characters were added for readability, real dumpdirs do not contain them. Each dumpdir ends with a single nul character. The following table describes control codes and their meanings: ‘Y’ FILENAME is contained in the archive. ‘N’ FILENAME was present in the directory at the time the archive was made, yet it was not dumped to the archive, because it had not changed since the last backup. ‘D’ FILENAME is a directory. ‘R’ This code requests renaming of the FILENAME to the name specified with the ‘T’ command, that immediately follows it. ‘T’ Specify target file name for ‘R’ command (see below). ‘X’ Specify “temporary directory” name for a rename operation (see below). Codes ‘Y’, ‘N’ and ‘D’ require FILENAME argument to be a relative file name to the directory this dumpdir describes, whereas codes ‘R’, ‘T’ and ‘X’ require their argument to be an absolute file name. The three codes ‘R’, ‘T’ and ‘X’ specify a “renaming operation”. In the simplest case it is: Rsource\0Tdest\0 which means “rename file ‘source’ to file ‘dest’”. However, there are cases that require using a “temporary directory”. For example, consider the following scenario: 1. Previous run dumped a directory ‘foo’ which contained the following three directories: a b c 2. They were renamed _cyclically_, so that: a became b b became c c became a 3. New incremental dump was made. This case cannot be handled by three successive renames, since renaming ‘a’ to ‘b’ will destroy the existing directory. To correctly process it, GNU ‘tar’ needs a temporary directory, so it creates the following dumpdir (newlines have been added for readability): Xfoo\0 Rfoo/a\0T\0 Rfoo/b\0Tfoo/c\0 Rfoo/c\0Tfoo/a\0 R\0Tfoo/a\0 The first command, ‘Xfoo\0’, instructs the extractor to create a temporary directory in the directory ‘foo’. Second command, ‘Rfoo/aT\0’, says “rename file ‘foo/a’ to the temporary directory that has just been created” (empty file name after a command means use temporary directory). Third and fourth commands work as usual, and, finally, the last command, ‘R\0Tfoo/a\0’ tells tar to rename the temporary directory to ‘foo/a’. The exact placement of a dumpdir in the archive depends on the archive format (*note Formats::): • PAX archives In PAX archives, dumpdir is stored in the extended header of the corresponding directory, in variable ‘GNU.dumpdir’. • GNU and old GNU archives These formats implement special header type ‘D’, which is similar to ustar header ‘5’ (directory), except that it precedes a data block containing the dumpdir. Appendix F Genfile ****************** This appendix describes ‘genfile’, an auxiliary program used in the GNU tar testsuite. If you are not interested in developing GNU tar, skip this appendix. Initially, ‘genfile’ was used to generate data files for the testsuite, hence its name. However, new operation modes were being implemented as the testsuite grew more sophisticated, and now ‘genfile’ is a multi-purpose instrument. There are four basic operation modes: File Generation This is the default mode. In this mode, ‘genfile’ generates data files. File Status In this mode ‘genfile’ displays status of specified files. Set File Time Set last access and modification times of files given in the command line. Synchronous Execution. In this mode ‘genfile’ executes the given program with ‘--checkpoint’ option and executes a set of actions when specified checkpoints are reached. F.1 Generate Mode ================= In this mode ‘genfile’ creates a data file for the test suite. The size of the file is given with the ‘--length’ (‘-l’) option. By default the file contents is written to the standard output, this can be changed using ‘--file’ (‘-f’) command line option. Thus, the following two commands are equivalent: genfile --length 100 > outfile genfile --length 100 --file outfile If ‘--length’ is not given, ‘genfile’ will generate an empty (zero-length) file. The command line option ‘--seek=N’ istructs ‘genfile’ to skip the given number of bytes (N) in the output file before writing to it. It is similar to the ‘seek=N’ of the ‘dd’ utility. You can instruct ‘genfile’ to create several files at one go, by giving it ‘--files-from’ (‘-T’) option followed by a name of file containing a list of file names. Using dash (‘-’) instead of the file name causes ‘genfile’ to read file list from the standard input. For example: # Read file names from file file.list genfile --files-from file.list # Read file names from standard input genfile --files-from - The list file is supposed to contain one file name per line. To use file lists separated by ASCII NUL character, use ‘--null’ (‘-0’) command line option: genfile --null --files-from file.list The default data pattern for filling the generated file consists of first 256 letters of ASCII code, repeated enough times to fill the entire file. This behavior can be changed with ‘--pattern’ option. This option takes a mandatory argument, specifying pattern name to use. Currently two patterns are implemented: ‘--pattern=default’ The default pattern as described above. ‘--pattern=zero’ Fills the file with zeroes. If no file name was given, the program exits with the code ‘0’. Otherwise, it exits with ‘0’ only if it was able to create a file of the specified length. Special option ‘--sparse’ (‘-s’) instructs ‘genfile’ to create a sparse file. Sparse files consist of “data fragments”, separated by “holes” or blocks of zeros. On many operating systems, actual disk storage is not allocated for holes, but they are counted in the length of the file. To create a sparse file, ‘genfile’ should know where to put data fragments, and what data to use to fill them. So, when ‘--sparse’ is given the rest of the command line specifies a so-called “file map”. The file map consists of any number of “fragment descriptors”. Each descriptor is composed of two values: a number, specifying fragment offset from the end of the previous fragment or, for the very first fragment, from the beginning of the file, and “contents string”, that specifies the pattern to fill the fragment with. File offset can be suffixed with the following quantifiers: ‘k’ ‘K’ The number is expressed in kilobytes. ‘m’ ‘M’ The number is expressed in megabytes. ‘g’ ‘G’ The number is expressed in gigabytes. Contents string can be either a fragment size or a pattern. Fragment size is a decimal number, prefixed with an equals sign. It can be suffixed with a quantifier, as discussed above. If fragment size is given, the fragment of that size will be filled with the currently selected pattern (*note –pattern: Generate Mode.) and written to the file. A pattern is a string of arbitrary ASCII characters. For each of them, ‘genfile’ will generate a “block” of data, filled with that character and will write it to the fragment. The size of block is given by ‘--block-size’ option. It defaults to 512. Thus, if pattern consists of N characters, the resulting file fragment will contain ‘N*BLOCK-SIZE’ bytes of data. The last fragment descriptor can have only file offset part. In this case ‘genfile’ will create a hole at the end of the file up to the given offset. A dash appearing as a fragment descriptor instructs ‘genfile’ to read file map from the standard input. Each line of input should consist of fragment offset and contents string, separated by any amount of whitespace. For example, consider the following invocation: genfile --sparse --file sparsefile 0 ABCD 1M EFGHI 2000K It will create 3101184-bytes long file of the following structure: Offset Length Contents 0 4*512=2048 Four 512-byte blocks, filled with letters ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘D’. 2048 1046528 Zero bytes 1050624 5*512=2560 Five blocks, filled with letters ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘I’. 1053184 2048000 Zero bytes The exit code of ‘genfile --sparse’ command is ‘0’ only if created file is actually sparse. If it is not, the appropriate error message is displayed and the command exists with code ‘1’. The ‘--quite’ (‘-q’) option suppresses this behavior. If ‘--quite’ is given, ‘genfile --sparse’ exits with code ‘0’ if it was able to create the file, whether the resulting file is sparse or not. F.2 Status Mode =============== In status mode, ‘genfile’ prints file system status for each file specified in the command line. This mode is toggled by ‘--stat’ (‘-S’) command line option. An optional argument to this option specifies output “format”: a comma-separated list of ‘struct stat’ fields to be displayed. This list can contain following identifiers: name The file name. dev st_dev Device number in decimal. ino st_ino Inode number. mode[.NUMBER] st_mode[.NUMBER] File mode in octal. Optional NUMBER specifies octal mask to be applied to the mode before outputting. For example, ‘--stat mode.777’ will preserve lower nine bits of it. Notice, that you can use any punctuation character in place of ‘.’. nlink st_nlink Number of hard links. uid st_uid User ID of owner. gid st_gid Group ID of owner. size st_size File size in decimal. blksize st_blksize The size in bytes of each file block. blocks st_blocks Number of blocks allocated. atime st_atime Time of last access. mtime st_mtime Time of last modification ctime st_ctime Time of last status change sparse A boolean value indicating whether the file is ‘sparse’. Modification times are displayed in UTC as UNIX timestamps, unless suffixed with ‘H’ (for “human-readable”), as in ‘ctimeH’, in which case usual ‘tar tv’ output format is used. The default output format is: ‘name,dev,ino,mode, nlink,uid,gid,size,blksize,blocks,atime,mtime,ctime’. For example, the following command will display file names and corresponding times of last access for each file in the current working directory: genfile --stat=name,atime * By default, ‘genfile’ follows symbolic links and returns information about files pointed to by them. To get information about the symlink files themselves, use the ‘--no-dereference’ (‘-h’) option. F.3 Set File Time ================= This mode is requested by the ‘--set-time’ (‘-t’) command line option. In this mode ‘genfile’ operates similarly to the ‘touch’ command: for each file listed in the command line, it sets its access and modification times to the current timestamp or to the value given with the ‘--date’ option. The ‘--date’ option takes a date specification in an almost arbitrary format as its argument (*note Date input formats::), e.g.: genfile --set-time --date='2 days ago' a b c By default, ‘genfile’ follows symbolic links and sets times of the file they point to. This can be changed by supplying the ‘--no-dereference’ (‘-h’) option: if it is given, ‘genfile’ will change access and modification times of the symbolic link itself. Notice, that not all operating systems allow this. F.4 Exec Mode ============= This mode is designed for testing the behavior of ‘paxutils’ commands when some of the files change during archiving. It supposes that the command being executed supports ‘--checkpoint’ and ‘--checkpoint-action’ options (*note Checkpoints: (tar)checkpoints.). The ‘Exec Mode’ is enabled by ‘--run’ command line option (or its alias ‘-r’). The non-optional arguments supply the command line to be executed. ‘Genfile’ modifies this command line by inserting the following options between the command name and first argument: --checkpoint=N --checkpoint-action "echo=genfile checkpoint %u" --checkpoint-action "wait=SIGUSR1" Here, N stands for the checkpoint granularity (for GNU ‘tar’, it is the number of archive records read or written between each pair of checkpoints). The default value is 1. This value can be changed using the optional argument to the ‘--run’ option. For example, to run actions on each 10th checkpoint: genfile --run=10 ... If the command line contains options, it must be preceded by a double-dash (‘--’), which will prevent these options from being interpreted by ‘genfile’ itself. For example: genfile --run --checkpoint=2 --truncate foo -- tar -c -f a.tar . Notice also, that when running ‘tar’, its command line may not contain traditional options (cluster of letters without dash). A set of options is provided for defining checkpoint values and actions to be executed upon reaching them. Checkpoint values are introduced with the ‘--checkpoint’ command line option. Argument to this option is the number of checkpoint in decimal. Any number of “actions” may be specified after a checkpoint. Available actions are ‘--cut FILE’ ‘--truncate FILE’ Truncate FILE to the size specified by previous ‘--length’ option (or 0, if it is not given). ‘--append FILE’ Append data to FILE. The size of data and its pattern are given by previous ‘--length’ and ‘pattern’ options. ‘--touch FILE’ Update the access and modification times of FILE. These timestamps are changed to the current time, unless ‘--date’ option was given, in which case they are changed to the specified time. Argument to ‘--date’ option is a date specification in an almost arbitrary format (*note Date input formats::). ‘-h’ ‘--no-dereference’ Modifies the action of the ‘--touch’ option. If both options are given and FILE argument to the ‘--touch’ names a symbolic link, ‘genfile’ will modify access and modification times of the symbolic link file itself, instead the file the symlink points to. ‘--exec COMMAND’ Execute given shell command. ‘--delete FILE’ ‘--unlink FILE’ Delete the named file or directory. If deleting the directory, it must be empty. Option ‘--verbose’ instructs ‘genfile’ to print on standard output notifications about checkpoints being executed and to verbosely describe exit status of the command. While the command is being executed its standard output remains connected to descriptor 1. All messages it prints to file descriptor 2, except checkpoint notifications, are forwarded to standard error. In exec mode, ‘genfile’ exits with the exit status of the executed command. Appendix G GNU Free Documentation License ***************************************** Version 1.3, 3 November 2008 Copyright © 2000–2002, 2007–2008, 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. 0. PREAMBLE The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document “free” in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others. This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software. We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”, below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”. 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If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of this License can be used, that proxy’s public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document. 11. RELICENSING “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any World Wide Web server that publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site. “CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization. “Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document. An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to November 1, 2008. The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing. ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents ==================================================== To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page: Copyright (C) YEAR YOUR NAME. 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 no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with...Texts.” line with this: with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST. If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two alternatives to suit the situation. If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software. Appendix H Index of Command Line Options **************************************** This appendix contains an index of all GNU ‘tar’ long command line options. The options are listed without the preceding double-dash. For a cross-reference of short command line options, see *note Short Option Summary::. * Menu: * absolute-names: absolute. (line 7244) * absolute-names, summary: Option Summary. (line 1630) * acls, summary: Option Summary. (line 1638) * add-file: files. (line 6062) * after-date: after. (line 7018) * after-date, summary: Option Summary. (line 1641) * anchored: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6523) * anchored, summary: Option Summary. (line 1645) * append: append. (line 3829) * append <1>: appending files. (line 3888) * append, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1566) * atime-preserve: Attributes. (line 8225) * atime-preserve, summary: Option Summary. (line 1649) * auto-compress: gzip. (line 8023) * auto-compress, summary: Option Summary. (line 1695) * backup: backup. (line 5034) * backup, summary: Option Summary. (line 1702) * block-number: verbose. (line 3208) * block-number, summary: Option Summary. (line 1708) * blocking-factor: Blocking Factor. (line 9608) * blocking-factor, summary: Option Summary. (line 1715) * bzip2, summary: Option Summary. (line 1721) * catenate: concatenate. (line 4035) * catenate, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1571) * check-device, described: Incremental Dumps. (line 5245) * check-device, summary: Option Summary. (line 1727) * check-links, described: hard links. (line 8416) * check-links, summary: Option Summary. (line 1785) * checkpoint: checkpoints. (line 3233) * checkpoint, defined: checkpoints. (line 3240) * checkpoint, summary: Option Summary. (line 1732) * checkpoint-action: checkpoints. (line 3233) * checkpoint-action, defined: checkpoints. (line 3249) * checkpoint-action, summary: Option Summary. (line 1741) * clamp-mtime, summary: Option Summary. (line 1802) * compare: compare. (line 4155) * compare, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1576) * compress: gzip. (line 7986) * compress, summary: Option Summary. (line 1794) * concatenate: concatenate. (line 4035) * concatenate, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1583) * confirmation, summary: Option Summary. (line 1806) * create, additional options: create options. (line 4187) * create, complementary notes: Basic tar. (line 3702) * create, introduced: Creating the archive. (line 602) * create, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1589) * create, using with --verbose: create verbose. (line 678) * create, using with --verify: verify. (line 10441) * delay-directory-restore: Directory Modification Times and Permissions. (line 4783) * delay-directory-restore, summary: Option Summary. (line 1810) * delete: delete. (line 4114) * delete, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1594) * delete, using before –append: append. (line 3870) * dereference: dereference. (line 8369) * dereference, summary: Option Summary. (line 1816) * diff, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1599) * directory: directory. (line 7169) * directory, summary: Option Summary. (line 1823) * exclude: exclude. (line 6142) * exclude <1>: exclude. (line 6145) * exclude, potential problems with: problems with exclude. (line 6359) * exclude, summary: Option Summary. (line 1831) * exclude-backups: exclude. (line 6250) * exclude-backups, summary: Option Summary. (line 1836) * exclude-caches: exclude. (line 6270) * exclude-caches, summary: Option Summary. (line 1845) * exclude-caches-all: exclude. (line 6278) * exclude-caches-all, summary: Option Summary. (line 1860) * exclude-caches-under: exclude. (line 6274) * exclude-caches-under, summary: Option Summary. (line 1853) * exclude-from: exclude. (line 6142) * exclude-from <1>: exclude. (line 6156) * exclude-from, summary: Option Summary. (line 1839) * exclude-ignore: exclude. (line 6212) * exclude-ignore, summary: Option Summary. (line 1865) * exclude-ignore-recursive: exclude. (line 6217) * exclude-ignore-recursive, summary: Option Summary. (line 1870) * exclude-tag: exclude. (line 6287) * exclude-tag, summary: Option Summary. (line 1875) * exclude-tag-all: exclude. (line 6295) * exclude-tag-all, summary: Option Summary. (line 1887) * exclude-tag-under: exclude. (line 6291) * exclude-tag-under, summary: Option Summary. (line 1881) * exclude-vcs: exclude. (line 6221) * exclude-vcs, summary: Option Summary. (line 1892) * exclude-vcs-ignores: exclude. (line 6178) * exclude-vcs-ignores, summary: Option Summary. (line 1899) * extract: extract. (line 950) * extract, additional options: extract options. (line 4487) * extract, complementary notes: Basic tar. (line 3740) * extract, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1604) * extract, using with --listed-incremental: Incremental Dumps. (line 5258) * file: file. (line 5832) * file, short description: file. (line 5841) * file, summary: Option Summary. (line 1907) * file, tutorial: file tutorial. (line 375) * files-from: files. (line 5993) * files-from, summary: Option Summary. (line 1914) * force-local, short description: Device. (line 9330) * force-local, summary: Option Summary. (line 1921) * format, summary: Option Summary. (line 1927) * full-time, summary: Option Summary. (line 1952) * get, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1610) * group: override. (line 4286) * group, summary: Option Summary. (line 1970) * group-map, summary: Option Summary. (line 1980) * gunzip, summary: Option Summary. (line 1990) * gzip: gzip. (line 7961) * gzip, summary: Option Summary. (line 1990) * hard-dereference, described: hard links. (line 8444) * hard-dereference, summary: Option Summary. (line 1999) * help: help tutorial. (line 537) * help, introduction: help. (line 3016) * help, summary: Option Summary. (line 2005) * hole-detection: sparse. (line 8191) * hole-detection, summary: Option Summary. (line 2011) * ignore-case: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6530) * ignore-case, summary: Option Summary. (line 2016) * ignore-command-error: Writing to an External Program. (line 4937) * ignore-command-error, summary: Option Summary. (line 2020) * ignore-failed-read: Ignore Failed Read. (line 4475) * ignore-failed-read, summary: Option Summary. (line 2024) * ignore-zeros: Ignore Zeros. (line 4533) * ignore-zeros, short description: Blocking Factor. (line 9752) * ignore-zeros, summary: Option Summary. (line 2029) * incremental, summary: Option Summary. (line 2037) * incremental, using with --list: Incremental Dumps. (line 5323) * index-file, summary: Option Summary. (line 2045) * info-script: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10107) * info-script, short description: Device. (line 9381) * info-script, summary: Option Summary. (line 2049) * interactive: interactive. (line 3634) * interactive, summary: Option Summary. (line 2058) * keep-directory-symlink, summary: Option Summary. (line 2066) * keep-newer-files: Keep Newer Files. (line 4665) * keep-newer-files, summary: Option Summary. (line 2080) * keep-old-files: Keep Old Files. (line 4647) * keep-old-files, introduced: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4573) * keep-old-files, summary: Option Summary. (line 2085) * label: Tape Files. (line 10251) * label <1>: label. (line 10302) * label, summary: Option Summary. (line 2094) * level, described: Incremental Dumps. (line 5213) * level, summary: Option Summary. (line 2102) * list: list. (line 816) * list, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1615) * list, using with --incremental: Incremental Dumps. (line 5323) * list, using with --listed-incremental: Incremental Dumps. (line 5323) * list, using with --verbose: list. (line 844) * list, using with file name arguments: list. (line 835) * listed-incremental, described: Incremental Dumps. (line 5152) * listed-incremental, summary: Option Summary. (line 2112) * listed-incremental, using with --extract: Incremental Dumps. (line 5258) * listed-incremental, using with --list: Incremental Dumps. (line 5323) * lzip: gzip. (line 7974) * lzip, summary: Option Summary. (line 2121) * lzma: gzip. (line 7977) * lzma, summary: Option Summary. (line 2126) * lzop: gzip. (line 7980) * mode: override. (line 4202) * mode, summary: Option Summary. (line 2136) * mtime: override. (line 4218) * mtime, summary: Option Summary. (line 2143) * multi-volume: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10030) * multi-volume, short description: Device. (line 9348) * multi-volume, summary: Option Summary. (line 2158) * new-volume-script: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10107) * new-volume-script, short description: Device. (line 9381) * new-volume-script, summary: Option Summary. (line 2049) * new-volume-script, summary <1>: Option Summary. (line 2164) * newer: after. (line 7018) * newer, summary: Option Summary. (line 2168) * newer-mtime: after. (line 7029) * newer-mtime, summary: Option Summary. (line 2177) * no-acls, summary: Option Summary. (line 2183) * no-anchored: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6523) * no-anchored, summary: Option Summary. (line 2187) * no-auto-compress, summary: Option Summary. (line 2191) * no-check-device, described: Incremental Dumps. (line 5241) * no-check-device, summary: Option Summary. (line 2196) * no-delay-directory-restore: Directory Modification Times and Permissions. (line 4789) * no-delay-directory-restore, summary: Option Summary. (line 2201) * no-ignore-case: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6530) * no-ignore-case, summary: Option Summary. (line 2207) * no-ignore-command-error: Writing to an External Program. (line 4942) * no-ignore-command-error, summary: Option Summary. (line 2210) * no-null, described: nul. (line 6095) * no-null, summary: Option Summary. (line 2214) * no-overwrite-dir, summary: Option Summary. (line 2220) * no-quote-chars, summary: Option Summary. (line 2225) * no-recursion: recurse. (line 7080) * no-recursion, summary: Option Summary. (line 2230) * no-same-owner: Attributes. (line 8278) * no-same-owner, summary: Option Summary. (line 2235) * no-same-permissions, summary: Option Summary. (line 2242) * no-seek, summary: Option Summary. (line 2248) * no-selinux, summary: Option Summary. (line 2254) * no-unquote: Selecting Archive Members. (line 5952) * no-unquote, summary: Option Summary. (line 2258) * no-verbatim-files-from: files. (line 6058) * no-verbatim-files-from, summary: Option Summary. (line 2262) * no-wildcards: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6486) * no-wildcards, summary: Option Summary. (line 2276) * no-wildcards-match-slash: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6536) * no-wildcards-match-slash, summary: Option Summary. (line 2279) * no-xattrs, summary: Option Summary. (line 2282) * null, described: nul. (line 6091) * null, summary: Option Summary. (line 2286) * numeric-owner: Attributes. (line 8284) * numeric-owner, summary: Option Summary. (line 2299) * occurrence, described: append. (line 3857) * occurrence, summary: Option Summary. (line 2317) * old-archive, summary: Option Summary. (line 2332) * one-file-system: one. (line 7145) * one-file-system, summary: Option Summary. (line 2335) * one-top-level, summary: Option Summary. (line 2340) * overwrite: Overwrite Old Files. (line 4615) * overwrite, introduced: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4589) * overwrite, summary: Option Summary. (line 2351) * overwrite-dir: Overwrite Old Files. (line 4637) * overwrite-dir, introduced: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4563) * overwrite-dir, summary: Option Summary. (line 2356) * owner: override. (line 4254) * owner, summary: Option Summary. (line 2361) * owner-map, summary: Option Summary. (line 2371) * pax-option: PAX keywords. (line 8524) * pax-option, summary: Option Summary. (line 2381) * portability, summary: Option Summary. (line 2387) * posix, summary: Option Summary. (line 2391) * preserve-order: Same Order. (line 4979) * preserve-order, summary: Option Summary. (line 2394) * preserve-permissions: Setting Access Permissions. (line 4717) * preserve-permissions, short description: Attributes. (line 8324) * preserve-permissions, summary: Option Summary. (line 2398) * quote-chars, summary: Option Summary. (line 2409) * quoting-style: quoting styles. (line 6596) * quoting-style, summary: Option Summary. (line 2413) * read-full-records: Reading. (line 4498) * read-full-records <1>: read full records. (line 4524) * read-full-records, short description: Blocking Factor. (line 9768) * read-full-records, summary: Option Summary. (line 2420) * record-size, summary: Option Summary. (line 2426) * recursion: recurse. (line 7091) * recursion, summary: Option Summary. (line 2434) * recursive-unlink: Recursive Unlink. (line 4682) * recursive-unlink, summary: Option Summary. (line 2439) * remove-files: remove files. (line 4951) * remove-files, summary: Option Summary. (line 2444) * restrict, summary: Option Summary. (line 2449) * rmt-command, summary: Option Summary. (line 2455) * rsh-command: Device. (line 9333) * rsh-command, summary: Option Summary. (line 2460) * same-order: Same Order. (line 4979) * same-order, summary: Option Summary. (line 2465) * same-owner: Attributes. (line 8259) * same-owner, summary: Option Summary. (line 2474) * same-permissions: Setting Access Permissions. (line 4717) * same-permissions, short description: Attributes. (line 8324) * same-permissions, summary: Option Summary. (line 2398) * same-permissions, summary <1>: Option Summary. (line 2481) * seek, summary: Option Summary. (line 2485) * selinux, summary: Option Summary. (line 2495) * show-defaults: defaults. (line 3075) * show-defaults, summary: Option Summary. (line 2499) * show-omitted-dirs: verbose. (line 3201) * show-omitted-dirs, summary: Option Summary. (line 2512) * show-snapshot-field-ranges: Snapshot Files. (line 11973) * show-snapshot-field-ranges, summary: Option Summary. (line 2517) * show-stored-names: list. (line 878) * show-stored-names, summary: Option Summary. (line 2523) * show-transformed-names: transform. (line 6813) * show-transformed-names, summary: Option Summary. (line 2523) * skip-old-files, introduced: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4585) * skip-old-files, summary: Option Summary. (line 2532) * sort, summary: Option Summary. (line 2545) * sparse: sparse. (line 8149) * sparse, summary: Option Summary. (line 2563) * sparse-version: sparse. (line 8184) * sparse-version, summary: Option Summary. (line 2569) * starting-file: Starting File. (line 4962) * starting-file, summary: Option Summary. (line 2575) * strip-components: transform. (line 6793) * strip-components, summary: Option Summary. (line 2582) * suffix: backup. (line 5060) * suffix, summary: Option Summary. (line 2593) * tape-length: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10057) * tape-length, short description: Device. (line 9356) * tape-length, summary: Option Summary. (line 2598) * test-label: label. (line 10331) * test-label, summary: Option Summary. (line 2609) * to-command: Writing to an External Program. (line 4835) * to-command, summary: Option Summary. (line 2614) * to-stdout: Writing to Standard Output. (line 4806) * to-stdout, summary: Option Summary. (line 2619) * totals: verbose. (line 3136) * totals, summary: Option Summary. (line 2625) * touch: Data Modification Times. (line 4704) * touch <1>: Attributes. (line 8248) * touch, summary: Option Summary. (line 2631) * transform: transform. (line 6842) * transform, summary: Option Summary. (line 2638) * uncompress: gzip. (line 7986) * uncompress, summary: Option Summary. (line 1794) * uncompress, summary <1>: Option Summary. (line 2652) * ungzip: gzip. (line 7961) * ungzip, summary: Option Summary. (line 1990) * ungzip, summary <1>: Option Summary. (line 2656) * unlink-first: Unlink First. (line 4672) * unlink-first, introduced: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4608) * unlink-first, summary: Option Summary. (line 2660) * unquote: Selecting Archive Members. (line 5949) * unquote, summary: Option Summary. (line 2666) * update: update. (line 3980) * update <1>: how to update. (line 3999) * update, summary: Operation Summary. (line 1620) * usage: help. (line 3043) * use-compress-program: gzip. (line 8047) * use-compress-program, summary: Option Summary. (line 2670) * utc, summary: Option Summary. (line 2676) * verbatim-files-from: files. (line 6053) * verbatim-files-from, summary: Option Summary. (line 2681) * verbose: verbose. (line 3109) * verbose, introduced: verbose tutorial. (line 404) * verbose, summary: Option Summary. (line 2703) * verbose, using with --create: create verbose. (line 678) * verbose, using with --list: list. (line 844) * verify, short description: verify. (line 10425) * verify, summary: Option Summary. (line 2711) * verify, using with --create: verify. (line 10441) * version: help. (line 2996) * version, summary: Option Summary. (line 2717) * volno-file: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10098) * volno-file, summary: Option Summary. (line 2723) * warning, explained: warnings. (line 3459) * warning, summary: Option Summary. (line 2729) * wildcards: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6483) * wildcards, summary: Option Summary. (line 2735) * wildcards-match-slash: controlling pattern-matching. (line 6536) * wildcards-match-slash, summary: Option Summary. (line 2739) * xattrs, summary: Option Summary. (line 2742) * xattrs-exclude, summary: Option Summary. (line 2746) * xattrs-include, summary: Option Summary. (line 2750) * xform: transform. (line 6842) * xform, summary: Option Summary. (line 2638) * xz: gzip. (line 7966) * xz, summary: Option Summary. (line 2756) * zstd: gzip. (line 7983) Appendix I Index **************** * Menu: * %s: Directory has been renamed from %s, warning message: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3586) * %s: Directory has been renamed, warning message: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3586) * %s: Directory is new, warning message: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3590) * %s: directory is on a different device: not purging, warning message: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3593) * %s: skipping existing file, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3540) * –after-date and –update compared: after. (line 7013) * –newer-mtime and –update compared: after. (line 7013) * –quite, option: Generate Mode. (line 12241) * .bzrignore: exclude. (line 6199) * .cvsignore: exclude. (line 6186) * .gitignore: exclude. (line 6191) * .hgignore: exclude. (line 6206) * A lone zero block at, warning message: General Warnings. (line 3489) * abbreviations for months: Calendar date items. (line 7454) * absolute file names: absolute. (line 7240) * absolute file names <1>: Remote Tape Server. (line 9402) * Adding archives to an archive: concatenate. (line 4035) * Adding files to an Archive: appending files. (line 3888) * ADMINISTRATOR: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5400) * Age, excluding files by: after. (line 7000) * ago in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7596) * all: Warning Classes. (line 3604) * alone-zero-block: General Warnings. (line 3488) * alternative decompression programs: gzip. (line 7924) * am in date strings: Time of day items. (line 7490) * Appending files to an Archive: appending files. (line 3888) * appending files to existing archive: append. (line 3829) * Arch, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * archive: Definitions. (line 76) * archive cannot contain itself; not dumped, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3520) * Archive creation: file. (line 5860) * archive member: Definitions. (line 85) * Archive Name: file. (line 5832) * Archive, creation of: create. (line 546) * Archives, Appending files to: appending files. (line 3888) * archives, binary equivalent: PAX keywords. (line 8666) * Archiving Directories: create dir. (line 756) * archiving files: Top. (line 20) * ARGP_HELP_FMT, environment variable: Configuring Help Summary. (line 10929) * arguments to long options: Long Options. (line 1369) * arguments to old options: Old Options. (line 1450) * arguments to short options: Short Options. (line 1392) * attributes, files: Attributes. (line 8221) * authors of parse_datetime: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * Avoiding recursion in directories: recurse. (line 7075) * backup options: backup. (line 4999) * backup suffix: backup. (line 5060) * backups: backup. (line 5034) * backups <1>: Backups. (line 5085) * BACKUP_DIRS: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5424) * BACKUP_FILES: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5452) * BACKUP_HOUR: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5404) * bad-dumpdir: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3595) * basic operations: Operations. (line 3782) * Bazaar, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Bazaar, ignore files: exclude. (line 6173) * beginning of time, for POSIX: Seconds since the Epoch. (line 7667) * bell, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3333) * Bellovin, Steven M.: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * Berets, Jim: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * Berry, K.: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7765) * binary equivalent archives, creating: PAX keywords. (line 8666) * block: Blocking. (line 9475) * Block number where error occurred: verbose. (line 3208) * BLOCKING: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5419) * Blocking Factor: Blocking Factor. (line 9606) * blocking factor: Blocking Factor. (line 9789) * Blocks per record: Blocking Factor. (line 9606) * bug reports: Reports. (line 209) * Bytes per record: Blocking Factor. (line 9606) * bzip2: gzip. (line 7868) * cachedir: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3502) * calendar date item: Calendar date items. (line 7424) * case, ignored in dates: General date syntax. (line 7411) * cat vs concatenate: concatenate. (line 4091) * Changing directory mid-stream: directory. (line 7164) * Character class, excluding characters from: wildcards. (line 6434) * checkpoints, defined: checkpoints. (line 3233) * Choosing an archive file: file. (line 5832) * combined date and time of day item: Combined date and time of day items. (line 7541) * comments, in dates: General date syntax. (line 7411) * compress: gzip. (line 7868) * Compressed archives: gzip. (line 7868) * concatenate vs cat: concatenate. (line 4091) * Concatenating Archives: concatenate. (line 4035) * contains a cache directory tag, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3503) * contiguous-cast: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3546) * corrupted archives: Full Dumps. (line 5110) * corrupted archives <1>: gzip. (line 8013) * Creation of the archive: create. (line 546) * Current %s is newer or same age, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3557) * CVS, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * CVS, ignore files: exclude. (line 6173) * Darcs, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * DAT blocking: Blocking Factor. (line 9799) * Data Modification time, excluding files by: after. (line 7000) * Data modification times of extracted files: Data Modification Times. (line 4695) * date and time of day format, ISO 8601: Combined date and time of day items. (line 7541) * date format, ISO 8601: Calendar date items. (line 7446) * date input formats: Date input formats. (line 7323) * day in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * day in date strings <1>: Relative items in date strings. (line 7602) * day of week item: Day of week items. (line 7560) * decompress-program: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3562) * Deleting files from an archive: delete. (line 4114) * Deleting from tape archives: delete. (line 4125) * dereferencing hard links: hard links. (line 8391) * Descending directories, avoiding: recurse. (line 7075) * Device numbers, changing: Fixing Snapshot Files. (line 11073) * Device numbers, using in incremental backups: Incremental Dumps. (line 5227) * Directories, Archiving: create dir. (line 756) * Directories, avoiding recursion: recurse. (line 7075) * Directory, changing mid-stream: directory. (line 7164) * DIRLIST: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5447) * displacement of dates: Relative items in date strings. (line 7579) * doc-opt-col: Configuring Help Summary. (line 11003) * door ignored, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3512) * dot, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3357) * Double-checking a write operation: verify. (line 10423) * dumps, full: Full Dumps. (line 5110) * DUMP_BEGIN: User Hooks. (line 5600) * DUMP_END: User Hooks. (line 5604) * DUMP_REMIND_SCRIPT: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5506) * dup-args: Configuring Help Summary. (line 10960) * dup-args-note: Configuring Help Summary. (line 10977) * echo, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3252) * Eggert, Paul: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * End-of-archive blocks, ignoring: Ignore Zeros. (line 4533) * End-of-archive info script: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10107) * entry: Naming tar Archives. (line 165) * Epoch, for POSIX: Seconds since the Epoch. (line 7667) * Error message, block number of: verbose. (line 3218) * Exabyte blocking: Blocking Factor. (line 9799) * exclude: exclude. (line 6148) * exclude-caches: exclude. (line 6258) * exclude-from: exclude. (line 6161) * exclude-tag: exclude. (line 6281) * Excluding characters from a character class: wildcards. (line 6434) * Excluding file by age: after. (line 7000) * Excluding files by file system: exclude. (line 6142) * Excluding files by name and pattern: exclude. (line 6142) * Exec Mode, genfile: Exec Mode. (line 12354) * exec, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3393) * existing backup method: backup. (line 5052) * existing-file: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3539) * exit status: Synopsis. (line 1232) * Extracting contiguous files as regular files, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3547) * extracting Nth copy of the file: append. (line 3857) * extraction: Definitions. (line 92) * Extraction: extract. (line 950) * file archival: Top. (line 20) * file attributes: Attributes. (line 8221) * file changed as we read it, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3526) * file is on a different filesystem, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3509) * file is unchanged; not dumped, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3517) * File lists separated by NUL characters: Generate Mode. (line 12154) * file name: Definitions. (line 85) * File Name arguments, alternatives: files. (line 5985) * File name arguments, using --list with: list. (line 835) * file name read contains nul character, warning message: General Warnings. (line 3483) * file name read contains nul character, warning message <1>: General Warnings. (line 3486) * file names, absolute: absolute. (line 7240) * File names, excluding files by: exclude. (line 6142) * File names, terminated by NUL: nul. (line 6086) * File names, using hard links: hard links. (line 8391) * File names, using symbolic links: dereference. (line 8369) * File removed before we read it, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3523) * File shrank by %s bytes, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3506) * File system boundaries, not crossing: one. (line 7137) * file-changed: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3525) * file-ignored: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3511) * file-removed: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3522) * file-shrank: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3505) * file-unchanged: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3516) * FILELIST: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5463) * filename-with-nuls: General Warnings. (line 3482) * filename-with-nuls <1>: General Warnings. (line 3485) * find, using with tar: files. (line 5985) * find, using with tar <1>: recurse. (line 7080) * first in date strings: General date syntax. (line 7373) * format 0, snapshot file: Snapshot Files. (line 11886) * format 1, snapshot file: Snapshot Files. (line 11913) * format 2, snapshot file: Snapshot Files. (line 11935) * Format Options: Format Variations. (line 9588) * Format Parameters: Format Variations. (line 9588) * Format, old style: old. (line 8463) * fortnight in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * full dumps: Full Dumps. (line 5110) * future time stamps: Large or Negative Values. (line 8729) * general date syntax: General date syntax. (line 7357) * Generate Mode, genfile: Generate Mode. (line 12127) * genfile: Genfile. (line 12097) * genfile, create file: Generate Mode. (line 12127) * genfile, creating sparse files: Generate Mode. (line 12176) * genfile, generate mode: Generate Mode. (line 12127) * genfile, reading a list of file names: Generate Mode. (line 12143) * genfile, seeking to a given offset: Generate Mode. (line 12139) * Getting program version number: help. (line 2996) * git, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Git, ignore files: exclude. (line 6173) * GNU archive format: gnu. (line 8497) * GNU.sparse.major, extended header variable: PAX 1. (line 11834) * GNU.sparse.map, extended header variable: PAX 0. (line 11803) * GNU.sparse.minor, extended header variable: PAX 1. (line 11837) * GNU.sparse.name, extended header variable: PAX 0. (line 11811) * GNU.sparse.name, extended header variable, in v.1.0: PAX 1. (line 11844) * GNU.sparse.numblocks, extended header variable: PAX 0. (line 11758) * GNU.sparse.numbytes, extended header variable: PAX 0. (line 11764) * GNU.sparse.offset, extended header variable: PAX 0. (line 11761) * GNU.sparse.realsize, extended header variable: PAX 1. (line 11844) * GNU.sparse.size, extended header variable: PAX 0. (line 11754) * gnupg, using with tar: gzip. (line 8071) * gpg, using with tar: gzip. (line 8071) * gzip: gzip. (line 7868) * hard links, dereferencing: hard links. (line 8391) * header-col: Configuring Help Summary. (line 11049) * hole detection: sparse. (line 8191) * hook: User Hooks. (line 5581) * hour in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * ignore-archive: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3519) * ignore-newer: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3556) * Ignoring end-of-archive blocks: Ignore Zeros. (line 4533) * Ignoring unknown extended header keyword '%s', warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3560) * implausibly old time stamp %s, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3543) * Info script: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10107) * Interactive operation: interactive. (line 3626) * ISO 8601 date and time of day format: Combined date and time of day items. (line 7541) * ISO 8601 date format: Calendar date items. (line 7446) * items in date strings: General date syntax. (line 7357) * Labeling an archive: label. (line 10302) * labeling archives: Tape Files. (line 10251) * Labeling multi-volume archives: label. (line 10302) * Labels on the archive media: label. (line 10302) * language, in dates: General date syntax. (line 7387) * language, in dates <1>: General date syntax. (line 7391) * Large lists of file names on small machines: Same Order. (line 4979) * large values: Large or Negative Values. (line 8729) * last DAY: Day of week items. (line 7569) * last in date strings: General date syntax. (line 7373) * Laszlo Ersek: lbzip2. (line 8105) * lbzip2: lbzip2. (line 8105) * leap seconds: General date syntax. (line 7416) * leap seconds <1>: Time of day items. (line 7483) * leap seconds <2>: Seconds since the Epoch. (line 7681) * Listing all tar options: help. (line 3016) * listing member and file names: list. (line 855) * Listing volume label: label. (line 10323) * Lists of file names: files. (line 5985) * Local and remote archives: file. (line 5896) * long options: Long Options. (line 1344) * long options with mandatory arguments: Long Options. (line 1369) * long options with optional arguments: Long Options. (line 1377) * long-opt-col: Configuring Help Summary. (line 10995) * lzip: gzip. (line 7868) * lzma: gzip. (line 7868) * lzop: gzip. (line 7868) * MacKenzie, David: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * Malformed dumpdir: 'X' never used, warning message: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3596) * member: Definitions. (line 85) * member name: Definitions. (line 85) * members, multiple: multiple. (line 3924) * Members, replacing with other members: append. (line 3870) * Mercurial, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Mercurial, ignore files: exclude. (line 6173) * Meyering, Jim: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * Middle of the archive, starting in the: Starting File. (line 4967) * midnight in date strings: Time of day items. (line 7490) * minute in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * minutes, time zone correction by: Time of day items. (line 7498) * missing-zero-blocks: General Warnings. (line 3492) * Modes of extracted files: Setting Access Permissions. (line 4713) * Modification time, excluding files by: after. (line 7000) * Modification times of extracted files: Data Modification Times. (line 4695) * month in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * month names in date strings: Calendar date items. (line 7454) * months, written-out: General date syntax. (line 7383) * MT: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5468) * MT_BEGIN: Magnetic Tape Control. (line 5532) * MT_OFFLINE: Magnetic Tape Control. (line 5552) * MT_REWIND: Magnetic Tape Control. (line 5542) * MT_STATUS: Magnetic Tape Control. (line 5562) * Multi-volume archives: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10030) * Multi-volume archives in PAX format, extracting using non-GNU tars: Split Recovery. (line 8786) * Multi-volume archives, extracting using non-GNU tars: Split Recovery. (line 8775) * multiple members: multiple. (line 3924) * Naming an archive: file. (line 5832) * negative time stamps: Large or Negative Values. (line 8729) * new-directory: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3589) * next DAY: Day of week items. (line 7569) * next in date strings: General date syntax. (line 7373) * none: Warning Classes. (line 3607) * noon in date strings: Time of day items. (line 7490) * now in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7606) * ntape device: Many. (line 9832) * NUL-terminated file names: nul. (line 6086) * Number of blocks per record: Blocking Factor. (line 9606) * Number of bytes per record: Blocking Factor. (line 9606) * numbered backup method: backup. (line 5048) * numbers, written-out: General date syntax. (line 7373) * Obtaining help: help. (line 3016) * Obtaining total status information: verbose. (line 3136) * Old GNU archive format: gnu. (line 8497) * Old GNU sparse format: Old GNU Format. (line 11702) * old option style: Old Options. (line 1430) * old options with mandatory arguments: Old Options. (line 1450) * Old style archives: old. (line 8463) * Old style format: old. (line 8463) * opt-doc-col: Configuring Help Summary. (line 11035) * option syntax, traditional: Old Options. (line 1430) * optional arguments to long options: Long Options. (line 1377) * optional arguments to short options: Short Options. (line 1401) * options for use with --extract: extract options. (line 4487) * Options when reading archives: Reading. (line 4498) * Options, archive format specifying: Format Variations. (line 9588) * Options, format specifying: Format Variations. (line 9588) * options, GNU style: Long Options. (line 1344) * options, long style: Long Options. (line 1344) * options, mixing different styles: Mixing. (line 1493) * options, mnemonic names: Long Options. (line 1344) * options, old style: Old Options. (line 1430) * options, short style: Short Options. (line 1385) * options, traditional: Short Options. (line 1385) * ordinal numbers: General date syntax. (line 7373) * Overwriting old files, prevention: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4573) * parse_datetime: Date input formats. (line 7323) * pattern, genfile: Generate Mode. (line 12160) * PAX archive format: posix. (line 8514) * Permissions of extracted files: Setting Access Permissions. (line 4713) * Pinard, F.: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7765) * pm in date strings: Time of day items. (line 7490) * portable archives: Portability. (line 8340) * POSIX archive format: posix. (line 8514) * Progress information: verbose. (line 3178) * Protecting old files: Dealing with Old Files. (line 4593) * pure numbers in date strings: Pure numbers in date strings. (line 7640) * RCS, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Reading file names from a file: files. (line 5985) * Reading incomplete records: Reading. (line 4498) * record: Blocking. (line 9475) * Record Size: Blocking Factor. (line 9606) * Record size = %lu blocks, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3577) * record-size: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3576) * Records, incomplete: Reading. (line 4498) * Recursion in directories, avoiding: recurse. (line 7075) * relative items in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7579) * Remote devices: file. (line 5886) * remote tape drive: Remote Tape Server. (line 9391) * Removing files from an archive: delete. (line 4114) * rename-directory: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3585) * Replacing members with other members: append. (line 3870) * reporting bugs: Reports. (line 209) * reproducible archives: Reproducibility. (line 9029) * RESTORE_BEGIN: User Hooks. (line 5607) * RESTORE_END: User Hooks. (line 5610) * Resurrecting files from an archive: extract. (line 950) * Retrieving files from an archive: extract. (line 950) * return status: Synopsis. (line 1232) * rmargin: Configuring Help Summary. (line 11067) * rmt: Remote Tape Server. (line 9391) * RSH: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5472) * RSH_COMMAND: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5477) * Running out of space: Scarce. (line 4959) * Salz, Rich: Authors of parse_datetime. (line 7752) * SCCS, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Set File Time Mode, genfile: Set File Time. (line 12335) * short options: Short Options. (line 1385) * short options with mandatory arguments: Short Options. (line 1392) * short options with optional arguments: Short Options. (line 1401) * short-opt-col: Configuring Help Summary. (line 10987) * simple backup method: backup. (line 5057) * SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUFFIX: backup. (line 5060) * sleep, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3372) * SLEEP_MESSAGE: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5515) * SLEEP_TIME: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5500) * Small memory: Scarce. (line 4959) * snapshot file field ranges: Snapshot Files. (line 11973) * snapshot file, format 0: Snapshot Files. (line 11886) * snapshot file, format 1: Snapshot Files. (line 11913) * snapshot file, format 2: Snapshot Files. (line 11935) * snapshot files, editing: Fixing Snapshot Files. (line 11073) * snapshot files, fixing device numbers: Fixing Snapshot Files. (line 11073) * socket ignored, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3512) * Sparse Files: sparse. (line 8131) * sparse files v.0.0, extracting with non-GNU tars: Sparse Recovery. (line 8946) * sparse files v.0.1, extracting with non-GNU tars: Sparse Recovery. (line 8946) * sparse files v.1.0, extracting with non-GNU tars: Sparse Recovery. (line 8871) * Sparse files, creating using genfile: Generate Mode. (line 12176) * sparse files, extracting with non-GNU tars: Sparse Recovery. (line 8860) * sparse formats: Sparse Formats. (line 11679) * sparse formats, defined: sparse. (line 8177) * sparse formats, Old GNU: Old GNU Format. (line 11702) * sparse formats, v.0.0: PAX 0. (line 11750) * sparse formats, v.0.1: PAX 0. (line 11795) * sparse formats, v.1.0: PAX 1. (line 11826) * sparse versions: Sparse Formats. (line 11679) * Specifying archive members: Selecting Archive Members. (line 5916) * Specifying files to act on: Selecting Archive Members. (line 5916) * Standard input and output: file. (line 5865) * Standard output, writing extracted files to: Writing to Standard Output. (line 4798) * Storing archives in compressed format: gzip. (line 7868) * SVN, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Symbolic link as file name: dereference. (line 8369) * symlink-cast: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3549) * TAPE: file tutorial. (line 383) * tape blocking: Blocking Factor. (line 9789) * tape marks: Many. (line 9869) * tape positioning: Many. (line 9852) * Tapes, using --delete and: delete. (line 4125) * TAPE_FILE: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5412) * tar: What tar Does. (line 107) * TAR: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5520) * tar archive: Definitions. (line 76) * Tar archive formats: Formats. (line 7772) * tar entry: Naming tar Archives. (line 165) * tar file: Naming tar Archives. (line 165) * tar to a remote device: file. (line 5886) * tar to standard input and output: file. (line 5865) * tar-snapshot-edit: Fixing Snapshot Files. (line 11084) * tarcat: Tarcat. (line 10281) * TAR_ARCHIVE, checkpoint script environment: checkpoints. (line 3409) * TAR_ARCHIVE, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10129) * TAR_ARCHIVE, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4905) * TAR_ATIME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4878) * TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR, checkpoint script environment: checkpoints. (line 3412) * TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10132) * TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4908) * TAR_CHECKPOINT, checkpoint script environment: checkpoints. (line 3415) * TAR_CTIME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4887) * TAR_FD, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10146) * TAR_FILENAME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4866) * TAR_FILETYPE, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4850) * TAR_FORMAT, checkpoint script environment: checkpoints. (line 3422) * TAR_FORMAT, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10142) * TAR_FORMAT, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4914) * TAR_GID, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4896) * TAR_GNAME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4875) * TAR_MODE, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4863) * TAR_MTIME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4884) * TAR_OPTIONS, environment variable: using tar options. (line 1294) * TAR_REALNAME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4869) * TAR_SIZE, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4890) * TAR_SUBCOMMAND, checkpoint script environment: checkpoints. (line 3418) * TAR_SUBCOMMAND, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10138) * TAR_UID, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4893) * TAR_UNAME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4872) * TAR_VERSION, checkpoint script environment: checkpoints. (line 3406) * TAR_VERSION, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10126) * TAR_VERSION, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4902) * TAR_VOLUME, info script environment variable: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10135) * TAR_VOLUME, to-command environment: Writing to an External Program. (line 4911) * Terminating zero blocks missing, warning message.: General Warnings. (line 3493) * this in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7606) * time of day item: Time of day items. (line 7475) * time stamp %s is %s s in the future, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3543) * time zone correction: Time of day items. (line 7498) * time zone item: General date syntax. (line 7391) * time zone item <1>: Time zone items. (line 7517) * timestamp: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3542) * today in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7606) * tomorrow in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7602) * totals, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3367) * ttyout, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3338) * TZ: Specifying time zone rules. (line 7689) * Ultrix 3.1 and write failure: Remote Tape Server. (line 9425) * Unknown file type '%c', extracted as normal file, warning message: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3554) * Unknown file type; file ignored, warning message: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3512) * unknown-cast: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3553) * unknown-keyword: Archive Extraction Warnings. (line 3559) * unpacking: Definitions. (line 92) * Updating an archive: update. (line 3980) * usage-indent: Configuring Help Summary. (line 11063) * Using encrypted archives: gzip. (line 8071) * ustar archive format: ustar. (line 8485) * v7 archive format: old. (line 8463) * VCS, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * VCS, excluding patterns from ignore files: exclude. (line 6173) * VCS, ignore files: exclude. (line 6173) * verbose: Warning Classes. (line 3610) * Verbose operation: verbose. (line 3109) * Verifying a write operation: verify. (line 10423) * Verifying the currency of an archive: compare. (line 4155) * version control system, excluding files: exclude. (line 6221) * Version of the tar program: help. (line 2996) * version-control Emacs variable: backup. (line 5042) * VERSION_CONTROL: backup. (line 5034) * volno file: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10098) * VOLNO_FILE: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5483) * Volume label, listing: label. (line 10323) * Volume number file: Multi-Volume Archives. (line 10098) * wait, checkpoint action: checkpoints. (line 3378) * week in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * Where is the archive?: file. (line 5832) * Working directory, specifying: directory. (line 7164) * Writing extracted files to standard output: Writing to Standard Output. (line 4798) * Writing new archives: file. (line 5860) * xdev: Archive Creation Warnings. (line 3508) * xdev <1>: Incremental Extraction Warnings. (line 3592) * XLIST: General-Purpose Variables. (line 5489) * xsparse: Sparse Recovery. (line 8867) * year in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7588) * yesterday in date strings: Relative items in date strings. (line 7602) * zstd: gzip. (line 7868) GNU tar: an archiver tool 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 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 GNU tar: an archiver tool 1 Introduction 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 Tutorial Introduction to ‘tar’ 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 The ‘--file’ Option The ‘--verbose’ Option Getting Help: Using the ‘--help’ Option 2.6 How to Create Archives 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 2.7 How to List Archives Listing the Contents of a Stored Directory 2.8 How to Extract Members from an Archive 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 2.9 Going Further Ahead in this Manual 3 Invoking GNU ‘tar’ 3.1 General Synopsis of ‘tar’ 3.2 Using ‘tar’ Options 3.3 The Three Option Styles 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 All ‘tar’ Options 3.4.1 Operations 3.4.2 ‘tar’ Options 3.4.3 Short Options Cross Reference 3.4.4 Position-Sensitive 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 3.9.1 Keywords controlling ‘tar’ operation 3.9.2 Keywords applicable for ‘tar --create’ 3.9.3 Keywords applicable for ‘tar --extract’ 3.9.4 Keywords controlling incremental extraction 3.9.5 Warning Classes 3.9.6 Default Warning Settings 3.10 Asking for Confirmation During Operations 3.11 Running External Commands 4 GNU ‘tar’ Operations 4.1 Basic GNU ‘tar’ Operations 4.2 Advanced GNU ‘tar’ Operations 4.2.1 The Five Advanced ‘tar’ Operations 4.2.2 How to Add Files to Existing Archives: ‘--append’ 4.2.2.1 Appending Files to an Archive 4.2.2.2 Multiple Members with the Same Name 4.2.3 Updating an Archive 4.2.3.1 How to Update an Archive Using ‘--update’ 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 4.3 Options Used by ‘--create’ 4.3.1 Overriding File Metadata 4.3.2 Extended File Attributes 4.3.3 Ignore Failed Read 4.4 Options Used by ‘--extract’ 4.4.1 Options to Help Read Archives Reading Full Records Ignoring Blocks of Zeros 4.4.2 Changing How ‘tar’ Writes Files 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 4.4.3 Coping with Scarce Resources Starting File Same Order 4.5 Backup options 4.6 Looking Ahead: The Rest of this Manual 5 Performing Backups and Restoring Files 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 5.4.1 General-Purpose Variables 5.4.2 Magnetic Tape Control 5.4.3 User Hooks 5.4.4 An Example Text of ‘Backup-specs’ 5.5 Using the Backup Scripts 5.6 Using the Restore Script 6 Choosing Files and Names for ‘tar’ 6.1 Choosing and Naming Archive Files 6.2 Selecting Archive Members 6.3 Reading Names from a File 6.3.1 ‘NUL’-Terminated File Names 6.4 Excluding Some Files Problems with Using the ‘exclude’ Options 6.5 Wildcards Patterns and Matching Controlling Pattern-Matching 6.6 Quoting Member 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 6.10.1 Changing the Working Directory 6.10.2 Absolute File Names 7 Date input formats 7.1 General date syntax 7.2 Calendar date items 7.3 Time of day items 7.4 Time zone items 7.5 Combined date and time of day items 7.6 Day of week items 7.7 Relative items in date strings 7.8 Pure numbers in date strings 7.9 Seconds since the Epoch 7.10 Specifying time zone rules 7.11 Authors of ‘parse_datetime’ 8 Controlling the Archive Format 8.1 Using Less Space through Compression 8.1.1 Creating and Reading Compressed Archives 8.1.1.1 Using lbzip2 with GNU ‘tar’. 8.1.2 Archiving Sparse Files 8.2 Handling File Attributes 8.3 Making ‘tar’ Archives More Portable 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 8.3.6 GNU and old GNU ‘tar’ format 8.3.7 GNU ‘tar’ and POSIX ‘tar’ 8.3.7.1 Controlling Extended Header Keywords 8.3.8 Checksumming Problems 8.3.9 Large or Negative Values 8.3.10 How to Extract GNU-Specific Data Using Other ‘tar’ Implementations 8.3.10.1 Extracting Members Split Between Volumes 8.3.10.2 Extracting Sparse Members 8.4 Making ‘tar’ Archives More Reproducible 8.5 Comparison of ‘tar’ and ‘cpio’ 9 Tapes and Other Archive Media 9.1 Device Selection and Switching 9.2 Remote Tape Server 9.3 Some Common Problems and their Solutions 9.4 Blocking 9.4.1 Format Variations 9.4.2 The Blocking Factor of an Archive 9.5 Many Archives on One Tape 9.5.1 Tape Positions and Tape Marks 9.5.2 The ‘mt’ Utility 9.6 Using Multiple Tapes 9.6.1 Archives Longer than One Tape or Disk 9.6.2 Tape Files 9.6.3 Concatenate Volumes into a Single Archive 9.7 Including a Label in the Archive 9.8 Verifying Data as It is Stored 9.9 Write Protection 10 Reliability and Security 10.1 Reliability 10.1.1 Permissions Problems 10.1.2 Data Corruption and Repair 10.1.3 Race conditions 10.2 Security 10.2.1 Privacy 10.2.2 Integrity 10.2.3 Dealing with Live Untrusted Data 10.2.4 Security Rules of Thumb Appendix A Changes Appendix B Recipes B.1 Copying directory hierarchies B.2 Restoring Intermediate Directories Appendix C Configuring Help Summary Appendix D Fixing Snapshot Files Appendix E Tar Internals Basic Tar Format GNU Extensions to the Archive Format Storing Sparse Files Old GNU Format PAX Format, Versions 0.0 and 0.1 PAX Format, Version 1.0 Format of the Incremental Snapshot Files Dumpdir Appendix F Genfile F.1 Generate Mode F.2 Status Mode F.3 Set File Time F.4 Exec Mode Appendix G GNU Free Documentation License Appendix H Index of Command Line Options Appendix I Index