xref: /netbsd-src/bin/pax/tar.1 (revision 1ffa7b76c40339c17a0fb2a09fac93f287cfc046)
1.\" $NetBSD: tar.1,v 1.11 2003/04/10 06:07:40 grant Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1996 SigmaSoft, Th. Lockert
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16.\"      This product includes software developed by SigmaSoft, Th. Lockert.
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31.\"	OpenBSD: tar.1,v 1.28 2000/11/09 23:58:56 aaron Exp
32.\"
33.Dd April 4, 2003
34.Dt TAR 1
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm tar
38.Nd tape archiver
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.Nm tar
41.Sm off
42.Oo \&- Oc {crtux} Op Fl befhjklmopqvwzHLOPXZ014578
43.Sm on
44.Op Ar archive
45.Op Ar blocksize
46.\" XXX how to do this right?
47.Op Fl C Ar directory
48.Op Fl T Ar file
49.Op Fl s Ar replstr
50.Op Ar file ...
51.Sh DESCRIPTION
52The
53.Nm
54command creates, adds files to, or extracts files from an
55archive file in
56.Dq tar
57format.
58A tar archive is often stored on a magnetic tape, but can be
59stored equally well on a floppy, CD-ROM, or in a regular disk file.
60.Pp
61One of the following flags must be present:
62.Bl -tag -width Ar
63.It Fl c , -create
64Create new archive, or overwrite an existing archive,
65adding the specified files to it.
66.It Fl r , -append
67Append the named new files to existing archive.
68Note that this will only work on media on which an end-of-file mark
69can be overwritten.
70.It Fl t , -list
71List contents of archive.
72If any files are named on the
73command line, only those files will be listed.
74.It Fl u , -update
75Alias for
76.Fl r .
77.It Fl x , -extract , -get
78Extract files from archive.
79If any files are named on the
80command line, only those files will be extracted from the
81archive.
82If more than one copy of a file exists in the
83archive, later copies will overwrite earlier copies during
84extraction.
85The file mode and modification time are preserved
86if possible.
87The file mode is subject to modification by the
88.Xr umask 2 .
89.El
90.Pp
91In addition to the flags mentioned above, any of the following
92flags may be used:
93.Bl -tag -width Ar
94.It Fl b Ar "blocking factor" , Fl -block-size Ar "blocking factor"
95Set blocking factor to use for the archive.
96.Nm
97uses 512 byte blocks.
98The default is 20, the maximum is 126.
99Archives with a blocking factor larger 63 violate the
100.Tn POSIX
101standard and will not be portable to all systems.
102.It Fl e
103Stop after first error.
104.It Fl f Ar archive , Fl -file Ar archive
105Filename where the archive is stored.
106Defaults to
107.Pa /dev/rst0 .
108If the archive is of the form:
109.Ar [[user@]host:]file
110then the archive will be processed using
111.Xr rmt 8 .
112.It Fl h , -dereference
113Follow symbolic links as if they were normal files
114or directories.
115.It Fl j, -bzip2, -bunzip2
116Use
117.Xr bzip2 1
118for compression of the archive.
119This option is a GNU extension.
120.It Fl k , -keep-old-files
121Keep existing files; don't overwrite them from archive.
122.It Fl l , -one-file-system
123Do not cross filesystems.
124.It Fl m , -modification-time
125Do not preserve modification time.
126.It Fl O
127Write old-style (non-POSIX) archives.
128.It Fl o , -portability , -old-archive
129Don't write directory information that the older (V7) style
130.Nm
131is unable to decode.
132This implies the
133.Fl O
134flag.
135.It Fl p , -preserve-permissions , -preserve
136Preserve user and group ID as well as file mode regardless of
137the current
138.Xr umask 2 .
139The setuid and setgid bits are only preserved if the user is
140the superuser.
141Only meaningful in conjunction with the
142.Fl x
143flag.
144.It Fl q , -fast-read
145Select the first archive member that matches each
146.Ar pattern
147operand.
148No more than one archive member is matched for each
149.Ar pattern .
150When members of type directory are matched, the file hierarchy rooted at that
151directory is also matched.
152.It Fl s Ar replstr
153Modify the file or archive member names specified by the
154.Ar pattern
155or
156.Ar file
157operands according to the substitution expression
158.Ar replstr ,
159using the syntax of the
160.Xr ed 1
161utility regular expressions.
162The format of these regular expressions are:
163.Dl /old/new/[gp]
164As in
165.Xr ed 1 ,
166.Cm old
167is a basic regular expression and
168.Cm new
169can contain an ampersand (\*[Am]), \\n (where n is a digit) back-references,
170or subexpression matching.
171The
172.Cm old
173string may also contain
174.Aq Dv newline
175characters.
176Any non-null character can be used as a delimiter (/ is shown here).
177Multiple
178.Fl s
179expressions can be specified.
180The expressions are applied in the order they are specified on the
181command line, terminating with the first successful substitution.
182The optional trailing
183.Cm g
184continues to apply the substitution expression to the pathname substring
185which starts with the first character following the end of the last successful
186substitution.
187The first unsuccessful substitution stops the operation of the
188.Cm g
189option.
190The optional trailing
191.Cm p
192will cause the final result of a successful substitution to be written to
193.Dv standard error
194in the following format:
195.Dl \*[Lt]original pathname\*[Gt] \*[Gt]\*[Gt] \*[Lt]new pathname\*[Gt]
196File or archive member names that substitute to the empty string
197are not selected and will be skipped.
198.It Fl v
199Verbose operation mode.
200.It Fl w , -interactive , -confirmation
201Interactively rename files.
202This option causes
203.Nm
204to prompt the user for the filename to use when storing or
205extracting files in an archive.
206.It Fl z , -gzip , -gunzip
207Compress archive using gzip.
208.It Fl B , -read-full-blocks
209Reassemble small reads into full blocks (For reading from 4.2BSD pipes).
210.It Fl C Ar directory , Fl -directory Ar directory
211This is a positional argument which sets the working directory for the
212following files.
213When extracting, files will be extracted into
214the specified directory; when creating, the specified files will be matched
215from the directory.
216This argument and its parameter may also appear in a file list specified by
217.Fl T .
218.It Fl H
219Follow symlinks given on command line only.
220.It Fl P , -absolute-paths
221Do not strip leading slashes
222.Pq Sq /
223from pathnames.
224The default is to strip leading slashes.
225.It Fl T Ar file , Fl -files-from Ar file
226Read the names of files to archive or extract from the given file, one
227per line.
228A line may also specify the positional argument
229.Dq Fl C Ar directory .
230.It Fl X Ar file , Fl -exclude-from Ar file
231Exclude files listed in the given file.
232.It Fl Z , -compress , -uncompress
233Compress archive using compress.
234.It Fl -strict
235Do not enable GNU tar extensions such as long filenames and long link names.
236.It Fl -atime-preserve
237Preserve file access times.
238.It Fl -unlink
239Remove files before creating them.
240.It Fl -use-compress-program Ar program
241Use the named program as the program to decompress the input.
242.It Fl -force-local
243Do not interpret filenames that contain a
244.Sq \&:
245as remote files.
246.It Fl -insecure
247Normally
248.Nm
249ignores filenames that contain
250.Sq ..
251as a path component.
252With this option, files that contain
253.Sq ..
254can be processed.
255.El
256.Pp
257The options
258.Op Fl 014578
259can be used to select one of the compiled-in backup devices,
260.Pa /dev/rstN .
261.Sh FILES
262.Bl -tag -width "/dev/rst0"
263.It Pa /dev/rst0
264default archive name
265.El
266.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
267.Nm
268will exit with one of the following values:
269.Bl -tag -width 2n
270.It 0
271All files were processed successfully.
272.It 1
273An error occurred.
274.El
275.Pp
276Whenever
277.Nm
278cannot create a file or a link when extracting an archive or cannot
279find a file while writing an archive, or cannot preserve the user
280ID, group ID, file mode, or access and modification times when the
281.Fl p
282option is specified, a diagnostic message is written to standard
283error and a non-zero exit value will be returned, but processing
284will continue.
285In the case where
286.Nm
287cannot create a link to a file,
288.Nm
289will not create a second copy of the file.
290.Pp
291If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated
292by a signal or error,
293.Nm
294may have only partially extracted the file the user wanted.
295Additionally, the file modes of extracted files and directories may
296have incorrect file bits, and the modification and access times may
297be wrong.
298.Pp
299If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal
300or error,
301.Nm
302may have only partially created the archive which may violate the
303specific archive format specification.
304.Sh SEE ALSO
305.Xr cpio 1 ,
306.Xr pax 1
307.Sh HISTORY
308A
309.Nm
310command first appeared in
311.At v7 .
312.Sh AUTHORS
313Keith Muller at the University of California, San Diego.
314