1STAR(1) Schily´s USER COMMANDS STAR(1)
2
6 star - unique standard tape archiver
7
9 star command [options] [-find] file1 ... filen [find_expr]
10 ustar command [options] [-find] file1 ... filen [find_expr]
11 tar command [options] file1 ... filen
12 star -copy [options] [-find] file1 ... [f_expr] directory
13 star -copy [options] -C from_directory . to_directory
14 star cli=name ...
15
17 Star is a very fast tar(1) like tape archiver with improved functional‐
18 ity. It supports unlimited path name lengths (up to 8 GB) in all cases
19 that use suitable archive types.
20 Star archives and extracts multiple files to and from a single file
22 called a tarfile. A tarfile is usually a magnetic tape, but it can be
23 any file. In all cases, appearance of a directory name refers to the
24 files and (recursively) subdirectories of that directory.
25 Star's actions are controlled by the mandatory command flags from the
27 list below. The way star acts may be modified by additional options.
28 Note that unpacking tar archives may be a security risk because star
30 may overwrite existing files. See SECURITY NOTES for more information.
31 If the first argument is in the form cli=name, the command line inter‐
33 face is selected to match name. See section CLI SELECTION below.
34
36 Star includes the first free implementation of POSIX.1-2001 extended
37 tar headers. The POSIX.1-2001 extended tar headers define a new stan‐
38 dard way for going beyond the limitations of the historic tar format.
39 They allow (among others) to archive all UNIX time stamps in sub-second
40 resolution, files of arbitrary size and filenames without length limi‐
41 tation using UNICODE UTF-8 coding for best exchange compatibility.
42 Star by default uses a fifo to optimize data flow from/to tape. This
44 results in a normally streaming tape during the whole backup. See
45 -fifo and fs= option to get information on how to find the best fifo
46 size.
47 Star includes a pattern matcher to control the list of files to be pro‐
49 cessed. This gives a convenient interface for archiving and restoring
50 complex lists of files. In conjunction with the -w flag it is easy to
51 merge a tar archive into an existing file tree. See also -U option. In
52 create mode use the pat= option to specify either select or exclude
53 patterns (depending on the -V flag). In extract or list mode all file
54 type arguments are interpreted as select patterns while the patterns
55 specified with the pat= option may be used as select or exclude pat‐
56 terns (depending on the -V flag). Have a look at the description of
57 the -C option to learn how to fetch files from a list of directories
58 (in create mode) or to distribute files to a list of directories (in
59 extract mode). A substitute option allows ed(1) like pattern substitu‐
60 tion in file names.
61 Star includes support for incremental backup and restore similar to the
63 BSD commands dump(1) and restore(1) that are known as ufsdump(1) and
64 ufsrestore(1) on Solaris.
65 Star includes an enhanced function that is similar to the find(1) com‐
67 mand (see sfind(1)). This function is implemented in libfind. It
68 allows to use find expressions, even in extract or list mode, directly
69 on the content on an archive. The extensions to find(1) allow to mod‐
70 ify the file metadata.
71 Star includes a sophisticated diff command that is able to compare file
73 content and meta data. Several diff options allow user tailorable
74 functionality. Star won't show you differences you are not interested
75 in. Check the diffopts= option for more details.
76 Star has no limitation on filename length. Pathnames and linknames up
78 to PATH_MAX (typically 1024 bytes) may be archived by most tar imple‐
79 mentrations. Star allows to archive path names up to 8 GB on modern
80 platforms.
81 Star deals with all 3 times, available for files on UNIX systems if the
83 archive format is either chosen from the star specific formats or is a
84 format that uses POSIX.1-2001 extended headers. This is either done in
85 second resolution by using a star specific POSIX.1-1988 compatible
86 extension or in sub second resolution by using POSIX.1-2001 extended
87 headers. Star is able to store and restore all 3 times (mtime, atime
88 and even ctime). On Solaris 2.x systems - if run as root -, star is
89 able to do backups without changing any of the 3 the times.
90 If used with the H=ustar option, or if called as ustar or tar while the
92 H=headertype option is not used, star is 100% POSIX compliant.
93 Star's default format (if called as star) is xstar and is as posix com‐
95 pliant as possible. Enhancements to the standard that prevent correct
96 extraction of single files when using a different tar implementation
97 that is only POSIX.1-1988 compliant may occur, but they only affect
98 single files with a pathname that is longer than 100+130 chars or when
99 archiving sparse files with the -sparse option in effect. All other
100 files will extract correctly. See the description for the H=headertype
101 option below for more information on archive formats and possible ar‐
102 chive interchange problems.
103 Star makes it easy to repair corrupted filesystems. After a fsck -y has
105 been run on the filesystem, star is able to restore only the missing
106 files automatically. Use then star -diff to check for differences (see
107 EXAMPLES for more information).
108 Star automatically recognizes the type of the archive. Star therefore
110 is able to handle features and properties of different archive types in
111 their native mode, if it knows about the peculiarities of the archive
112 type. See the H=headertype option for more details. To be able to do
113 this, star adds hidden fingerprints to the archive header that allows
114 to recognise all star specific archive formats. The GNU tar format is
115 recognised by the way it deviates from the standard.
116 Star automatically recognizes and handles byte swapped archives. There
118 is no option to manually control byte swapping.
119 Star automatically recognizes and handles compressed archives inside
121 plain files.
122 Star is able to archive and restore Access Control Lists for files
124 using POSIX.1-2001 extended headers.
125
127 If the first argument is in the form cli=name, the command line inter‐
128 face is selected to match one of the supported CLI variants. The fol‐
129 lowing interfaces are supported:
130 star The star interface selects the command line interface
132 described in this manual page.
133 suntar The suntar interface selects the command line interface
135 of the classical UNIX tar command as described in sun‐
136 tar(1).
137 gnutar The gnutar interface selects the command line interface
139 of the GNU tar command as described in gnutar(1).
140 pax The pax interface selects the command line interface of
142 the POSIX pax command as described in spax(1).
143 cpio The cpio interface selects the command line interface of
145 the classical UNIX cpio command as described in
146 scpio(1).
147
149 In native mode, star is compatible to the command line syntax of a typ‐
150 ical POSIX command and for this reason expects commands and options to
151 start with a single dash (-). In this case, commands and options may be
152 specified separately, all boolean or increment type options may be
153 specified either separately or combined.
154 For compatibility with GNU programs, long options may alternatively
156 start with a double dash.
157 In compatibility mode to POSIX tar, star expects commands and options
159 to appear as one single string that does not start with a dash. In
160 POSIX tar compatibility mode, additional non POSIX options may be spec‐
161 ified but must appear after the POSIX options and their args and need
162 to start with a dash.
163 -c Create a new tarfile and write named files into it. Writing
165 starts at the beginning of tarfile. See -v option for informa‐
166 tion on how to increase verbosity while the archive is written.
167 The Option -c may be used together with -diff and -t. In this
169 case, the whole command line has to be similar to the command
170 line for the -copy mode.
171 -copy Copy named files to the target directory which is the last file
173 type argument. The target directory must exist. The shorthand
174 -cx instead of -copy is not allowed because this could be a
175 result of a typo.
176 If the option -diff has been specified in addition, star per‐
178 forms a one pass directory tree compare instead of copying
179 files. The shorthand -c -diff instead of -copy -diff is also
180 allowed.
181 On operating systems with slow file I/O (such as Linux with any
183 filesystem or platforms with Copy on Write filesystems like
184 ZFS), it may help to use -no-fsync in addition (see also ENVI‐
185 RONMENT and FILES), but then star is unable to detect all error
186 conditions; so use with care.
187 If the option -t has been specified in addition, the last file
189 type argument is not a target directory and star is performing a
190 one pass listing instead of copying files. This makes sense as
191 the listing from star may be better readable than the output
192 from ls -lR. The shorthand -c -t or -ct instead of -copy -t is
193 also allowed.
194 The job is by default done in the best archive mode. This
196 implies that it defaults to H=exustar -dump. When in -copy
197 mode, star forks into two processes and data exchange is done
198 via the shared memory from the FIFO. This gives the best possi‐
199 ble performance. Without FIFO, the -copy mode will not work.
200 The list= option, patterns and substitutions apply only to the
202 create side of the copy command.
203 -diff Compare the content and the attributes of the files from the ar‐
205 chive in tarfile to the filesystem. This may also be used to
206 compare two file trees in the filesystem. If you use a set of
207 diffopts that fits your needs, it will give - in many cases - a
208 more readable output than diff -r. If you use star's dump
209 extensions for the tar archive, the -diff option allows to find
210 even if the directory in the file tree contains more files than
211 the archive. This way, it is possible to compare all properties
212 of two file trees in one run. See diffopts for more details.
213 Adding one or more -v options increases the verbosity. With -vv
214 and above, the directory content is compared also if star is
215 reading a tar archive that has been created in -dump mode.
216 -n No extraction. Show what star would do, in case the -x command
218 had been specified.
219 -r Replace files in a tarfile. The named files are written to the
221 end of tarfile. This implies that later, the appropriate files
222 will be found more than once on the tarfile.
223 -t Table of contents. List the contents of the tarfile. If the -v
225 flag is used, the listing is similar to the format of ls -l out‐
226 put. With this option, the flags -a, -atime and -ctime have a
227 different meaning if the archive is in star, xstar, xustar,
228 exustar, or pax/epax format. The option -a or -atime lists the
229 access time instead of the modification time, the option -ctime
230 lists the file creation time instead of the modification time.
231 The option -tpath may be used in addition to modify the output
232 so it may be used in shell scripts.
233 -u Update a tarfile. The named files are written to the end of
235 tarfile if they are not already there or if the files are newer
236 than the files of the same name found in the archive. The -r
237 and -u command only work if the tar archives is a regular file
238 or if the tar archive is an unblocked tape that may backspace.
239 -x Extract the named files from the tarfile. If no filename argu‐
241 ment or pattern is specified, the entire content of the tarfile
242 is restored. If the -U flag is not used, star extracts no file
243 which is older than the corresponding file on disk.
244 On operating systems with slow file I/O (such as Linux with any
246 filesystem or platforms with Copy on Write filesystems like
247 ZFS), it may help to use -no-fsync in addition (see also ENVI‐
248 RONMENT and FILES), but then star is unable to detect all error
249 conditions; so use with care.
250 Except for the shorthands documented above, exactly one of the commands
252 above must be specified.
253 If one or more patterns or substitution commands have been specified,
255 they apply to any of the command listed above. In copy mode, all pat‐
256 terns and substitute commands apply to the create side.
257
260 -help Print a summary of the most important options for star(1).
261 -xhelp Print a summary of the less important options for star(1).
263 -/ Don't strip leading slashes from file names when extracting an
265 archive. Tar archives containing absolute pathnames are usually
266 a bad idea. With other tar implementations, they may possibly
267 never be extracted without clobbering existing files. Star for
268 that reason, by default strips leading slashes from filenames
269 when in extract mode. As it may be impossible to create an ar‐
270 chive where leading slashes have been stripped while retaining
271 correct path names, star does not strip leading slashes in cre‐
272 ate mode.
273 See SECURITY NOTES for more information.
275 -.. Don't skip files that contain /../ in the name. Tar archives
277 containing names with /../ could be used to compromise the sys‐
278 tem. If they are unpacked together with a lot of other files,
279 this would in most cases not even be noticed. For this reason,
280 star by default does not extract files that contain /../ in the
281 name if star is not in interactive mode (see -w option).
282 See SECURITY NOTES for more information.
284 -7z run the input or output through a p7zip pipe - see option -z
286 below.
287 Note that the p7zip program currently does not operate on a pipe
289 but on a /tmp file copy and thus limits the maximum archive
290 size.
291 -0
294 -1
296 -2
298 -3
300 -4
302 -5
304 -6
306 -7 Select an archive entry from /etc/default/star. The format for
308 the archive entries is the same as the format in
309 /etc/default/tar in Solaris.
310 -acl Handle Access Control List (ACL) information in create and
312 extract mode. If -acl has been specified, star is in create
313 mode and the header type is exustar, star will add ACL informa‐
314 tion to the archive using POSIX.1-2001 extended headers. If
315 -acl has been specified and star is in extract mode, star will
316 try to restore ACL information. If there is no ACL information
317 for one or all files in the archive, star will clear the ACL
318 information for the specific file. Note that if -acl has not
319 been specified, star will not handle ACL information at all and
320 files may inherit ACL information from the parent directories.
321 If the -acl option has been specified, star assumes that the -p
322 option has been specified too.
323 Star currently supports ACLs from the withdrawn POSIX.1e draft
325 and NFSv4 ACLs. To check which ACL flavors are supported on the
326 current platform, call star -version. Whether ACLs from the
327 withdrawn POSIX.1e draft can be converted into NFSv4 ACLs
328 depends on the local ACL support library.
329 artype=headertype
331 Generate a tape archive in headertype format. If this option is
332 used in extract/list mode this forces star to interpret the
333 headers to be of type headertype. As star even in case of a
334 user selected extract archive format does format checking, it
335 may be that you will not be able to unpack a specific archive
336 with all possible forced archive formats. Selecting the old tar
337 format for extraction will always work though. Valid parameter
338 for headertype are:
339 help Print a help message about possible header types.
341 v7tar Old UNIX V7 tar format. This archive format may only
343 store plain files. Pathnames or linknames longer than
344 99 chars may not be archived.
345 If the v7tar format has been selected, star will not
347 use enhancements to the historic UNIX V7 tar format.
348 File size is limited to 2 GB - 2 bytes, uid/gid is
349 limited to 262143. Sparse files will be filled up
350 with zeroes.
351 tar Old BSD UNIX tar format. This archive format may only
353 store plain files, directories and symbolic links.
354 Pathnames or linknames longer than 99 chars may not be
355 archived. See also the -d option as a note to some
356 even older tar implementations.
357 If the tar format has been selected, star will not use
359 enhancements to the historic tar format. File size is
360 limited to 2 GB - 2 bytes, uid/gid is limited to
361 262143. Sparse files will be filled up with zeroes.
362 star Old star standard format. This is an upward/downward
364 compatible enhancement of the old (pre Posix) UNIX tar
365 format. It has been introduced in 1985 and therefore
366 is not Posix compliant. The star format allows to ar‐
367 chive special files (even sockets) and records access
368 time and creation time besides the modification time.
369 Newer versions of the old star format allow very long
370 filenames (100+155 chars and above), linknames > 100
371 chars and sparse files (if -sparse is used). This
372 format is able to copy the device nodes on HP-UX that
373 have 24 bits in the minor device number, which is more
374 then the 21 bits that are possible with the
375 POSIX-1003.1-1988 archive format.
376 The nonstandard extensions are located in the space
378 between the link name and the POSIX file name prefix.
379 As the star format does not use a POSIX magic string,
380 the extensions do not interfere with the POSIX tar
381 formats. The last 4 bytes of the tar header in the
382 star archive format contain a 'tar\0' signature.
383 This archive format supports very long path names.
385 gnutar This is a commonly used, but unfortunately not Posix
387 compliant (although designed after 1987) enhancement
388 to the old tar format. The gnutar format has been
389 defined between 1989 and 1994. Do not use the gnutar
390 archive format unless you want to create an archive
391 for a target system that is known to have only the
392 gnutar program available. The gnutar archive format
393 violates basic rules for any (even the historic) tar
394 archive format, in special when sparse files are
395 archived using the -sparse option.
396 GNU tar is not able to extract files with with long
398 path names, but under some conditions creates archives
399 with long path names. We therefore do not limit the
400 creation of gnutar archives with long path names.
401 Using the gnutar archive format causes a high risk
403 that the resulting archive may only be read by gnutar
404 or by star. The implementation of the gnutar archive
405 format within star is not complete, but sufficient for
406 most gnutar archives. See NOTES for more information.
407 This archive format supports very long path names.
409 ustar IEEE/Posix1003/IEC-9945-1-1988 Standard Data Inter‐
411 change format. With this option in effect, star will
412 generate 100% POSIX.1-1988 compliant tar archives.
413 Files with pathnames longer than 100+155 chars or
414 linknames longer than 100 chars may not be archived.
415 If star is called as ustar the default archive format
416 is ustar.
417 If the ustar format has been selected, star will not
419 use enhancements to the POSIX.1-1988 tar format, the
420 archive will be strictly conforming. File size is
421 limited to 8 GB, uid/gid/major/minor is limited to
422 2097151. Sparse files will be filled up with zeroes.
423 pax The IEEE/Posix1003/IEC-9945-1-1988 successor is the
425 POSIX-1003.1-2001 Standard Data Interchange format.
426 It is called the pax archive format.
427 If the pax format has been selected, star will not use
429 enhancements to the POSIX.1-2001 tar format, the ar‐
430 chive will be strictly conforming. File size is
431 unlimited, uid/gid/uname/gidname is unlimited,
432 major/minor is limited to 2097151. Sparse files will
433 be filled up with zeroes.
434 This archive format supports very long path names.
436 epax A format similar to the pax format but with forced
438 POSIX.1-2001 extended headers. This enforces stimes‐
439 tamps with nanosecond resolution in the archive.
440 This archive format supports very long path names.
442 xstar The extended standard tar format has been introduced
444 in 1994. Star uses the xstar format as default ar‐
445 chive format. This is an upward/downward compatible
446 enhancement of the IEEE/Posix1003/IEC-9945-1 Standard
447 Data Interchange format. It allows among others very
448 long filenames (100+130 chars and above) and records
449 access time and creation time. Sparse files will be
450 archived correctly (if -sparse is used).
451 The access time and creation time are stored at the
453 end of the POSIX file name prefix (this limits the
454 prefix to 130 chars). These extensions do not inter‐
455 fere with the POSIX standard as the fields for mtime
456 and ctime field are always separated from the POSIX
457 file name prefix by a null byte. The last 4 bytes of
458 the tar header contain a 'tar\0' signature.
459 The xstar format is the default format when star is
461 neither called as tar nor called as ustar.
462 This archive format supports very long path names.
464 xustar A new format introduced 1998, that omits the 'tar\0'
466 signature at the end of the tar header. It is other‐
467 wise identical to the xstar format. As some tar
468 implementations do not follow the POSIX rules and com‐
469 pute the checksum for less than 512 bytes of the tar
470 header, this format may help to avoid problems with
471 these broken tar implementations. The main other dif‐
472 ference to the xstar format is that the xustar format
473 uses POSIX.1-2001 extended headers to overcome limita‐
474 tions of the historic tar format while the xstar for‐
475 mat uses proprietary extensions. The xustar format is
476 the default format when star is called as tar.
477 File size is unlimited, uid/gid/uname/gidname is
479 unlimited, major/minor is unlimited. Sparse files
480 will be archived correctly (if -sparse is used).
481 This archive format supports very long path names.
483 exustar A format similar to the xustar format but with forced
485 POSIX.1-2001 extended headers. If this format is used
486 together with the -acl option, star records Access
487 Control Lists (ACLs) in POSIX.1-2001 extended headers.
488 The exustar format allows to archive all file types
490 but it does not archive more than the POSIX.1-1988 set
491 by default. If the -dump option is used or if star is
492 otherwise on dump mode, star archives all file types
493 and in addition archives more meta data then usual.
494 File size is unlimited, uid/gid/uname/gidname is
496 unlimited, major/minor is unlimited. Sparse files
497 will be archived correctly (if -sparse is used).
498 This archive format supports very long path names.
500 suntar The extended header format found on Solaris 7/8/9.
502 This format is similar to the pax format but does not
503 handle atime and ctime and in addition uses 'X' as the
504 typeflag for the extended headers instead of the stan‐
505 dard 'x'.
506 File size is unlimited, uid/gid/uname/gidname is
508 unlimited, major/minor is unlimited. Sparse files
509 will be filled up with zeroes.
510 bin The cpio UNIX V7 binary format. This is a format with
512 big interoperability problems. Try to avoid this for‐
513 mat. It is only present to make the scpio command
514 SVr4 compliant.
515 cpio The POSIX.1-1988 cpio format. This format uses octal
517 ascii headers. A similar format is created by calling
518 cpio -o -c on pre SYSVr4 systems and by calling cpio
519 -o -Hodc on SYSVr4 systems. The POSIX.1-1988 cpio
520 format allows a file name length up to 262142 charac‐
521 ters and allows to archive nearly any file type. File
522 size is limited to 8 GB, uid/gid/st_dev is limited to
523 262143. The way major and minor device numbers are
524 stored inside the st_dev field is implementation
525 dependent.
526 Even though this archive format is covered by the
528 POSIX.1-1988 standard, it has a lower portability than
529 the ustar format. Try to avoid the cpio archive for‐
530 mat.
531 odc This archive format is similar to the The POSIX.1-1988
533 cpio format but the file name length is limited to 255
534 characters and the socket file type is not allowed.
535 This archive format has been introduced to allow non
536 POSIX cpio implementations such as the cpio program on
537 SYSV to accept the archive. Use this format whenever
538 you are not sure if the target system offers a fully
539 POSIX compliant cpio program.
540 Even though this archive format is covered by the
542 POSIX.1-1988 standard, it has a lower portability than
543 the ustar format. Try to avoid the odc archive format.
544 asc Tell star to create a cpio archive in the ascii format
546 that is created with cpio -o -c on SYSVr4 systems. It
547 uses extended (32 bit) numbers for uid's, gid's and
548 device numbers but limits the file size to 4 GB - 2
549 bytes although the format has been specified after the
550 POSIX.1-1988 cpio format. Try to avoid the asc ar‐
551 chive format because of its limited portability.
552 crc This format is similar to the asc cpio format but in
554 addition uses a simple byte based 32-bit checksum.
555 Hence the archive type name CRC as used by AT&T is
556 misleading. Try to avoid the crc archive format
557 because of its limited portability.
558 All tar archive formats may be interchanged if the archive con‐
561 tains no files that may not be archived by using the old tar
562 format. Archives in the xstar format may be extracted by any
563 100% POSIX compliant tar implementation if they contain no files
564 with pathnames > 100+130 chars and if they contain no sparse
565 files that have been archived by using the -sparse option.
566 -ask_remove
569 obsoleted by -ask-remove
570 -ask-remove
572 Ask to remove non writable files on extraction. By default,
573 star will not overwrite files that are read only. If this
574 option is in effect, star will ask whether it should remove
575 these files to allow the extraction of a file in the following
576 way:
577 remove 'filename' ? Y(es)/N(o) :
579 -atime, -a
581 Reset access time of files after storing them to tarfile. On
582 Solaris 2.x, (if invoked by root) star uses the _FIOSATIME ioctl
583 to do this. This enables star not to trash the ctime while
584 resetting the atime of the files. If the -atime option is used
585 in conjunction with the list command, star lists access time
586 instead of modification time. (This works only in conjunction
587 with the star, xstar, xustar, exustar, and with the pax/epax
588 format.) Another option to retain the access time for the the
589 files that are going to be archives is to readonly mount a UFS
590 snapshot and to archive files from the mount point of the UFS
591 snapshot.
592 -B Force star to perform multiple reads (if necessary) to fill a
594 block. This option exists so that star can work across the Eth‐
595 ernet, since pipes and sockets return partial blocks even when
596 more data is coming. If star uses stdin as archive file, star
597 behaves as if it has been called with the -B option. For this
598 reason, the option -B in practice is rarely needed.
599 b=# Set the block size for tape operations. See option blocks=#.
601 -block-number
603 Print the archive block number (archive offset / 512) at the
604 beginning of each line when in verbose mode. This allows to
605 write backup scripts that archive the offsets for files and that
606 use
607 mt fsr blockno
609 to skip to the tape block number of interest in a fast way if a
611 single file needs to be restored.
612 Since the numbers printed by the -block-number option are based
614 on a block size of 512 bytes and the tape block size is usually
615 larger, the tape block number for the mt fsr command needs to be
616 computed to honor the tape blocking factor.
617 blocks=#, b=#
619 Set the blocking factor of the tarfile to # times 512 bytes
620 (unless a different multiplication factor has been specified -
621 see bs= option for possible multiplication factors). Changing
622 the blocking factor only makes sense when the archive is located
623 on a real tape device or when the archive is accessed via the
624 remote tape protocol (see f= option below). The default is to
625 use a blocking factor of 20 i.e. 10 kBytes. Increasing the
626 blocksize will speed up the backup. For portability with very
627 old tar implementations (pre BSD 4.2 or pre AT&T SVR4), block‐
628 size should not be more than 10 kBytes. For POSIX.1-1988 com‐
629 patibility, blocksize should be no more than 10 kBytes. For
630 POSIX.1-2001 compatibility, blocksize should be no more than
631 32 kBytes. Most systems also have a hardware limitation for the
632 blocksize, 32 kBytes and 63 kBytes are common limits on many
633 systems. The upper limit in any case is the size of the buffer
634 RAM in the tape drive. Make a test if you want to make sure
635 that the target system will handle the intended blocksize. If
636 you use star for data exchange via tape, it is a good idea to
637 use a blocksize of 10 kBytes unless you are sure that the read‐
638 ing system will handle a larger blocksize. If you use star for
639 backup purposes with recent hardware (e.g. DLT tape drives), a
640 blocksize of 256 kBytes results in sufficient speed and seems to
641 be a good choice. Star allows block sizes up to 2 GByte if the
642 system does not impose a smaller limit. If you want to deter‐
643 mine the blocking factor when reading an unknown tar archive on
644 tape, specify a blocking factor that is higher than the supposed
645 blocking factor of the tape. Star then will determine the
646 blocking factor by reading the first record of the tape and
647 print a message:
648 star: Blocksize = # records.
650 Where # is the blocking factor in multiples of 512 bytes. The
652 blocks= option and the bs= option are equivalent methods to
653 specify the tape block size. The blocks= option is preferred by
654 people who like to use an option that behaves similar to the
655 interface of the historic tar(1) implementations.
656 The best method to set the blocksize is to use the bs=# option.
658 bs=# Set output block size to #. You may use the same method as in
660 dd(1) and sdd(1). The number representing the size is taken in
661 bytes unless otherwise specified. If a number is followed
662 directly by the letter `.', `w', `b', `k', `m', `g', `t', or
663 `p', the size is multiplied by 1, 2, 512, 1024, 1024*1024,
664 1024*1024*1024, 1024*1024*1024*1024 or 1024*1024*1024*1024*1024.
665 If the size consists of numbers separated by `x' or `*', multi‐
666 plication of the two numbers is performed. Thus bs=7x8k will
667 specify a blocksize of 56 kBytes. Blocksize must be a multiple
668 of 512 bytes. See also the description of the blocks= option
669 for more details on blocksizes. The option bs= is preferred by
670 people who like to use an option that behaves similar to the
671 interface used by dd(1) and sdd(1).
672 -bsdchdir
674 Switch the behavior of the C= option to BSD style. The default
675 behavior of star is to stay in a working directory until a new
676 C= is seen. With BSD tar, the C= option is only related to the
677 next file type argument.
678 -bz run the input or output through a bzip2 pipe - see option -z -Z
680 and -j below. As the -bz the -j the -Z and the -z option are
681 non standard, it makes sense to omit the -bz the -j the -Z and
682 the -z options inside shell scripts if you are going to extract
683 a compressed archive that is located inside a plain file as star
684 will auto detect compression and choose the right decompression
685 option to extract.
686 C=dir
688 -C dir Perform a chdir(2) operation to dir before storing or extracting
690 the next files. In all cases, star will perform the chdir(2)
691 operation relative to the current working directory of the
692 shell.
693 · In list mode (with the -t flag), star ignores all -C
695 options.
696 · In create mode (with the -c, -r and -u flag), star walks
698 through all -C options and file type arguments. While a
699 BSD derived tar(1) implementation goes back to the cur‐
700 rent working directory after storing one file argument
701 that immediately follows the -C option, star changes the
702 directory only if a new -C option follows. To emulate
703 the behavior of a BSD derived tar(1), add a -C . option
704 after the file argument.
705 · In extract mode (with the -x, -n and -diff flag), star
707 builds a pattern list together with corresponding direc‐
708 tories from previous C=dir options and performs a
709 chdir(2) to the corresponding directory of a matching
710 pattern. All pat= options that do not follow a C=dir
711 option are interpreted as if they were preceded by a -C .
712 option. See EXAMPLES for more information.
713 compress-program=name
715 Set a named compress program. The program must compress in a
716 pipe when called without parameters and decompress when run with
717 the -d option in a pipe. This option is otherwise similar to
718 the -z the -j the -Z and the -bz option.
719 -copydlinks
721 Try to recursively copy the content of linked directories
722 instead of creating the link. This is an experimental feature
723 that may help to unpack archives on DOS.
724 -copyhardlinks
726 This option allows to copy hardlinked targets rather than creat‐
727 ing the link. It helps to extract tar files on systems that do
728 not implement hardlinks (e.g. BeOS).
729 -copylinks
731 This option allows to copy both, hard- and symlinked targets
732 rather than creating a link. It helps to extract tar files on
733 systems that do not implement links (e.g. OS/2). To extract and
734 copy all symlinks correctly, you may need to call star twice as
735 star cannot copy files that appear in the archive later than a
736 symlink pointing to them.
737 -copysymlinks
739 This option allows to copy symlinked targets rather than creat‐
740 ing a symbolic link. It helps to extract tar files on systems
741 that do not implement links (e.g. OS/2). To extract and copy
742 all symlinks correctly, you may need to call star twice as star
743 cannot copy files that appear in the archive later than a sym‐
744 link pointing to them.
745 -cpio-statistics
747 Instead of the star flavor of the statistics, print statistics
748 in cpio flavor.
749 -ctime If used with the list command, this lists ctime rather than
751 mtime if the archive format is star, xstar, xustar, exustar, or
752 pax/epax.
753 If star is run as root and if -ctime is used with the extract
755 command and the same archive formats, this causes star to try to
756 restore even the ctime of a file by generating time storms. You
757 should not do this when in multi user mode because this may con‐
758 fuse programs like cron and the news system. Although star
759 tries to eliminate the accumulative effects of the time storm,
760 there is a tendency for the system clock to slow down a bit.
761 The clock typically lags about one millisecond per extracted
762 file. Use with care and check the system clock after using this
763 feature.
764 If used with the create command this changes the behavior of the
766 newer= option. Star, in this case compares the ctime of all
767 files to the mtime of the stamp file rather then comparing the
768 mtimes of both files.
769 -cumulative
771 A shorthand for -dump-cumulative. See -dump-cumulative for more
772 information.
773 -D Do not descend directories when in create mode. Normally, star
775 descends the whole tree if it encounters a directory in in its
776 file parameters. The option -D is in effect by default if the
777 list=file option is used. If you like star to descend directo‐
778 ries found in the list file, use the -dodesc option (see below).
779 -d Do not store/create directories. Old versions of tar such as
781 published with the seventh edition of UNIX are not able to deal
782 with directories in tar archives. If a tar archive is generated
783 without directories this avoids problems with tar implementa‐
784 tions found on SYSVr3 and earlier. If used during extract, no
785 intermediate missing directories are created.
786 -data-change-warn
788 If the size of a file changes while the file is being archived,
789 treat this condition as a warning only that does not cause a non
790 zero exit code. A warning message is still written if the con‐
791 dition is not otherwise ignored by another rule from an errctl=
792 option. The -data-change-warn option works as if the last error
793 control option was
794 errctl="WARN|GROW|SHRINK *"
796 The -e option or an ABORT entry in a condition set up by errctl=
798 has a higher precedence than the -data-change-warn option. This
799 option is ignored in extract or list mode.
800 -debug Print debug messages. Among other things, this gives debug mes‐
802 sages for header type recognition, tar type properties, EOF
803 recognition, opening of remote archives and fifo internals.
804 diffopts=optlst
806 Comma separated list of diffopts. Valid members in optlst are:
807 help Print a summary of possible members of the diffopts
809 list.
810 ! Invert the meaning of the following string. No comma
812 is needed after the exclamation mark.
813 not Invert the meaning of all members in the diffopts list
815 i.e. exclude all present options from an initially
816 complete set compare list. When using csh(1) you
817 might have problems to use ! due to its strange
818 parser. This is why the not alias exists.
819 perm Compare file permissions. With this option in effect,
821 star compares the low order 12 bits of the st_mode
822 field.
823 mode Same as perm.
825 symperm Compare permissions even in case the target file on
827 the local filesystem is a symbolic link. By default,
828 star will not compare the permission of symbolic links
829 as most systems cannot set the permission of symbolic
830 links. Star compares symperm only if perm is compared
831 also.
832 type Compare file type. Note that star cannot compare the
834 file type in case of a hard link.
835 nlink Compare link count on hardlinks. This only works if
837 the archive is in exustar format and contains star's
838 dump extensions.
839 uid Compare numerical user id of file.
841 gid Compare numerical group id of file.
843 uname Compare ASCII version of user id of file. The user
845 name is mapped via the file /etc/passwd.
846 gname Compare ASCII version of group id of file. The group
848 name is mapped via the file /etc/group.
849 id Shorthand for: uid,gid,uname,gname. Compare all
851 user/group related info of file. Note that this will
852 always find differences if the source and target sys‐
853 tem use different user or group mappings.
854 size Compare file size. Note that star cannot compare the
856 file size in case of a hard link.
857 data Compare content of file. If star already found that
859 the size of the files differ, it will not compare the
860 content anymore. If the size of the files differ,
861 star will always report different data.
862 cont Same as data.
864 rdev Compare major/minor numbers for device nodes.
866 hardlink Compare target of hardlinks.
868 symlink Compare target of symlinks. This evaluates the paths
870 returned by the readlink(2) call.
871 Two symlinks are considered equal, it they either have
873 a characterwise identical link-name, or if they either
874 both use an absolute path name or both use a relative
875 path name and the following is true: Both symlinks
876 point to the same file that must exist or both path‐
877 names look similar enough.
878 sympath Compare the target pathnames of symlinks. This charac‐
880 terwise compares the strings returned from the read‐
881 link(2) call.
882 sparse Compare if either both files are sparse or not. If
884 only one of both files is sparse, then a difference is
885 flagged. This only works with if the archive format
886 is star, xstar, xustar, exustar, or gnutar.
887 atime Compare access time of file. This only works with if
889 the archive format is star, xstar, xustar, exustar, or
890 pax/epax.
891 mtime Compare modification time of file.
893 ctime This only works with if the archive format is star,
895 xstar, xustar, exustar, or pax/epax.
896 lmtime Compare the modification time even in case the target
898 file on the local filesystem is a symbolic link. By
899 default, star will not compare the modification time
900 of symbolic links as most systems cannot set the modi‐
901 fication time of symbolic links. Star compares lmtime
902 only if mtime is compared also.
903 times Shorthand for: atime,mtime,ctime.
905 nsecs Check nanoseconds in all selected timestamps as well.
907 Note that the time resolution of various filesystem
909 differs. While modern filesystems like ZFS and
910 filesystems that introduced a sub-second resolution
911 recently, tend to support a nanosecond granularity,
912 filesystems like UFS that support a sub-second resolu‐
913 tion since the early 1990s tend to support only a
914 microsecond granularity. Since even in in 2018, the
915 POSIX.1-2008 feature pathconf(_PC_TIMESTAMP_RESOLU‐
916 TION) has not yet been implemented on any platform,
917 you may need to disable to compare nanoseconds in some
918 cases.
919 Star currently first tries to compare the timestamps
921 based on a nanosecond resolution and if that fails and
922 one timestamp seems to have a microsecond resolution,
923 the comparison is repeated with microsecond resolution
924 only.
925 dir Compare the content of directories. This only works
927 if the archive is in exustar format and contains
928 star's dump extensions. Together with increased ver‐
929 bose level (-vv) this will print a list of files that
930 are only in the archive and a list of files that are
931 only on the current filesystem.
932 xtimes Shorthand for: atime,mtime,ctime,lmtime.
934 acl Compare access control lists. This only works if the
936 archive is in exustar format and has been created with
937 star's -acl option. You need to specify the -acl
938 option in addition when running the diff.
939 xattr Compare extended file attributes. This only works if
941 the archive is in exustar format and has been created
942 with star's -xattr option. You need to specify the
943 -xattr option in addition when running the diff.
944 fflags Compare extended file flags. This only works if the
946 archive is in exustar format and has been created with
947 star's -xfflags option. You need to specify the
948 -xfflags option in addition when running the diff.
949 If optlst starts with a ! the meaning of all members in optlst
951 is inverted as with the not optlist member. In this case, star
952 starts with a complete list that includes atime and lmtime.
953 Reasonable diff options to use when comparing against a copy of
954 a directory tree are diffopts=!atime,ctime,lmtime.
955 If diffopts are not specified, star compares everything but the
957 access time of the files and the modification time of symbolic
958 links.
959 dir-group=group
961 If star extracts archives as root, this option allows to control
962 the group id of intermediate directories created by star.
963 dir-owner=user
965 If star extracts archives as root, this option allows to control
966 the owner of intermediate directories created by
967 -dirmode
969 If in create mode (i.e. when storing files to archive), star
970 stores directories past the corresponding files. This guarantees
971 that even old tar implementations without a directory cache will
972 be able to restore the correct times of directories. The option
973 -dirmode should only be used if the archive needs to be
974 extracted by an old tar implementation. If star is used to
975 extract an archive that has been created with -dirmode the
976 directories will not get an old time stamp unless the option -U
977 is used while extracting the archive.
978 -do-fsync
980 Tell star to call fsync(2) for every file when in extract mode.
981 This enables star to check whether a file could be successfully
982 extracted. See -no-fsync for more information.
983 -dodesc
985 Force star to descend directories found in a list=file. See
986 also the -D option above. The -dodesc option only works in cre‐
987 ate mode.
988 -dump Allows to create archives with the same number of attributes as
990 an archive that has been created with the level= option but
991 without the restrictions that apply to a true dump.
992 The resultant archive may be seen as a level-less dump which
994 includes similar attributes as a level 0 dump but may span more
995 than a single file system and does not need to use a -C option.
996 It has been originally introduced to make it easier to implement
997 a star version that supports true incremental dumps, but it is
998 kept as it gives additional benefits. Star currently sets the
999 archive type to exustar and, in addition archives more inode
1000 meta data inside POSIX.1-2001 extended headers. See also level=
1001 option and the section INCREMENTAL BACKUPS for more information
1002 on true incremental dumps.
1003 -dump-cumulative
1005 instructs star to perform incremental dumps relatively to the
1006 last incremental dump of the same level. Incremental dumps with
1007 a level higher than 0 are normally done relatively to the con‐
1008 tent of a previous dump with lower level. If incremental dumps
1009 and restores are going to be used to synchronize filesystem con‐
1010 tent, every successive incremental dump will increase in size if
1011 -dump-cumulative is not used. See section SYNCHRONIZING
1012 FILESYSTEMS for more information.
1013 dumpdate=name
1016 Tells star to use the mtime of the time stamp file name instead
1017 of using the start time of star. This is needed when star is
1018 run on file system snapshots. If star would use the the it's
1019 own start time with snapshots, all files that have been modified
1020 between the setup of the snapshot and the start of star would be
1021 missing on the backup.
1022 A solution is to create the time stamp file, then to create the
1024 snapshot and later use the option dumpdate=name.
1025 -dumpmeta
1027 changes the behavior of star in incremental dump mode. If
1028 -dumpmeta is used and only the inode change time (st_ctime) of a
1029 file has been updated since the last incremental dump, star will
1030 archive only the meta data of the file (e.g. uid, permissions,
1031 ...) but not the file content. Using -dumpmeta will result in
1032 smaller incremental dumps, but files that have been created
1033 between two incrementals and set to an old date in st_mtime
1034 (e.g. as a result from a tar extract) will not be archived with
1035 full content. Using -dumpmeta thus may result in incomplete
1036 incremental dumps, use with extreme care.
1037 -e Exit immediately with exit status -3 (253) if any unexpected
1039 error occurs. The -e option works as if the last error control
1040 option was
1041 errctl="ABORT|ALL|DIFF *"
1043 This allows to use the errctl= option together with the -e
1045 option and thus to ignore some error conditions while aborting
1046 on all other conditions.
1047 errctl= name
1049 errctl= error control spec
1050 Add the content from file name to the error control definitions
1051 or add error control spec to the error control definitions.
1052 More than one error control file and more than one error control
1053 spec as well as a mixture of both forms is possible.
1054 The reason for using error control is to make star quiet about
1056 error conditions that are known to be irrelevant on the quality
1057 of the archive or restore run or to tell star to abort on cer‐
1058 tain error conditions instead of trying to continue with the ar‐
1059 chive.
1060 A typical reason to use error control is to suppress warnings
1062 about growing log files while doing a backup on a live file sys‐
1063 tem. Another typical reason to use error control is to tell
1064 star to abort if e.g. a file could not be archived instead of
1065 continuing to archive other files from a list.
1066 The error control file contains a set of lines, each starting
1068 with a list of error conditions to be ignored followed by white
1069 space followed by a file name pattern (see match(1) or pat‐
1070 match(3) for more information). The error control spec uses the
1071 same syntax as a single line from the error control file. If
1072 the file name pattern needs to start with white space, use a
1073 backslash to escape the start of the file name. It is not possi‐
1074 ble to have new line characters in the file name pattern. When‐
1075 ever an error situation is encountered, star checks the lines in
1076 the error control file starting from the top. If the current
1077 error condition is listed on a line in the error control file,
1078 then star checks whether the pattern on the rest of the line
1079 matches the current file name. If this is the case, star uses
1080 the current error control specification to control the current
1081 error condition.
1082 The list of error conditions to be handled may use one or more
1084 (in this case separated by a '|' character) identifiers from the
1085 list below:
1086 ABORT If this meta condition is included in an error con‐
1088 dition, star aborts (exits) as soon as possible
1089 after this error condition has been seen instead of
1090 making star quiet about the condition. This error
1091 condition flag may only be used together with at
1092 leat another error condition or a list of error con‐
1093 ditions (separated by a '|' character).
1094 WARN If this meta condition is included in an error con‐
1096 dition, star prints the warning about the error con‐
1097 dition but the error condition does not affect the
1098 exit code of star and the error statistics (which is
1099 printed to the end) does not include the related
1100 errors. This error condition flag may only be used
1101 together with at another error condition or a list
1102 of error conditions (separated by a '|' character).
1103 The WARN meta condition has a lower precedence than
1104 ABORT.
1105 DIFF Suppress output in case that star -diff did
1107 encounter any differences.
1108 ALL This is a shortcut for all error conditions below.
1110 STAT Suppress warnings that star could not stat(2) a
1112 file.
1113 GETACL Suppress warnings about files on which star had
1115 problems to retrieve the ACL information.
1116 OPEN Suppress warnings about files that could not be
1118 opened.
1119 READ Suppress warnings about read errors on files.
1121 WRITE Suppress warnings about write errors on files.
1123 READLINK Suppress warnings about readlink(2) errors on sym‐
1125 bolic links.
1126 GROW Suppress warnings about files that did grow while
1128 they have been archived.
1129 SHRINK Suppress warnings about files that did shrink while
1131 they have been archived.
1132 MISSLINK Suppress warnings about files for which star was
1134 unable to archive all hard links.
1135 NAMETOOLONG Suppress warnings about files that could not be
1137 archived because the name of the file is too long
1138 for the archive format.
1139 FILETOOBIG Suppress warnings about files that could not be
1141 archived because the size of the file is too big for
1142 the archive format.
1143 SPECIALFILE Suppress warnings about files that could not be
1145 archived because the file type is not supported by
1146 the archive format.
1147 GETXATTR Suppress warnings about files on that star could not
1149 retrieve the extended file attribute information.
1150 CHDIR Suppress warnings about chdir(2) errors.
1152 ICONV Suppress warnings about iconv(3) errors. These
1154 error happen, when text is converted from or to
1155 POSIX.1-2001 extended tar headers.
1156 ID Suppress warnings about uid/gid range errors. These
1158 errors happen when the archive format does not sup‐
1159 port the actual value.
1160 SETTIME Suppress warnings about files on that star could not
1162 set the time information during extraction.
1163 SETMODE Suppress warnings about files on that star could not
1165 set the access modes during extraction.
1166 SECURITY Suppress warnings about files that have been skipped
1168 on extraction because they have been considered to
1169 be a security risk. This currently applies to all
1170 files that have a '/../' sequence inside when -..
1171 has not been specified.
1172 LSECURITY Suppress warnings about links that have been skipped
1174 on extraction because they have been considered to
1175 be a security risk. This currently applies to all
1176 link target names that start with '/' or have a
1177 '/../' sequence inside when -no-secure-links has not
1178 been specified. In this case, star tries to match
1179 the link name against the pattern in the error con‐
1180 trol file.
1181 SAMEFILE Suppress warnings about links that have been skipped
1183 on extraction because source and target of the link
1184 are pointing to the same file. If star would not
1185 skip these files, it would end up with removing the
1186 file completely. In this case, star tries to match
1187 the link name against the pattern in the error con‐
1188 trol file.
1189 BADACL Suppress warnings about access control list conver‐
1191 sion problems.
1192 SETACL Suppress warnings about files on that star could not
1194 set the ACL information during extraction.
1195 SETXATTR Suppress warnings about files on that star could not
1197 set the extended file attribute information during
1198 extraction.
1199 If a specific error condition is ignored, then the error condition is
1201 not only handled in a silent way but also excluded from the error sta‐
1202 tistics that are printed at the end of the star run.
1203 Be very careful when using error control as you may ignore any error
1205 condition. If you ignore the wrong error conditions, you may not be
1206 able to see real problems anymore.
1207 -exclude-from name
1209 Exclude from named file, this is an alias for the -X option. See
1210 -X option for more information.
1211 -F,-FF ...
1213 Fast and simple exclude option for create mode. With one -F
1214 argument, star ignores all directories called SCCS and RCS.
1215 With two -F arguments, star in addition ignores all files called
1216 core errs a.out all files ending with .o. OBJ/. With three -F
1217 arguments, star ignores all sub trees starting from a directory
1218 that includes a file .mirror or .exclude and all object files
1219 and files called core errs a.out all files ending with .o. With
1220 four -F arguments, star ignores all sub trees starting from a
1221 directory that includes a file .mirror or .exclude the latter
1222 files are excluded too as well as and all object files and files
1223 called core errs a.out all files ending with .o. With five -F
1224 arguments, star in addition again excludes all directories
1225 called SCCS and RCS.
1226 f=tarfilename
1228 Use tarfilename as the name for the tar archive. See option
1229 file=tarfilename.
1230 -fifo Use a fifo to optimize data flow from/to tarfile. This option
1232 is in effect by default (it may be changed at compile time).
1233 The default fifo size is 8 MBytes on all platforms except Linux
1234 versions that do not support mmap() (4 MB because kernels before
1235 2.4 did not handle big shared memory areas) and Sun/mc68000 (1
1236 MB). This will star make even work on a tiny machine like a Sun
1237 3/50. The fifo size may be modified with the fs= option. A rule
1238 of dumb for the fifo size is to use more than the buffer size of
1239 the tape drive and less then half of the real memory of the
1240 machine. A good choice would be to use a fifo size between 8
1241 and 256 MB. This may increase backup speed up to 5% compared to
1242 the speed achieved with the default fifo size. Note that with a
1243 DLT drive from y2000 that gives 12MB/s transfer rate, a fifo of
1244 256 MB size will keep the tape at least streaming in units of 20
1245 seconds.
1246 Future LTO tape drives are expected to implement transfer rates
1248 of aprox. 3GB/s and need a much larger fifo size to keep the
1249 tape streaming.
1250 All options that start with the -f sequence are sensitive to
1252 typo problems, see BUGS section for more information.
1253 -fifostats
1255 Print fifo statistics at the end of a star run when the fifo has
1256 been in effect. All options that start with the -f sequence are
1257 sensitive to typo problems, see BUGS section for more informa‐
1258 tion.
1259 file=tarfilename, f=tarfilename
1261 Use tarfilename as the name for the tar archive. Currently up to
1262 100 file= options are possible. Specifying more then one file=
1263 option make sense in multi volume mode. In this case star will
1264 use the next name in the list every time a media change is
1265 needed. To make star behave consistent with the single file
1266 case, star loops over the list of known archive files. Note
1267 that if star is installed suid root and the first tarfile is a
1268 remote archive, only the connection to this archive will be cre‐
1269 ated with root privileges. After this connection has been
1270 established as root, star switches back to the id of the caller.
1271 If any of the other archives in the list is located on a differ‐
1272 ent host, star will not be able to open this archive later on,
1273 unless run by root.
1274 Star normally uses stdin/stdout for the tar archive because the
1276 most common way to use star is in conjunction with pipes. If
1277 star is installed suid root or if it has been called by root,
1278 tarfilename may be in remote syntax: user@host:filename as in
1279 rcp(1) even if invoked by non root users. See SUID NOTES for
1280 more information.
1281 To make a file local although it includes a colon (:), the file‐
1283 name must start with: '/', './' or '../'
1284 Note that if star talks to an old rmt remote tape server that
1286 does not support symbolic open modes, it does not open a remote
1287 tape with the O_CREAT open flag because this would be extremely
1288 dangerous. If the rmt server on the other side is the rmt
1289 server that comes with star or the GNU rmt server, star may use
1290 the symbolic mode for the open flags. Only the symbolic open
1291 modes allow to send all possible open modes in a portable way to
1292 remote tape servers.
1293 It is recommended to use the rmt server that comes with star.
1295 It is the only rmt server that gives platform independent com‐
1296 patibility with BSD, Sun and GNU rmt clients and it includes
1297 security features that may be set up in /etc/default/rmt. All
1298 options that start with the -f sequence are sensitive to typo
1299 problems, see BUGS section for more information.
1300 See -rsh option on how to set up a different protocol for the
1302 connection to the remote tape server.
1303 See ENVIRONMENT section for information on how to use ssh(1) to
1305 create a remote tape server connection.
1306 Note that if file=- has been specified, it is no longer possible
1308 to use the -find -exec primary.
1309 -find This option acts a separator. If it is used, all star options
1311 must be to the left of the -find option. To the right of the
1312 -find option, star accepts the find command line syntax only.
1313 The find expression acts as a filter between the source of file
1315 names and the consumer, which may either be the archiving engine
1316 or list/extract engine. If the find expression evaluated as
1317 TRUE, then the related file is selected for processing, other‐
1318 wise it is omited.
1319 In order to make the evaluation of the find expression more con‐
1321 venient, star implements additional find primaries that have
1322 side effects on the file meta data. Star implements the follow‐
1323 ing additional find primaries:
1324 -chatime timespec
1326 The primary always evaluates as true; it modifies the
1327 time of last access of a file in struct stat. See
1328 sfind(1) for a description of timespec.
1329 -chctime timespec
1331 The primary always evaluates as true; it modifies the
1332 time of last status change of a file in struct stat. See
1333 sfind(1) for a description of timespec.
1334 -chmtime timespec
1336 The primary always evaluates as true; it modifies the
1337 time of last modification of a file in struct stat. See
1338 sfind(1) for a description of timespec.
1339 -chgrp gname
1341 The primary always evaluates as true; it sets the group
1342 of the file to gname.
1343 -chmod mode
1345 The primary always evaluates as true; it sets the permis‐
1346 sions of the file to mode. Octal and symbolic permis‐
1347 sions are accepted for mode as with chmod(1).
1348 -chown uname
1350 The primary always evaluates as true; it sets the owner
1351 of the file to uname.
1352 -false The primary always evaluates as false; it allows to make
1354 the result of the full expression different from the
1355 result of a part of the expression.
1356 -true The primary always evaluates as true; it allows to make
1358 the result of the full expression different from the
1359 result of a part of the expression.
1360 The command line:
1362 star -c f=o.tar -find . ( -type d -ls -o false ) -o ! -type d
1364 lists all directories and archives all non-directories to the
1366 archive o.tar.
1367 The command line:
1369 star -c f=o.tar -find . ( -type d -chown root -o true )
1371 archives all directories so they appear to be owned by root in
1373 the archive, all non-directories are archived as they are in the
1374 file system.
1375 Note that the -ls, -exec and the -ok primary cannot be used if
1377 stdin or stdout has been redirected by the list=- of by the
1378 file=- options.
1379 -force_hole
1381 obsoleted by -force-hole
1382 -force-hole
1384 Try to extract all files with holes. This even works with files
1385 that are created without the -sparse option. Star, in this case
1386 examines the content of the files in the archive and replaces
1387 writes to parts containing binary zeroes with seeks.
1388 If used together with the -sparse option in create mode, star
1390 assumes all files to be sparse and archives files with blocks of
1391 nulls as sparse files.
1392 This option should be used with extreme care because you some‐
1394 times get in trouble when files get unattended holes. All
1395 options that start with the -f sequence are sensitive to typo
1396 problems, see BUGS section for more information.
1397 -force_remove
1399 obsoleted by -force-remove
1400 -force-remove
1402 Force to remove non writable files on extraction. By default,
1403 star will not overwrite files that are read only. If this
1404 option is in effect, star will silently remove these files to
1405 allow the extraction of a file. All options that start with the
1406 -f sequence are sensitive to typo problems, see BUGS section for
1407 more information.
1408 -force-restore
1410 Force an incremental restore even if there is a dump level mis‐
1411 match or a reference date mismatch. See -wtardumps, level= and
1412 sections INCREMENTAL BACKUPS and INCREMENTAL RESTORES for more
1413 information.
1414 -freeze
1416 run the input or output through a freeze pipe - see option -z
1417 below.
1418 fs=# Set fifo size to #. See bs= for the possible syntax.
1420 The default size of the fifo is 1 Mbyte on Sun mc68000 systems,
1422 4 Mbytes on non mmap() aware Linux systems and 8 Mbytes on all
1423 other systems. See -fifo option for hints on using the right
1424 fifo size.
1425 fs-name=mount_point
1428 Use mount_point when recording information in /etc/tardumps and
1429 when comparing against information in /etc/tardumps for incre‐
1430 mental backups. This makes sense when backups are made using
1431 file system snapshots and allows /etc/tardumps and the archive
1432 to contain the real name of the file system instead of the tem‐
1433 porary mount point that is used for the snapshot device.
1434 H=headertype
1437 See artype=headertype option. Note that POSIX.1-2001 defines an
1438 option -H that follows symbolic links that have been encountered
1439 on the command line. For this reason, the old star option
1440 H=headertype option may go away in the future even though this
1441 option has been in use by cpio since 1989.
1442 -h, -L Follow symbolic links as if they were files. Normally star will
1444 not follow symbolic links but stores their values in tarfile.
1445 See also the -L option.
1446 -hardlinks
1448 In extract mode, this option tells star to try to create a
1449 hardlink whenever a symlink is encountered in the archive. In
1450 create mode, this option tells star to try to archive a hardlink
1451 whenever a symlink is encountered in the file system.
1452 -hpdev Allow 24 bits for the minor device number using 8 octal digits.
1454 Note that although it allows to create tar archives that can be
1455 read with HP-UX tar, this creates tar archives which violate
1456 POSIX.1-1988. This option is only needed if you like to use a
1457 POSIX.1-1988 based archive format that does not include exten‐
1458 sions. If you use the xstar format, star will use a base 256
1459 extension that allows bigger major/minor numbers by default, if
1460 you use the xustar or the exustar format there is no limitation
1461 at all as these formats use POSIX.1-2001 extended headers to ar‐
1462 chive the major/minor numbers by default.
1463 -i Ignore checksum errors on tar headers. If this option is speci‐
1465 fied, star will not exit if a header with a bad checksum is
1466 found but search for the next valid header.
1467 -install
1469 Carefully replace existing files when extracting files. This is
1470 done similar to install(1) by first extracting the files into a
1471 temporary name and renaming the file to the final name after the
1472 extraction of that file was successful.
1473 As star by default does not remove non-empty directories, an
1475 install that needs to remove existing non-empty directories may
1476 also need the options -force-remove and -remove-recursive.
1477 -j run the input or output through a bzip2 pipe - see option -z -Z
1479 and -bz below. As the -bz the -j the -Z and the -z option are
1480 non standard, it makes sense to omit the -bz the -j the -Z and
1481 the -z options inside shell scripts if you are going to extract
1482 a compressed archive that is located inside a plain file as star
1483 will auto detect compression and choose the right decompression
1484 option to extract.
1485 -keep-nonempty-dirs
1487 Do not complain about trying to remove nonempty directories in
1488 case that -remove-recursive has not been specified.
1489 -keep_old_files
1491 obsoleted by -keep-old-files
1492 -keep-old-files, -k
1494 Keep existing files rather than restoring them from tarfile.
1495 This saves files from being clobbered even if tarfile contains a
1496 more recent version of the corresponding file.
1497 See SECURITY NOTES for more information.
1499 -L, -h Follow symbolic links as if they were files. Normally star will
1501 not follow symbolic links but stores their values in tarfile.
1502 See also the -h option.
1503 -l Do not print a warning message if not all links to hard linked
1505 files could be dumped. This option is evaluated in the opposite
1506 way to historic tar(1) implementations and to POSIX.1. POSIX.1
1507 requests that by default no warning messages will be printed and
1508 -l will enable warning messages when not all links could be
1509 archived.
1510 level=dumplevel
1512 Set level for incremental dumps. This option is used to switch
1513 star into true incremental dump mode. The dumplevel may be in
1514 the range between 0..99.
1515 In true incremental dump mode, a -C option which is followed by
1517 the name a mount point and a dot ('.') as starting directory
1518 name is required. Only a single file system may be handled at a
1519 time. If the directory following the -C option is not referring
1520 to a root directory of a file system, the dump is called a par‐
1521 tial dump. If the directory following the -C option is refer‐
1522 ring to a root directory of a file system and no other restric‐
1523 tions apply that exclude certain files from the dump, the dump
1524 is called a full dump.
1525 By default, the tardumps database is not written. See also the
1527 tardumps=name and -wtardumps options and the section INCREMENTAL
1528 BACKUPS for more information.
1529 -link-data
1531 In create mode, include the data for files even if these files
1532 are hard links. This feature in create mode is currently only
1533 available for the exustar archive format and only in case
1534 -sparse has not been specified.
1535 In extract mode, allow star to deal with data in hard linked
1537 files even if the standard would not allow this for the used ar‐
1538 chive format.
1539 -link-dirs
1541 When in create mode, try to find hard linked directories. Using
1542 -link-dirs will force star to keep track of all directories that
1543 will go into the archive and thus causes a lot more memory to be
1544 allocated than in the default case.
1545 If you like to extract a cpio archive that contains hard linked
1547 directories, you also need to specify -link-dirs in extract or
1548 diff mode. This is needed because many cpio implementations
1549 create buggy archives with respect to hard links. If star would
1550 look for hard linked directories in all cases, it would detect
1551 many pseudo hard links to directories. Use -link-dirs with care
1552 if you extract cpio archives.
1553 Note that not all filesystem allow to create hard links to
1555 directories. Also note that even though a non-root user is able
1556 detect and archive hard linked directories, all known operating
1557 systems require the extraction to be done as root in order to be
1558 able to create or remove hard links to directories. For this
1559 reason its only recommended to use this option when doing accu‐
1560 rate backups and when hard links to directories are expected.
1561 When the option -link-dirs is not used and hard links to direc‐
1563 tories are present, the appendant sub-tree will appear more than
1564 once on the archive and star will print Linkcount below zero
1565 warnings for non directory hard links inside the sub-tree.
1566 list=filename
1568 Read filenames for store/create/list/diff command from filename.
1569 The file filename must contain a list of path names, each on a
1570 separate line. This option implies the -D option. To force
1571 star to descend directories, use the -dodesc option in this
1572 case. See also the -X option.
1573 Note that if list=- has been specified, it is no longer possible
1575 to use the -find -exec primary.
1576 -lowmem
1578 Try to run with reduced memory requirements. This causes star
1579 to default to 1 MB of FIFO memory. Instead of allocating memory
1580 to hold the directory content and reading the directory at once,
1581 star reads the directory name by name. This may cause star to
1582 close the directory if it rans out of file descriptors because
1583 of deeply nested directories. If a directory then does not sup‐
1584 port telldir(3)/seekdir(3), star will fail.
1585 -lzip run the input or output through a lzip pipe - see option -z
1587 below.
1588 -lzma run the input or output through a lzma pipe - see option -z
1590 below.
1591 -lzo run the input or output through a lzop pipe - see option -z
1593 below.
1594 -M, -xdev
1596 Do not descend mount points. This is useful when doing backups
1597 of complete file systems. See NOTES for more information.
1598 -m Do not restore access and modification time. (Access time is
1600 only available if star is reading star, xstar, xustar, exustar,
1601 or pax/epax archives). If star extracts other archive types, the
1602 -m flag only refers to the modification time.
1603 -match-tree
1606 If in create mode a pattern does not match a directory, and
1607 -match-tree has been specified, the whole directory tree is
1608 excluded from the archive and from further directory scans. By
1609 default, star excludes the directory but still recursively scans
1610 the content of this directory as complex patterns could allow
1611 files inside the directory tree to match. Using -match-tree
1612 allows to efficiently exclude whole trees from scanning. This
1613 helps to avoid scannings directory trees that are on remote file
1614 systems or contain excessive bad blocks.
1615 maxsize=#
1617 Do not store files in tarfile if they are bigger than #. See
1618 bs= for the possible syntax. By default, the number is multi‐
1619 plied by 1024, so the value counts in units of kBytes. If the
1620 size specifier ends with a valid multiplication character (e.g
1621 '.' for bytes or 'M' for MB) the specified size is used as spec‐
1622 ified and not multiplied by 1024. See bs= option for all possi‐
1623 ble multipliers.
1624 -meta In create mode, -meta causes star to archive all meta data of
1626 the file (e.g. uid, permissions, ...) but not the file content.
1627 In extract mode, it causes star to restore all meta data but not
1628 the file content. In addition, in extract mode no plain file,
1629 special file or directory will be created. Meta files are
1630 needed to support incremental backups.
1631 Warning: Do not try to extract star archives containing meta
1633 files using other tar implementations if they are not aware of
1634 the meta file extensions of star. Star tries to force all tar
1635 implementations that are not standard compliant to abort. Star
1636 also tries to make all non POSIX.1-2001 compliant tar implemen‐
1637 tations unable to find a valid filename. However when other
1638 POSIX.1-2001 aware tar implementations come up and don't know
1639 about meta files, they will destroy files on disk.
1640 The problems result from the only current fallback in the POSIX
1642 standard that tells tar implementations to treat all unknown
1643 file types as if they were plain files. As meta files are needed
1644 for incremental backups, I am looking for people and companies
1645 who like to support me to be able to add the meta file concept
1646 to the POSIX.1-2005 standard.
1647 -modebits
1649 This options allows you to create tar archives that include more
1650 than 12 bits from st_mode. Note this create tar archives that
1651 violate POSIX but some tar implementations insist in reading
1652 such nonstandard archives.
1653 -multivol
1655 Switch to multi volume mode. In multi volume mode, there will
1656 be no logical EOF marker written to the end of a single tape. If
1657 -multivol is used in read mode, a hard EOF on input (if not pre‐
1658 ceded by a logical EOF) triggers a medium change operation.
1659 Specifying -multivol tells star to split files across volumes if
1661 needed. This way, a virtual archive is created that spans more
1662 than one medium. Multi volume mode is needed whenever it is not
1663 possible to split the archiving or extracting into several logi‐
1664 cally independent tasks. This is true for e.g. incremental
1665 dump/restore operations where inode numbers need to be traced
1666 for the whole task.
1667 When tsize=# has been specified, but star is not in multi volume
1669 mode, files cannot be split across volumes.
1670 When -multivol has been specified in create mode together with
1672 tsize=# then a media change is initiated exactly after an amount
1673 of tsize data has been written. When -multivol has been speci‐
1674 fied in create mode and tsize=# has not been specified, then the
1675 medium change is triggered by a EOT condition from writing the
1676 medium. This allows to use media where the size cannot be known
1677 in advance (e.g. tapes with build in compression); it does not
1678 work if the EOT condition is not returned in sync with the
1679 related write operation. For this reason, it is expected that
1680 data buffering inside a device driver cannot be used.
1681 Depending on the selected archive format, star writes a volume
1683 header at the beginning of a new medium. This medium header
1684 allows to verify the correct volume after a change during read
1685 back. It is recommended to use the exustar format for best
1686 results. In create mode, -multivol is only supported for ar‐
1687 chives types that allow to write reliable multi volume header
1688 information.
1689 See tsize=# option for more information.
1691 Note that -multivol is an interactive option that prevents star
1693 from being used in non-interactive environments. If you like to
1694 use it in a non-interactive environment, you need to specify
1695 new-volume-script=script in addition in order to automate the
1696 media change procedure.
1697 newer=filename
1699 Do not store files to tarfile if their modification time is not
1700 newer than the modification time of filename. See -ctime option
1701 for changing this behavior.
1702 -newest
1704 In conjunction with the list command this lists you only the
1705 newest file in tarfile.
1706 -newest_file
1708 obsoleted by -newest-file
1709 -newest-file
1711 In conjunction with the list command this lists you only the
1712 newest regular file in tarfile.
1713 new-volume-script=script
1715 Call script at end of each tape if in multi volume mode. If
1716 this option is not in effect, star will ask the user to confirm
1717 the volume change. The script is called with two parameters.
1718 The first parameter is the next volume number and the second
1719 parameter is the next archive file name.
1720 -nodump
1722 If this option is set, star will not dump files that have the
1723 nodump flag set. Note that this currently only works on BSD-4.4
1724 derivates and on Linux. On Linux, using this option will cause
1725 a performance degradation (the system time increases by 10%)
1726 because of the unlucky kernel interface that requires a separate
1727 open and ioctl.
1728 -no-dirslash
1730 Do not add a slash to the end of directory names if writing to
1731 an archive. Historic tar archive formats did only allow to
1732 specify plain files and hard links. Around 1980, BSD added a
1733 feature to specify a directory on tape by adding a slash to the
1734 end of the name. POSIX.1-1988 defined the first official tar ar‐
1735 chive format that had a clean method to specify the type of a
1736 directory. As old tar formats need the slash to recognize a
1737 directory, -no-dirslash may not be used if archives should be
1738 compatible with the old tar format.
1739 -no_fifo
1741 obsoleted by -no-fifo
1742 -no-fifo
1744 Don't use a fifo to optimize data flow from/to tarfile. Cur‐
1745 rently the -fifo option is used as default. (This may be changed
1746 at compile time.)
1747 -no-fsync
1749 Do not call fsync(2) for each file that has been extracted from
1750 the archive. Using -no-fsync may speed up extraction on operat‐
1751 ing systems with slow file I/O (such as Linux with any filesys‐
1752 tem or platforms with Copy on Write filesystems like ZFS), but
1753 includes the risk that star may not be able to detect extraction
1754 problems that occur after the call to close(2). A typical cause
1755 for such problems is a NFS file system that fills up before the
1756 buffer cache is synced or a write error that occurs while the
1757 buffer cache is synced. There may be other reasons. Use with
1758 extreme care.
1759 See also -do-fsync and STAR_FSYNC in ENVIRONMENT and
1761 /etc/default/star for ways to configue the default behavior.
1762 -nochown, -o
1764 Do not restore owner and group of files. This may be used if
1765 super user privileges are needed to overwrite existing files but
1766 the local ownership of the existing files should not change.
1767 -no-p Do not restore files and directories to their original permis‐
1769 sions. This option is needed only if star is called by the
1770 super user and the permissions should not be restored from the
1771 archive. See also the -p option. The -p options has a higher
1772 precedence than the -no-p option.
1773 -no_statistics
1775 obsoleted by -no-statistics
1776 -no-statistics
1778 Do not print statistic messages at the end of a star run.
1779 -no-secure-links
1781 Extract hard links or symbolic links even if the target of the
1782 link starts with a slash (/) or if /../ is contained in the link
1783 target. See the description of the option -secure-links below.
1784 -no-xheader
1786 Do not create or extract POSIX.1-2001 extended headers. This
1787 option may be used if you like to read an archive with broken
1788 extended headers.
1789 -not, -V
1791 Invert the meaning of the pattern list. i.e. use those files
1792 which do not match any of the pattern. Note that this option
1793 only applies to patterns that have been specified via the pat‐
1794 tern=pattern or pat=pattern option. Patterns specified as file
1795 type arguments will not be affected.
1796 -notarg, -pax-c
1798 Match all file or archive members except those specified by the
1799 pattern or file operands.
1800 -nowarn
1802 Do not print warning messages. This sometimes is useful to make
1803 the output more readable (e.g. when hundreds of files that are
1804 going to be extracted are not newer in the archive then on the
1805 filesystem).
1806 -numeric
1808 Use the numeric user/group fields in the listing rather than the
1809 default. The default allows to list the ASCII version of
1810 user/group of the file and to extract the owners of the files
1811 based on numeric values rather than the names. In create mode,
1812 no user/groups names are put on the archive. The -numeric
1813 option also applies when ACLs are going to be archived or
1814 extracted.
1815 -O Be compatible to old versions of tar. If star is invoked with
1817 this option, star generates archives which are fully compatible
1818 with old UNIX tar archives. If in extract mode, star ignores any
1819 additional info in the headers. This implies neither that ar‐
1820 chives generated with this option are binary equal with archives
1821 generated by old tar versions nor that star is trying to compre‐
1822 hend all bugs that are found in old tar versions. The bug in
1823 old tar versions that cause a reversal of a space and a NULL
1824 byte in the checksum field is not repeated. If you want to have
1825 signed checksums you have to specify the -signed-checksum option
1826 too. If you want directories not to be archived in order to be
1827 compatible to very old historic tar archives, you need to spec‐
1828 ify the -d option too.
1829 This option is superseeded by the H=headertype option.
1831 -o, -nochown
1833 Do not restore owner and group of files. This may be used if
1834 super user privileges are needed to overwrite existing files but
1835 the local ownership of the existing files should not change.
1836 -onull, -nullout
1838 Do not actually write to the archive but compute and add the
1839 sizes. This is useful when trying to figure out if a tape may
1840 hold the current backup. Please only use the -onull option as
1841 it is a similar option as used by the sdd(1) command.
1842 -P Allow star to write a partial record as the last record. Nor‐
1844 mally, star writes each record with the same size. This option
1845 is useful on unblocked tapes i.e. cartridge tapes like QIC tapes
1846 as well as with archives that are located in files. If you use
1847 this option on local files, the size of the archive will be
1848 smaller. If you use this option on cartridge tapes, is makes
1849 sure that later - in extract mode - star will read up to the end
1850 of file marker on the tape and the next call to star will read
1851 from the next archive on the same tape.
1852 -p Restore files and directories to their original permissions.
1854 Without this option, they are created using the permissions in
1855 the archive and the present umask(2). If star is called by the
1856 super user, star behaves as if it has been called with the -p
1857 option. See also -no-p option. If the archive contains Access
1858 Control Lists (ACLs) in POSIX.1-2001 extended headers, star will
1859 restore the access control lists from the archive for files if
1860 the -acl option is specified. If the option -acl has not been
1861 specified, ACLs are not restored at all.
1862 -partial
1864 Force an incremental restore even if the incremental dump is
1865 only a partial dump. See -wtardumps, level= and sections INCRE‐
1866 MENTAL BACKUPS and INCREMENTAL RESTORES for more information.
1867 pattern=pattern, pat=pattern
1869 Set matching pattern to pattern. A maximum of 100 pattern=pat
1870 options may be specified. As each pattern is unlimited in
1871 length, this is no real limitation. If more than one pattern is
1872 specified, a file matches if any of the specified pattern
1873 matches. Patterns may be used in create mode to select or
1874 exclude files from the list of file type arguments or the files
1875 located in a sub tree of a file type argument directory. By
1876 default, star scans the whole directory tree underneath a direc‐
1877 tory that is in the argument list. This may be modified by using
1878 the -match-tree option. In extract or list mode, all file type
1879 arguments are interpreted to be select pattern and all option
1880 type patterns may be either select or exclude patterns depending
1881 on the presence or absence of the -not option. If you use file
1882 type select patterns, they work exactly like the method used by
1883 other (non pattern aware) tar(1) implementations. File type
1884 select patterns do not offer pattern matching but allow to
1885 restore subtrees. To extract a complete sub tree from the
1886 directory dir with star using the pattern= option, use pattern=
1887 dir/\* if you like to select a subtree by using the historic
1888 method, use dir as file type argument. If you only like to
1889 extract the directory itself, use dir/ as file type argument.
1890 See manual page for match(1) for more details of the pattern
1891 matcher. All patterns are selection patterns by default. To
1892 make them exclude patterns, use the -not or the -V option.
1893 pkglist=file
1895 This is (for now) an internal interface for the Schily Source
1896 Package System (sps). It only works in create mode and behaves
1897 similar to the list= option, but it allows to overwrite the per‐
1898 missions, the uid and gid values from the content of the
1899 pkglist= file. Each line from the pkglist= file contains a file
1900 name followed by the permission, a user name and a group name.
1901 The permission is an octal character string. Each value that is
1902 not used to overwrite the original values may be replaced by a
1903 '?'. The fields are separated by spaces, so the pkglist= option
1904 does not allow files that contain newline or space characters.
1905 -pax-c, -notarg
1907 Match all file or archive members except those specified by the
1908 pattern or file operands.
1909 -pax-H Follow symbolic links that have been encountered on the command
1911 line. If the referenced file does not exist, the file informa‐
1912 tion and type will be for the link itself. If the link is ref‐
1913 erencing a file type that cannot be archived with the current
1914 archive format, the file information and type will be for the
1915 link itself.
1916 -pax-i Do interactive renaming in a way that has been defined for POSIX
1918 pax. Star will print the original filename and prompt for a
1919 reply. If you type just RETURN, than the file is skipped. If
1920 you type '.', then the original file name is retained. If you
1921 type anything else, then this is taken as the new file name.
1922 Note that -pax-i is an interactive option that prevents star
1924 from being used in non-interactive environments.
1925 -pax-L Follow symbolic links. If the referenced file does not exist,
1927 the file information and type will be for the link itself. If
1928 the link is referencing a file type that cannot be archived with
1929 the current archive format, the file information and type will
1930 be for the link itself.
1931 -pax-ls
1933 Switch listing format to the format defined for POSIX pax and
1934 ls.
1935 -pax-match
1937 Allow file type arguments to be recognised as regular expres‐
1938 sions in a way that has been defined for POSIX pax.
1939 -pax-n Allow each pattern to match only once. If a pattern matches a
1941 directory, then the whole sub tree matches the pattern.
1942 -pax-o string
1944 Set a pax like option control pattern.
1945 The only argument that is currently supported is binary to cre‐
1947 ate a hdrcharset=BINARY header.
1948 -pax-p string
1950 PAX style privileges string. Several characters (each has its
1951 own meaning). The following characters are defined:
1952 a Do not preserve file access times. This option is cur‐
1954 rently ignored.
1955 e Preserve the user ID, group ID, file mode bits. This is
1957 equivalent to calling star -p -acl -xfflags.
1958 m Do not preserve file modification times. This is cur‐
1960 rently equivalent to calling star -m.
1961 o Preserve the user ID and group ID. This is the default
1963 for star if called as root.
1964 p Preserve the file mode bits. This is equivalent to call‐
1966 ing star -p.
1967 -prinodes
1969 Print inode numbers in verbose list mode if the archive contains
1970 inode numbers.
1971 -print-artype
1973 Check the type of the archive, print the archive and compression
1974 type on a single line and exit.
1975 -qic24 Set tape volume size to 61440 kBytes. See tsize=# option for
1977 more information.
1978 -qic120
1980 Set tape volume size to 128000 kBytes. See tsize=# option for
1981 more information.
1982 -qic150
1984 Set tape volume size to 153600 kBytes. See tsize=# option for
1985 more information.
1986 -qic250
1988 Set tape volume size to 256000 kBytes. See tsize=# option for
1989 more information.
1990 -qic525
1992 Set tape volume size to 512500 kBytes. See tsize=# option for
1993 more information.
1994 -read0 Read null terminated file names from the file specified with the
1996 list= option.
1997 -refresh_old_files
1999 obsoleted by -refresh-old-files
2000 -refresh-old-files
2002 -refresh
2004 Do not create new files. Only already existing files may be
2005 overwritten from tarfile if either newer versions are present in
2006 the archive or if the -U flag is used. This allows to overwrite
2007 files by more recent files from an archive that contains more
2008 files than the target directory should contain. The option
2009 -refresh-old-files is the same as the -refresh option.
2010 -remove_first
2012 obsoleted by -remove-first
2013 -remove-first
2015 Remove files before extraction. If this option is in effect,
2016 star will remove files before extracting a file from the ar‐
2017 chive. This is needed if you want to change the file type or if
2018 you need to break a hard link. If you do not use either
2019 -ask-remove or -force-remove together with -remove-first, this
2020 option is useless and no files will be removed.
2021 -remove_recursive
2023 obsoleted by -remove-recursive
2024 -remove-recursive
2026 Remove files recursive. If removing of a file is permitted,
2027 star will only remove files, specials and empty directories. If
2028 this option is in effect, star will be allowed to recursively
2029 removes non empty directories too.
2030 -restore
2032 switches star into true incremental restore mode. A file named
2033 star-symtable and a directory named star-tmpdir is created in
2034 the root directory of the file system where the extraction takes
2035 place. If -restore has been specified, star behaves as if -xdot
2036 has been specified too. See also level= option and section
2037 INCREMENTAL BACKUPS for more information.
2038 Note: Do not use the -restore option if you only like to restore
2040 a single file or a list of selected files.
2041 rmt=path
2043 Specify the path to the program at the remote tape server for
2044 the RMT protocol.
2045 star by default calls the UNIX default path /etc/rmt.
2047 Since most rmt implementations cause problems in case that
2049 server and client are on a different OS, it is recommended to
2050 tell star to call the rmt program that comes with star
2051 (/opt/schily/sbin/rmt).
2052 rsh=path
2054 Specify the program to log into the remote tape server for the
2055 RMT protocol. If the argument is the empty string, connections
2056 are made via rcmd(3). The default method to log into the remote
2057 server is configurable at compile time. The current default is
2058 set up to use ssh.
2059 -S Do not store/create special files. A special files is any file
2061 except plain files, symbolic links and directories. You need to
2062 be super user to extract special files.
2063 -s replstr
2065 Modify file or archive member names named by a pattern according
2066 to the substitution expression replstr. The format of replstr
2067 is:
2068 -s /old/new/[gp]
2070 The old pattern may use regular expressions and the new string
2072 may contain the special character '&'. The character '&' is sub‐
2073 stituted by the string that matches the old pattern. The
2074 optional trailing 'g' means global substitution. If 'g' is not
2075 used, a substitution pattern is only used once on a name. If
2076 the optional trailing 'p' is used, the substitution is printed
2077 to standard error.
2078 Up to 100 substitute options may be used. If more than one sub‐
2080 stitute option has been specified, star will loop over all sub‐
2081 stitute patterns until one matches.
2082 If the name substitutes to the empty string, the file is
2084 skipped.
2085 -secure-links
2087 Do not extract hard links or symbolic links if the target of the
2088 link starts with a slash (/) or if /../ is contained in the link
2089 target. Tar archives containing such links could be used to
2090 compromise the system. If they are unpacked together with a lot
2091 of other files, this may not even be noticed.
2092 Links that do not point outside the tree that starts with the
2094 current working directory are not seen as a security risk. This
2095 makes star easy to use. It is always safe to unpack an unknown
2096 archive in an empty directory.
2097 Many system installations contain plenty of symbolic links with
2099 absolute path name or with /../ inside. The usability of a tar
2100 archiver for system backups would be limited if -secure-links
2101 checking would be done by default for backups as well, star thus
2102 makes link checking optional when in -restore mode. When
2103 -restore has not been specified, link checking is the default,
2104 since this is the usual way where archives from unknown sources
2105 are going to be unpacked.
2106 To turn off this default for the usual case, the option
2108 -no-secure-links may be used and in -restore mode, -secure-links
2109 may be specified to turn it on.
2110 If you unpacked a tar archive while -secure-links is effective
2112 and did not get a security warning at the end of the star run,
2113 all files and links have been extracted. If you get a warning,
2114 you should unpack the archive a second time and specify the
2115 options -k, -w and -nowarn in addition to the options used for
2116 the first run. To speed this up, it helps to use:
2117 star -xvpw -find -type l
2119 See SECURITY NOTES for more information.
2121 -shm Use System V shared memory for fifo. Normally star is compiled
2123 to use mapped /dev/zero pages for the fifo, if the operating
2124 system supports this. If star is compiled to have both code for
2125 mapped pages and for System V shared memory, star will use
2126 shared memory instead of the default. If the -help menu doesn't
2127 show the -shm flag you have no choice. When using System V
2128 shared memory, you may have to raise the system's internal limit
2129 for shared memory resources to get enough shared memory for
2130 star.
2131 -signed_checksum
2133 obsoleted by -signed-checksum
2134 -signed-checksum
2136 Use signed chars to calculate checksums. This violates the tar
2137 specs but old versions of tar derived from the seventh edition
2138 of UNIX are implemented in this way. Note: Only filenames and
2139 linknames containing chars with the most significant bit set may
2140 trigger this problem because all other fields only contain 7 bit
2141 ASCII characters, octal digits or binary zeroes.
2142 -silent
2144 Suppress informational messages like foobar is sparse.
2145 -sparse
2147 Handle files with holes effectively on store/create. Note that
2148 sparse files may not be archived this way if the archive format
2149 is tar, ustar, suntar, pax, or any cpio variant. On Solaris-2.3
2150 ... Solaris-2.5.1 there is a special ioctl() called _FIOAI that
2151 allows root to get the allocation info more efficiently. On
2152 Solaris 11 there is an enhanced lseek(2) call with additional
2153 whence values SEEK_HOLE and SEEK_DATA that allow to find holes
2154 in an efficient way. Other operating systems lack support to
2155 get the real allocation list and force star to scan the files to
2156 look for blocks that only contain null characters. This may
2157 star cause to assume more holes to be present than the number
2158 that the file really contains.
2159 -symlinks
2161 This option tells star in extract mode to try to create a sym‐
2162 link whenever a hardlink is encountered in the archive.
2163 -T If the option file= or f= is omitted and the -T option is
2165 present, star will use the device indicated by the TAPE environ‐
2166 ment variable, if set.
2167 tardumps=name
2169 Set the file name for tar dump dates database to name. The
2170 default name is /etc/tardumps. Use in combination with the
2171 level= option to create true incremental dumps. See also -wtar‐
2172 dumps option and section INCREMENTAL BACKUPS for more informa‐
2173 tion.
2174 -time Print timing info. See DIAGNOSTICS for more information.
2176 -to_stdout
2178 obsoleted by -to-stdout
2179 -to-stdout
2181 Extract files to stdout. This option may be used to extract
2182 tarfiles containing tarfiles (see examples below).
2183 -tpath Use this option together with the -t option or with -cv (verbose
2185 create) to get only a list of the pathnames of the files in the
2186 archive. This may be used in shell scripts to generate a name
2187 list. If used together with the -diff option, star will only
2188 print the names of the files that differ. A second run of star
2189 may then be used to restore all files that had differences to
2190 the archive. Use the list= option to specify the namelist in
2191 this case.
2192 tsize=#
2194 Set tape volume size to # to enable multi volume tape support.
2195 The value refers to the archive size without compression. See
2196 bs= for the possible syntax. By default, the number is multi‐
2197 plied by 512, so the value counts in units of 512 byte blocks.
2198 If the size specifier ends with a valid multiplication character
2199 (e.g '.' for bytes or 'M' for MB) the specified size is used as
2200 specified and not multiplied by 512. With this option in
2201 effect, star is able to archive filesystems that are bigger then
2202 the tape size. If the option tsize=# without -multivol then no
2203 file will be split across volumes and each volume may in theory
2204 be read back separately. Files that do not fit on a single tape
2205 may not be stored in this mode. If -multivol has been specified
2206 in addition, star will split files when the maximum allowed tape
2207 size has been reached. If the tape volume size is not a multi‐
2208 ple of the tape block size, the tape volume size is silently
2209 rounded down to a value that is a multiple of the tape block
2210 size.
2211 See -multivol option for more information.
2213 -U Restore files unconditionally. By default, an older file from
2215 the archive will not replace a corresponding newer file on disk.
2216 umask=mask
2218 Set star's umask to mask. This allows to control the permis‐
2219 sions for intermediate directories that are created by star in
2220 extract mode. See also -p option.
2221 -uncond-rename
2223 When in interactive restore mode or when the -s option was spec‐
2224 ified, unconditionally ask for a new name or apply a substitu‐
2225 tion. This happens even when the current path name would be
2226 skipped otherwise because the file in the archive is not newer
2227 than the file with the original name on disk.
2228 -v Increment verbose level by one. This normally results in more
2230 output during operation. See also in the description for the -t
2231 flag. Normally, star does its work silently. If the verbose
2232 level is 2 or more and star is in create or update mode, star
2233 will produce a listing to the format of the ls -l output.
2234 -V, -not
2236 Invert the meaning of the pattern list. i.e. use those files
2237 which do not match any of the pattern. Note that this option
2238 only applies to patterns that have been specified via the pat‐
2239 tern=pattern or pat=pattern option. Patterns specified as file
2240 type arguments will not be affected.
2241 -version
2243 Print version information and exit.
2244 VOLHDR=name
2246 Use name to generate a volume header.
2247 -w Do interactive creation, extraction or renaming. For every file
2249 that matches the list of patterns and that has a more recent
2250 modification time in the tar archive (if in extract mode and the
2251 -U option is not specified) star prints its name and asks:
2252 get/put ? Y(es)/N(o)/C(hange name) :
2254 You may answer either `N' for No or <Return> to skip this file.
2256 If you answer `Y' the file is extracted or archived on tape with
2257 its original name. If you answer `C', you are prompted for a
2258 new name. This name is used for the filename on disk if star is
2259 in extract mode or for the archive name if star is in create
2260 mode.
2261 See SECURITY NOTES for more information.
2263 Note that -w is an interactive option that prevents star from being
2265 used in non-interactive environments.
2266 -wready
2268 This option tells Star to wait up to two minutes for the drive
2269 to become ready. It has been added as a hack for a bug in the
2270 SunOS/Solaris st device driver. This driver has problems to
2271 sense the loading time with Exabyte drives with factory set‐
2272 tings. It also makes sense to use -wready if multiple remote
2273 backups are made. In this case, the remote connection is closed
2274 while the remote tape server is still writing a file mark. If
2275 another remote backup is initiated before the old remote server
2276 did finish to write the file mark, it would be impossible to
2277 open the tape driver unless -wready is specified to tell star to
2278 wait for the drive to become ready again.
2279 -wtardumps
2281 Tell star to update the file that contains the tar dump dates
2282 data base if in dump mode. If the dump is not a full dump, the
2283 tar dump dates data base file is not written. See also tar‐
2284 dumps=name and -C option or INCREMENTAL BACKUPS section for more
2285 information.
2286 -X filename
2288 Use the file filename as a file containing a list of path names
2289 to be excluded from the store/create/list/diff operation. The
2290 file filename must contain a list of path names, each on a sepa‐
2291 rate line. Be careful with white space and note that path names
2292 in the list may not contain new lines. Multiple -X options may
2293 be used. Each argument must refer to a file containing path
2294 names. The -X option has precedence before other options that
2295 select files to be included in the operation. See also list=
2296 option.
2297 -xattr Reserved for NFSv4 extended attributes.
2299 -xattr-linux
2301 Store and extract extended file attributes as found on Linux
2302 systems. This option only makes sense when creating or extract‐
2303 ing exustar archives as it is based on POSIX.1-2001 extended tar
2304 headers.
2305 The method used in the current implementation could be used to
2307 store and extract extended file attributes from BSD too. Note
2308 that the current implementation is not generic enough to cover
2309 more general extended file attribute implementations as found on
2310 Solaris. If star starts to implement a method that covers
2311 extended file attributes on Solaris, the new method will be used
2312 then -xattr has been specified and -xattr-linux will refer to
2313 the old method. The method used with -xattr-linux may go away
2314 in the future.
2315 -xcopy An alias for -copy -sparse -acl
2317 xdebug=#, xd=#
2319 Set extended debug level to #.
2320 -xdev, -M
2322 Do not descend mount points. This is useful when doing backups
2323 of complete file systems. See NOTES for more information.
2324 -xdir Extract directories even if the corresponding directories on the
2326 archive are not newer. This is useful when for some reason, the
2327 directories are recorded after their content (see -dirmode
2328 option), or when the permissions of some directories must be set
2329 in any case. As the classical UNIX cpio program does not imple‐
2330 ment delayed directory permission and time stamp setting, cpio
2331 users often create archives in reverse order (directories past
2332 their content). For this reason, it makes sense to use -xdir
2333 while extracting cpio archives.
2334 -xdot Unconditionally extract the first directory in the archive if
2336 the name of this directory is either '.' or './'. This helps to
2337 extract archives in an expected way if the target directory is a
2338 newly created empty directory. As this directory is newer than
2339 the top level directory in the archive, star would usually skip
2340 this directory during extraction. The effect of this directory
2341 is as if -xdir has been specified but is switched off after the
2342 first directory has been found.
2343 -xfflags
2345 Store and extract extended file flags as found on BSD and Linux
2346 systems. This option only makes sense when creating or extract‐
2347 ing exustar archives as it is based on POSIX.1-2001 extended tar
2348 headers. See NOTES section for problems with -xfflags on Linux
2349 systems.
2350 -xmeta Extract meta files as if they were files. Meta files in ar‐
2352 chives are plain files that do not contain any content data in
2353 the archive. They may be created by using the -meta option in
2354 star's create mode. Existing files are not overwritten. If a
2355 file is missing, a zero sized file is created. If the option
2356 -meta is used together with the option -force-hole, missing
2357 plain files are created as sparse empty files of the original
2358 size.
2359 -xz run the input or output through a xz pipe - see option -z below.
2361 -Z run the input or output through a compress pipe - see option -z
2363 below.
2364 -z run the input or output through a gzip pipe. This is currently
2366 a quick and dirty hack, that mainly will cover the most common
2367 usage to compress the tar output if it is a file. No reblocking
2368 will be done, so this option will currently only make sense on
2369 plain files. As the -bz the -j the -Z and the -z option are non
2370 standard, it makes sense to omit the -bz the -j the -Z and the
2371 -z options inside shell scripts if you are going to extract a
2372 compressed archive that is located inside a plain file as star
2373 will auto detect compression and choose the right decompression
2374 option to extract. The environment variable STAR_COMPRESS_FLAG
2375 may be used to specify one option for gzip. If you want to
2376 write write compressed archives to tape, you should use
2377 star -c . | gzip | sdd ibs=4k obs=32k -fill of=/dev/rmt/1bn
2378 or
2379 star -c . | gzip | sdd ibs=4k obs=32k -fill ovsize=60m
2380 of=/dev/rmt/1bn
2381 if the tape can hold 60 MB.
2382 -zstd run the input or output through a zstd pipe - see option -z
2384 above.
2385
2387 Star is able to back up file system in full and incremental mode. To
2388 allow incremental backups, the file system must implement POSIX seman‐
2389 tics.
2390 To be more verbose:
2392 · The filesystem needs to uniquely identify files by the two num‐
2394 bers st_dev (The filesystem ID or device ID of the device con‐
2395 taining the file) and st_ino (The file serial number). If a
2396 file is renamed, these numbers need to be retained. Both num‐
2397 bers need to be a cardinal scalar that is expressible in a deci‐
2398 mal number.
2399 · The filesystem needs to implement at least two time stamps,
2401 st_mtime the file's last modification time and st_ctime the
2402 file's last status change time. Both time stamps need to be
2403 dealt with as documented by the POSIX standard. Both numbers
2404 need to be a cardinal scalar that is expressible in a decimal
2405 number or as a decimal number that counts in seconds plus
2406 another number that counts in fractions of a second.
2407 · The filesystem needs to allow to rename files and directories by
2409 either calling rename(2), or link(2) and unlink(2).
2410 · The filesystem needs to honor and preserve the case of file
2412 names.
2413 The incremental backup method used by star depends on comparing the
2415 time stamps of all files against the time of the last backup. Note that
2416 this method only works correctly if the level 0 backup and all higher
2417 level incrementals include the whole file system. As star archives all
2418 inode meta data, star is able to detect renamed files by comparing the
2419 inode numbers of all files while in incremental restore mode.
2420 Detecting renamed files only works if star, while in backup mode, scans
2422 the whole file system tree for each full and incremental backup. This
2423 will work in case no files are excluded and the dump starts at the root
2424 directory of a file system. In case that no files are renamed from
2425 excluded parts to included parts, partial backups may be taken also.
2426 Partial backups only make sense if a complete directory sub tree is
2427 excluded (e.g. by using the pat= option) or if a partial backup starts
2428 at a sub directory that is not the root directory of the file system.
2429 In case of a partial backup, it is important that no file or directory
2431 will ever be moved outside the scope and later move into the scope
2432 again. Moving files or directories outside the scope of a partial
2433 backup is detected as deletion and moving the files back into the scope
2434 does not make them appear in an incremental backup since the time
2435 stamps of files from inside renamed directories did not change.
2436 Note that a backup must not include files that are mounted from another
2438 filesystem and a restore cannot be done with more than one filesystem
2439 as target.
2440 Files in the backup tree that are hidden under a mount point cannot be
2442 part of the backup as long as the backup is not done from a snapshot.
2443 To create a level 0 dump call:
2445 star -c -xdev -sparse -acl -link-dirs level=0 -wtardumps \
2447 f=archive-name -C /filestem-mount-point .
2448 To create a level 1 dump call:
2450 star -c -xdev -sparse -acl -link-dirs level=1 -wtardumps \
2452 f=archive-name -C /filestem-mount-point .
2453 Do not forget the dot at the end of the command line that specifies the
2455 directory to start the operation.
2456 Backups from live filesystems should be avoided. On operating systems
2458 that support file system snapshots, backups should be made from a read-
2459 only mount of a snapshot. Be careful that all files that have been cre‐
2460 ated between setting up a snapshot and starting an incremental backup
2461 may be missing from all backups unless the dumpdate=name option is
2462 used.
2463 If the system that is going to be backed up is not acting as a file
2465 server, it makes sense to shut down all services that may result in
2466 inconsistent file states before setting up the filesystem snapshot.
2467 After the filesystem snapshot has been set up, the services may be
2468 restarted.
2469 If the the system that is going to be backed up is acting as a file
2471 server, it may be that services on remote clients cause inconsistent
2472 file states unless all such services that remotely access files are
2473 shut down before the snapshot is set up.
2474 Star includes options that help to deal with file system snapshots.
2476 The following example backs up a file system on Solaris using a file
2477 system snapshot from UFS:
2478 echo > /tmp/snapstamp
2480 mount -r `fssnap -F ufs -o \
2482 backing-store=/var/tmp/EXPORT-NFS.snap /export/nfs` /mnt
2483 star -c -xdev -sparse -acl -link-dirs level=0 -wtardumps \
2485 f=archive-name dumpdate=/tmp/snapstamp \
2486 fs-name=/export/nfs -C /mnt .
2487 First a file with a current time stamp is created, then a snapshot for
2489 /export/nfs is created and mounted on /mnt. The following star command
2490 then creates a level 0 backup from the file system using the time the
2491 snapshot was created and the original mount point of the file system
2492 for /etc/tardumps and the archive header.
2493 Note that if the backup is done on a live file system, it may be unre‐
2495 liable. A typical problem problem in this context is caused by growing
2496 log files. As growing files are not a real problem with backups, the
2497 best way of dealing with growing files is to set up a star error con‐
2498 trol file (see errctl= option) and to tell star to ignore growing
2499 files.
2500
2502 Full (level 0) dumps should be made on a regular base (e.g. once a
2503 month). As a full dump may take a long time and takes a lot of tape,
2504 it is wise to make higher level incremental dumps with shorter inter‐
2505 vals. The next table shows a dump level list that may be used if
2506 monthly full dumps take place:
2507 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
2509 Week 1: 0 10 10 10 10 5
2510 Week 2: 10 10 10 10 10 5
2511 Week 3: 10 10 10 10 10 5
2512 Week 4: 10 10 10 10 10 5
2513 The level 10 dumps made between Monday and Friday accumulate all
2515 changes made within the week, but you only need to restore the latest
2516 level 10 dump in order to get all changes back. If you don't like the
2517 size of the accumulated changes, use the following backup schedule:
2518 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri
2520 Week 1: 0 20 30 40 50 5
2521 Week 2: 10 20 30 40 50 5
2522 Week 3: 10 20 30 40 50 5
2523 Week 4: 10 20 30 40 50 5
2524 Note that in this case, 7 dumps need to be restored if the a crash hap‐
2526 pens at the worst case date (just before the Friday dump in week 2 or
2527 later).
2528
2531 Incremental restores should be made to an empty file system (except for
2532 the lost+found directory). Star is currently unable to perform incre‐
2533 mental restores to a file system that contains active mount points.
2534 Incremental restores should be run as root user. Star supports private
2536 incremental dumps and restores run as an unprivileged user, but this
2537 mode has been tested less frequently.
2538 The incremental restore procedure starts with restoring the last full
2540 (level 0) dump. Then the latest incremental dump of each dump level
2541 (with ascending order of dump levels) need to be restored.
2542 Let us assume the first example from the section BACKUP SCHEDULES for
2544 the backup schedule. If a disk crash happens before the Thursday dump
2545 of week 3 has been made, the following restore procedure needs to be
2546 applied:
2547 level 0
2549 starting with an empty disk, the full (level 0) dump from week 1
2550 is restored.
2551 level 5
2553 after the level 0 restore has been finished, the level 5 dump
2554 from Friday in week 2 is restored.
2555 level 10
2557 after the level 5 restore has been finished, the level 10 dump
2558 from Wednesday in week 3 is restored.
2559 The disk now contains the same files as it did when the level 10 dump
2561 has been made on Wednesday of week 3.
2562 To extract a level 0 dump call:
2564 cd /extract-filestem-mount-point
2566 star -xpU -restore f=archive-name
2567 This creates the directory star-tmpdir and the database star-symtable
2569 in the root directory of the new file system. Subsequent restores with
2570 higher level backups depend on these files.
2571 To extract a level 1 (or higher) dump call:
2573 cd /extract-filestem-mount-point
2575 star -xpU -restore f=archive-name
2576 In order to restore a partial dump, the -partial option needs to be
2578 specified. This is to make sure that the user understands that renames
2579 to a path outside the scope of the partial dump may result in inconsis‐
2580 tencies during a restore.
2581 In case there is a dump level mismatch or a reference date mismatch, it
2583 is possible to give a restore a chance by specifying the -force-restore
2584 option.
2585 Note that the environment variable STAR_DEBUG exists, star does not
2587 remove files with link count 1 that have been removed between incremen‐
2588 tal dumps. These files are moved to the directory star-tmpdir. Before
2589 you start to extract the next incremental, you need to remove all files
2590 in star-tmpdir.
2591
2594 Star may be used to synchronize filesystem content. To do this, an
2595 initial copy of the current content of the source filesystem needs to
2596 be performed first.
2597 To create an initial copy of a filesystem call:
2599 star -c -xdev -sparse -acl -link-dirs level=0 -wtardumps \
2601 -C /filestem-mount-point . | \
2602 star -xpU -restore -C /extract-target-dir
2603 In order to perform subsequent synchronization of the target filesystem
2605 with the content of the source filesystem, a modified incremental
2606 dump/restore procedure may be used.
2607 To copy incremental content of a filesystem call:
2609 star -c -xdev -sparse -acl -link-dirs level=1 -wtardumps \
2611 -cumulative -C /filestem-mount-point . | \
2612 star -xpU -restore -C /extract-target-dir
2613 Note that like with backups in general, copies from a live filesystem
2615 should be avoided. On operating systems that support file system snap‐
2616 shots, copies should be made from a read-only mount of a snapshot. Be
2617 careful that all files that have been created between setting up a
2618 snapshot and starting an incremental copy may be missing from all
2619 copies unless the dumpdate=name option is used.
2620 See section INCREMENTAL BACKUPS to learn how to modify the command line
2622 in case file system snapshots are used.
2623
2625 If star handles a signal, it first prints the statistics. Star handles
2626 the following signals:
2627 SIGINT usually generated by ^C from the controlling tty. Upon
2629 receipt of a SIGINT, star prints statistics and exits. If in
2630 create mode i.e. storing files to archive, star finishes with
2631 the current file to ensure that no partial file is written to
2632 the archive, write an eof record and then exits.
2633 SIGHUP not to be generated from a tty. The actions are the same as
2635 upon receipt of a SIGINT.
2636 SIGQUIT
2637 SIGINFO usually generated by ^\ from the controlling tty. Upon
2638 receipt of a SIGQUIT, star prints statistics and continues
2639 with the current operation. This is useful to watch the
2640 progress of the current operation.
2641
2643 The following exit values are returned. Note that the negative values
2644 are only available to modern shells and programs that use waitid(2) on
2645 a POSIX OS and thus can retrieve the full 32 bits of the star exit
2646 code. The positive number variants are what you get when only the low 8
2647 bits from the exit code are available.
2648 0 All files were processed successfully.
2650 -4 / 252
2652 Star has been interrupted in create mode and the end of star has
2653 been delayed until the current file has been archived com‐
2654 pletely. This error is only used in case that no other error
2655 occured and the tar archive only has become shorter than
2656 expected.
2657 -3 / 253
2659 Star has been called with the option -e, or the errctl= option
2660 has been used to mark the current error fatal.
2661 -2 / 254
2663 One or more files could not be processed successfully.
2664 -1 / 255
2666 Command line parsing error.
2667 >0 Other positive exit codes: The errno of the call that caused the
2669 fatal error.
2670
2672 To get a listing in a way similar to ls -l one might use:
2673 example% star -tv f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2675 The same command as listed above in a POSIX tar command line syntax
2677 compliant way is:
2678 example% star tvf /dev/rmt/1mbn
2680 To copy the directory tree in /home/someuser to the directory /home/fs
2682 use:
2683 example% (cd /home/someuser; star -c .) | (cd /home/fs ; star -xp)
2685 or by using the change directory option of star:
2687 example% star -c -C /home/someuser . | star -xp -C /home/fs
2689 Note that both examples above are not the optimum way to copy a direc‐
2691 tory tree. A more efficient way to copy a directory tree is to use the
2692 -copy option.
2693 example% star -copy -p -xdot -C /home/someuser . /home/fs
2695 To copy a file tree including the Access Control List entries for all
2697 files and to correctly copy sparse (holey) files use:
2698 example% star -copy -p -xdot -acl -sparse -C /home/someuser . /home/fs
2700 To compare the content of a tape to the filesystem one might use:
2702 example% star -diff -v f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2704 To compare two directory trees one might use:
2706 example% star -c . | star -C todir -diff -v diffopts=!times
2708 or better by using a method similar to the -copy method above:
2710 example% star -c -diff -v diffopts=!times -C fromdir . todir
2712 To compare all properties of two file trees, use:
2714 example% star -c -diff -vv -dump -acl -sparse -C fromdir . todir
2716 To extract a backup of the /usr tree without all files residing below
2718 /usr/openwin one might use:
2719 example% star -xp -V pat=openwin/\* f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2721 To extract all .c files to src, all .o files to obj and all other files
2723 to /tmp one might use:
2724 example% star -xp -C src '*.c' -C obj '*.o' -C /tmp '*' f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2726 To extract files from a zipped tar archive that is located on a read
2728 only filesystem e.g. a CD while having the shell's working directory on
2729 the CD one might use:
2730 example% star -zxp -C /tmp f=star-1.1.tar.gz
2732 to extract the files from the tar archive to the /tmp directory.
2734 To backup a list of files generated by the find(1) command:
2736 example% find . find_options -print | star -c list=- f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2738 Note that this does not work if the file names from output of the find
2740 command include new line characters.
2741 To extract a tarfile that contains a tarfile one might use:
2743 example% star -x -to-stdout f=/dev/rmt/1bn pat=pat | star -xp
2745 Pat, in this case should match the tarfile in the tarfile on tape that
2747 should be extracted.
2748 To make a backup of the root filesystem to a tape drive connected to a
2750 remote machine, one might use:
2751 example# cd /
2753 example# star -cM fs=128m bs=63k f=tape@remotehost:/dev/rmt/1bn .
2754 You need a line in /etc/passwd like the following to enable this:
2756 tape:NP:60001:60001:Tape:/etc/tapehome:/opt/schily/sbin/rmt
2758 And a .rhosts file in /etc/tapehome to allow remote connections from
2760 the appropriate hosts. Make sure that the file /etc/default/rmt exists
2761 and allows remote access to the requested tape drive.
2762 To use a faster rcmd(3) connection for a backup to a remote tape
2764 server, one might use:
2765 example# env RSH='' star -cM fs=128m bs=63k f=tape@remote‐
2767 host:/dev/rmt/1bn .
2768 Note that this requires root privileges.
2770 To repair a corrupted filesystem for which no recent backup exists, do
2773 the following:
2774 example# fsck -y /filesys
2776 example# mount /filesys
2777 example# cd /filesys
2778 example# star -xpk f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2779 example# mt -f /dev/rmt/1bn rewind
2780 example# star -diff -v diffopts=!times f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2781 Now check the differences and decide whether to restore additional
2783 files. This may be done by generating a list containing the needed
2784 filenames and using the list= option or by using the interactive mode
2785 (see -w option).
2786 If you want a list that only contains all filenames from files with
2788 differences you may use:
2789 example# star -diff -tpath diffopts=!times f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2791 If you are looking for files that changed the type or the access per‐
2793 mission because this is a common case on still corrupted files, use:
2794 example# star -diff -tpath diffopts=type,perm f=/dev/rmt/1bn
2796 If you like to archive all directories only that are part of the direc‐
2798 tory tree under ".", use:
2799 example# star -c f=archive-name -find . -type d
2801 If you like to archive all files as owner root and group root and make
2803 all files world readable in the archive, use:
2804 example# star -c f=archive-name -find . -chown root -chgrp root
2806 -chmod o+r
2807 If you like to archive all files with a mtime of now, use:
2809 example# star -c f=archive-name -find . -chmtime now
2811 If you like to list all files in an archive in a way like sfind(1),
2813 instead of the way used by star, use:
2814 example# star -t f=archive-name -find . -ls -false
2816
2819 STAR_COMPRESS_FLAG
2820 If you like star to always create compressed files that use max‐
2821 imum compression, you may set the environment variable STAR_COM‐
2822 PRESS_FLAG to -9.
2823 STAR_DEBUG
2825 If this environment variable is present, star will not remove
2826 temporary files from ./star-tmpdir. The files in this directory
2827 are files that have been removed by users before the last incre‐
2828 mental dump did take place on the master filesystem.
2829 STAR_FIFOSIZE
2831 If you like to by default let star use a different fifo size,
2832 set this environment variable to the desired size.
2833 STAR_FSYNC
2835 If set to `N', the default behavior of star is as if the
2836 -no-fsync option has always been specified.
2837 This grants that star is always faster than other archivers, but
2839 makes it impossible for star to check whether the extracion of a
2840 file to the filesystem was successful.
2841 If set to any other value, the default behavior of star is as if
2843 the -do-fsync option has always been specified.
2844 The environment STAR_FSYNC has precedence over /etc/default/star
2846 but may still be overwritten by command line options.
2847 STAR_WORKAROUNDS
2849 If this environment variable is present, implement workarounds
2850 for named problems. The environment variable is expected to
2851 contain a comma separated list of bug names:
2852 ssh-tcpip
2854 implement a workaround for a bug caused by ssh or TCP-IP
2855 seen on Linux in 2003. The bug caused the verbose output
2856 from star on stderr to be lost when calling something
2857 like:
2858 ssh host 'star -c ...'
2860 The workaround is activated when stderr is not connected
2862 to a terminal and works by waiting for 0.1 seconds for
2863 the output to appear.
2864 TAPE Unlike other tar(1) implementations, star defaults to use
2866 stdin/stdout for the archive. If you like star to use the file
2867 name from the TAPE environment instead, you need to specify the
2868 -T option too.
2869 RSH If the RSH environment is present, the remote connection will
2871 not be created via the default method, but rather uses the pro‐
2872 gram specified by RSH. Use e.g. RSH=/path/to/ssh to create a
2873 secure shell connection using a specific ssh version.
2874 If the RSH environment is not present, the compiled in default
2876 is used. This currently is ssh.
2877 If the RSH environment is empty, then rcmd(3) is used.
2879 Former versions of star by default did use rcmd(3) to create a
2881 remote connection. Using a different method forces star to cre‐
2882 ate a pipe to the rsh(1) or ssh (1) program and disallows star
2883 to directly access the network socket to the remote server.
2884 This makes it impossible to work at maximum performance and
2885 slows down the connection compared to a root initiated rcmd(3)
2886 connection.
2887 See rsh= option for more information.
2889 See BUGS section for more information.
2891 RMT If the RMT environment is present, the remote tape server will
2893 not be the program /etc/rmt but the program pointed to by RMT.
2894 Note that the remote tape server program name will be ignored if
2895 you log in using an account that has been created with a remote
2896 tape server program as login shell.
2897 See rmt= option for more information.
2899
2901 /etc/default/star
2902 Default values can be set for the following options in
2903 /etc/default/star. For example: CDR_FIFOSIZE=64m
2904 STAR_FIFOSIZE
2906 Sets the default size of the FIFO (see also fs=# option).
2907 STAR_FIFOSIZE_MAX
2909 Sets the maximum size of the FIFO (see also fs=# option).
2910 Setting STAR_FIFOSIZE_MAX in /etc/default/star allows to
2911 overwrite global values from backup scripts for machines
2912 with less memory.
2913 STAR_FSYNC
2915 If set to `N', the default behavior of star is as if the
2916 -no-fsync option has always been specified.
2917 This grants that star is always faster than other
2919 archivers, but makes it impossible for star to check
2920 whether the extracion of a file to the filesystem was
2921 successful.
2922 If you like to make the default fast, keep in mind that
2924 you need to specify -do-fsync for cases where star needs
2925 to be able to know whether the extraction was successful.
2926 archive0=
2928 archive1=
2930 archive2=
2932 archive3=
2934 archive4=
2936 archive5=
2938 archive6=
2940 archive7=
2942 Archive entries for the -[0..7] option.
2943 A correct archive?= line has 3..4 space separated
2945 entries. The first is the device entry (e.g. ar‐
2946 chive0=/dev/tape). The second is the blocking factor in
2947 512 byte units. The third is the maximum media size in
2948 1024 byte units. If this entry contains a 0, then the
2949 media size is unlimited. The fourth entry is optional.
2950 If it contains a 'n' or a 'N', then the archive device is
2951 not a tape.
2952 Examples:
2954 archive0=/dev/tape 512 0 y
2956 archive1=/dev/fd0 1 1440 n
2957 archive2=/dev/rmt/0mbn 512 0
2958 If the default file does not need to be shared with the
2960 tar program from Solaris, any number may be used like a
2961 generic size option like bs=.
2962 Example:
2964 archive0=/dev/tape 256k 40G y
2966 /etc/tardumps
2968 The default name for the dump level archive. The default name is
2969 used whenever the tardumps=name option has not been specified.
2970 The file is written or updated when -wtardumps is used.
2971 The file holds one or more lines, each specifying a dump level
2973 entry. Each dump level entry starts with a mount point name
2974 followed by a TAB and one or more spaces, followed by the deci‐
2975 mal dump level, a space and the dump time.
2976 If the dump level is directly followed by a 'P', then the dump
2978 refers to a partial dump (a dump that does not include the whole
2979 filesystem).
2980 The dump time itself includes the decimal representation of the
2982 UTC seconds since Jan 01 1970, a space and the textual local
2983 time representation of the dump time.
2984 The numerical decimal dump time representation may be followed
2986 by a dot and a sub second value. The textual local time repre‐
2987 sentation is for informational use by humans only and not evalu‐
2988 ated by star.
2989 ./star-symtable
2991 Contains a database that is needed in incremental restore mode.
2992 ./star-symdump
2994 Contains an intermediate dump of restore database after a fatal
2995 error condition was met during an incremental restore operation.
2996 ./star-tmpdir
2998 Is the temporary directory that is used as intermediate file
2999 storage by star if in incremental restore mode.
3000 ./star-lock
3002 Is a lock file created by star when doing an incremental
3003 restore. If this file is present, it prevents star from running
3004 another incremental restore operation. This helps to avoid more
3005 than one restore operation at a time (e.g. from a cron script).
3006 /dev/tty
3008 Is used for the interactive user interface.
3009
3011 spax(1), scpio(1), tar(1), cpio(1), pax(1), rcp(1), mt(1), rmt(1),
3012 match(1), dd(1), sdd(1), rsh(1), ssh(1), star_sym(1), tartest(1),
3013 star(1), rcmd(3), fssnap(1m)
3014
3016 star: f records + p bytes (total of x bytes = d.nnk).
3017 The number of full records, the number of bytes in partial records and
3019 the total amount of data in KBytes.
3020 star: Total time x.yyysec (z kBytes/sec)
3022 The time used and the transfer speed from/to the archive.
3024 If there have been non fatal errors during the archive processing, star
3026 will display a delayed error summary before exiting.
3027
3030 The command line syntax for the tar command (as defined in SUSv2 -
3031 UNIX-98) deviates from the command line syntax defined for all other
3032 commands. While the POSIX command line syntax requests all options to
3033 start with a dash (-) and allows to either write options separately or
3034 combined (in case of boolean flags), the tar command line syntax
3035 requires all options to be combined into a single string that does not
3036 start with a dash. Star by default assumes a command line syntax like
3037 a typical POSIX command and includes a compatibility mode that allows
3038 to specify a command line syntax as documented for the UNIX-98 tar com‐
3039 mand. If you believe that you found a bug in the way star parses the
3040 command line, please first check your command line for correctness
3041 before you make a bug report for star.
3042 If you like to write portable shell scripts that call tar, use the
3044 UNIX-98 tar command line syntax (i.e. a single option string and no
3045 dash), choose the commands and options from the following set of char‐
3046 acters ( rxtuc vxfblmo ) and check the shell script with both, your
3047 local tar and star for correct behavior. It you expect the script to
3048 call gnutar, do not include the -o option as gnutar implements this
3049 option in a way that violates UNIX-98.
3050 Star strips leading ./ sequences from pathnames. This lets star in many
3052 cases store longer pathnames than other implementations.
3053 The POSIX.1-1988 method (ustar format) of storing files with pathnames
3055 that are longer than 100 chars has some limitations:
3056 The name field (100 chars) an inserted slash (`/') and the pre‐
3058 fix field (155 chars) produce the pathname of the file. When
3059 recreating the original filename, name and prefix are concate‐
3060 nated, using a slash character in the middle. If a pathname does
3061 not fit in the space provided or may not be split at a slash
3062 character so that the parts will fit into 100 + 155 chars, the
3063 file may not be archived. Linknames longer than 100 chars may
3064 not be archived too.
3065 The star, xstar, xustar, exustar, pax, and gnutar archive formats don't
3067 have these limitations. While gnutar uses a method that makes it impos‐
3068 sible for other tar implementations (except star) to restore filenames
3069 that are longer than 100 chars, the xstar, xustar, exustar and pax/epax
3070 archive format uses a method that allows an POSIX.1-1988 compliant way
3071 of storing filenames, if the POSIX method would allow this. When the
3072 archive format is xustar, exustar or pax/epax very long filenames are
3073 stored using extended headers from the POSIX.1-2001 standard.
3074 Some buggy tar implementations will generate incorrect filenames during
3076 a restore operation if the archive contains pathnames or linknames of
3077 exactly 100 chars length.
3078 Star adds a tar signature in the last four bytes of each tar header if
3080 the archive format is star or xstar. This is no problem with the star
3081 archive format as it is an extension of the old pre POSIX.1-1988 tar
3082 format. On the other side, the xstar archive format claims to be as
3083 POSIX.1-1988 compliant as possible. Inserting this tar signature is a
3084 minor deviation from the standard that has the last 12 bytes of each
3085 header reserved for future use. On the other side, tar implementations
3086 such as some pax implementations that only compute checksums on the
3087 first 500 bytes of the header are violating the standard that requests
3088 the checksum to be computed on all 512 bytes of the tar header. All tar
3089 implementations that are 100% Posix compliant will be able to extract
3090 xstar archives as long as no new standard is defined that claims the
3091 last 12 bytes of the header for a different use. But then the ustar
3092 version number should be changed from `00' to `01'. Now, that the
3093 POSIX-2001 standard has been accepted, it is even predictable that all
3094 extensions to the standard tar format will go into the POSIX.1-2001
3095 extended headers which are extensible to include any feature without
3096 future limitation. The only known tar implementation that also uses
3097 the last 12 bytes of the tar header is Sun's tar which uses these 12
3098 bytes for files that are split over several archives. Such archives
3099 created by Sun's tar are not readable by the buggy pax implementation
3100 too. The Sun extension is not incompatible to the star signature
3101 because Sun expects an octal number at the beginning of the 12 byte
3102 field which is a null character in the star case.
3103 Star uses these four bytes since 1985 without problems. If you need a
3105 100% POSIX.1-1988 and 100% POSIX.1-2001 compliant tar archive, you may
3106 use the xustar, exustar or the pax/epax archive format. The probabil‐
3107 ity of falsely detecting other tar formats as xustar or exustar format
3108 however is higher.
3109 There is no way to ask for the n-th occurrence of a file.
3111 The way EOF is handled by star differs, whether the fifo is in effect
3113 or not. If the fifo is not used, star stops reading the archive if it
3114 encounters a logical EOF record in the archive. If the fifo is used,
3115 star may read until the fifo is full or until the real EOF mark on tape
3116 is reached. How much data star actually reads depends on the time when
3117 the star foreground process sends a fifo shutdown signal to the back‐
3118 ground fifo read process.
3119 Gnu tar often creates tar archives with incorrect logical EOF marks.
3121 The standard requires two blocks that are completely zeroed, whereas
3122 gnutar often only adds one of them.
3123 Old versions of tar found on SYSVr3 and earlier cannot read tar ar‐
3125 chives with a blocksize greater than 10 kBytes.
3126 The method of storing sparse files currently used with the star and
3128 xstar format is not guaranteed to be used in later versions of star.
3129 If the author decides to change this method, later versions of star may
3130 not be able to restore sparse files from tar archives made by the cur‐
3131 rent version of star.
3132 Some tar implementations violate the standard in using only the first
3134 500 Bytes of the header for checksum computation. These tar implementa‐
3135 tions will not accept star and xstar type tar archives.
3136 Sun's Solaris 2.x tar implementation violates the Posix standard. Tar
3138 archives generated by star cause Sun's tar to print tar: impossible
3139 file type messages. You may ignore these messages.
3140 Gnutar's dumpdirs are non standard and are currently not implemented.
3142 If gnutar archives sparse files with more than four holes, it produces
3144 archives that violate the standard in a way that prevents other tar
3145 implementations to read these archives. Star knows about that and is
3146 able to handle these gnutar archives.
3147 The filetype N (LF_NAMES) from gnutar (an obsolete method of storing
3149 long names) will never be implemented.
3150 Note that on operating systems (like DOS) that do not implement real
3152 pipes, star implements compression via a temporary file. Using com‐
3153 pression thus is limited by the maximum file size and the available
3154 disk space.
3155 The extended file flags implementation (see -xfflags option) on Linux
3157 is buggy by design. In order to retrieve the needed information, every
3158 file needs to be opened. If the /dev directory is included in create
3159 mode, every possible driver will be loaded which may hang the system
3160 for a long time. In the worst case, unwanted side effects from opening
3161 devices (such as causing tape drives to rewind the media) may be
3162 caused.
3163
3166 If you unpack a tar archive in a non empty directory, any file in that
3167 directory may be overwritten unless you specify the -k option. If the
3168 archive contains symbolic links or hard links, star may even overwrite
3169 files outside the current directory. If the directory where the ar‐
3170 chive is been unpacked is not empty and contains contains symbolic
3171 links or hard links to directories outside that directory, star may
3172 also overwrite files outside the current directory. As many other com‐
3173 mands, star usually has all possible permissions when run as root.
3174 Unpacking archives as root thus may have fatal results to any file on
3175 your system. Be very careful when you try to extract an archive that
3176 has not been created by you. It is possible to create hand crafted tar
3177 archives that may overwrite critical files (like /etc/passwd) on your
3178 system. In addition all tar archives that have been created with the
3179 list= option and tar archives where the C= option was not specified
3180 before all file type arguments may be critical.
3181 A good advise is to extract all doubtful archives as non root in an
3183 empty directory and to neither specify the -/ nor -.. or
3184 -no-secure-links options. If you get a warning, you should unpack the
3185 archive a second time and specify the options -k, -w and -nowarn in
3186 addition to the options used for the first run.
3187
3189 If star is installed suid root, star is able to make connections to
3190 remote archives for non root users. This is done by using the rcmd(3)
3191 interface to get a connection to a rmt(1) server.
3192 Star resets its effective uid back to the real user id immediately
3194 after setting up the remote connection to the rmt server and before
3195 opening any other file.
3196 If star has not been installed suid root and not called by root, it
3198 will try to create the remote connection via rsh(1) or ssh(1) (in case
3199 the environment RSH has been set to ssh). Note that in this case, the
3200 throughput to the remote tape server will be much lower than with a
3201 connection that has been initiated via rcmd(3).
3202
3204 If star is running on a large file aware platform, star is able to han‐
3205 dle files up to 8 GB in a mode that is compliant to the POSIX.1-1988
3206 ustar format. With a nonstandard star specific extension, up to 95 bits
3207 may be used to code the filesize. This will handle files up to
3208 200,000,000 TB. With the new POSIX.1-2001 extended headers used by the
3209 xustar, exustar and pax/epax format, any filesize may be archived.
3210
3212 The fact that the -f option has to be implemented in a way that is com‐
3213 patible with old tar implementations gives several problems. The
3214 options -fifostats, -force-hole, -force-remove and -fifo interfere with
3215 the -f option and the fact that they exist prevents users from using
3216 filenames like e.g. ifo using the traditional way where the filename
3217 directly follows the string -f without any space between the option
3218 name and the file name. However, there is no problem to use a file
3219 named ifo by by calling -f ifo, f=ifo, -f=ifo or -f= ifo. Be careful
3220 not to make typos with the above options. The result could be that a
3221 file is created as a result of the mistyped option.
3222 There is currently no way to set the fifo lowwater and highwater marks.
3224 If you ever discover a hang in the fifo of star, get the process ids
3226 for both star processes, send both a RTMAX signal using kill(1) and
3227 report the disgnostic output.
3228 There is currently no way to automatically delete files in the target
3230 file tree if they are obsolete. Star should implement something simi‐
3231 lar to gnutar's dumpdirs.
3232 If not invoked by the super user star may not be able to extract files
3234 if they reside in read only directories.
3235 Star is not able to make a complete backup of a filesystem if files are
3237 hidden by a mount that is in effect on a directory of this filesystem.
3238 This may be avoided in case of the ufs filesystem if the backup is made
3239 off a ufs snapshot (see the man page for fssnap(1m) It could be avoided
3240 for any filesystem if the loopback filesystem had an option that tells
3241 lofs not to traverse mountpoints.
3242 For now (late 2002), we know that the following programs are broken and
3244 do not implement signal handling correctly:
3245 rsh on SunOS-5.0...SunOS-5.9
3247 ssh from ssh.com
3249 ssh from openssh.org
3251 Sun already did accept a bug report for rsh(1)/[22mssh(1). Openssh.org
3253 accepted and fixed a bug for their implementation of ssh(1).
3254 If you use star to create a remote connection via an unfixed rsh(1) or
3256 ssh(1), be prepared that terminal generated signals may interrupt the
3257 remote connection.
3258
3261 A tar command appeared in Seventh Edition Unix, which was released in
3262 January, 1979. It replaced the tp program from Fourth Edition Unix
3263 which replaced the tap program from First Edition Unix.
3264 Star was first created in 1982 to extract tapes on a UNIX clone (UNOS)
3266 that had no tar command. In 1985 the first fully functional version
3267 has been released as mtar.
3268 When the old star format extensions have been introduced in 1985, it
3270 was renamed to star (Schily tar). In 1994, Posix 1003.1-1988 exten‐
3271 sions were added and star was renamed to star (Standard tar).
3272
3275 Joerg Schilling
3276 Seestr. 110
3277 D-13353 Berlin
3278 Germany
3279 Mail bugs and suggestions to:
3281 joerg.schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de or joerg@schily.net
3283
3286 The source code for star is in the star project at Sourceforge at:
3287 http://sourceforge.net/projects/s-tar/
3289 The download directory is:
3291 http://sourceforge.net/projects/s-tar/files/
3293 Frequent development snapshots of the star source are also included in
3295 the schilytools project and may be retrieved from the schilytools
3296 project at Sourceforge at:
3297 http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/
3299 The download directory is:
3301 http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/
3303 Check for the schily-*.tar.bz2 archives.
3305Joerg Schilling 2019/03/27 STAR(1)