1BSDTAR(1) BSD General Commands Manual BSDTAR(1)
2
4 bsdtar — manipulate tape archives
5
7 bsdtar [bundled-flags ⟨args⟩] [⟨file⟩ | ⟨pattern⟩ ...]
8 bsdtar {-c} [options] [files | directories]
9 bsdtar {-r | -u} -f archive-file [options] [files | directories]
10 bsdtar {-t | -x} [options] [patterns]
11
13 bsdtar creates and manipulates streaming archive files. This implementa‐
14 tion can extract from tar, pax, cpio, zip, jar, ar, xar, rpm, 7-zip, and
15 ISO 9660 cdrom images and can create tar, pax, cpio, ar, zip, 7-zip, and
16 shar archives.
17 The first synopsis form shows a “bundled” option word. This usage is
19 provided for compatibility with historical implementations. See COMPATI‐
20 BILITY below for details.
21 The other synopsis forms show the preferred usage. The first option to
23 bsdtar is a mode indicator from the following list:
24 -c Create a new archive containing the specified items. The long
25 option form is --create.
26 -r Like -c, but new entries are appended to the archive. Note that
27 this only works on uncompressed archives stored in regular files.
28 The -f option is required. The long option form is --append.
29 -t List archive contents to stdout. The long option form is --list.
30 -u Like -r, but new entries are added only if they have a modifica‐
31 tion date newer than the corresponding entry in the archive.
32 Note that this only works on uncompressed archives stored in reg‐
33 ular files. The -f option is required. The long form is
34 --update.
35 -x Extract to disk from the archive. If a file with the same name
36 appears more than once in the archive, each copy will be
37 extracted, with later copies overwriting (replacing) earlier
38 copies. The long option form is --extract.
39 In -c, -r, or -u mode, each specified file or directory is added to the
41 archive in the order specified on the command line. By default, the con‐
42 tents of each directory are also archived.
43 In extract or list mode, the entire command line is read and parsed
45 before the archive is opened. The pathnames or patterns on the command
46 line indicate which items in the archive should be processed. Patterns
47 are shell-style globbing patterns as documented in tcsh(1).
48
50 Unless specifically stated otherwise, options are applicable in all oper‐
51 ating modes.
52 @archive
54 (c and r modes only) The specified archive is opened and the
55 entries in it will be appended to the current archive. As a sim‐
56 ple example,
57 bsdtar -c -f - newfile @original.tar
58 writes a new archive to standard output containing a file newfile
59 and all of the entries from original.tar. In contrast,
60 bsdtar -c -f - newfile original.tar
61 creates a new archive with only two entries. Similarly,
62 bsdtar -czf - --format pax @-
63 reads an archive from standard input (whose format will be deter‐
64 mined automatically) and converts it into a gzip-compressed pax-
65 format archive on stdout. In this way, bsdtar can be used to
66 convert archives from one format to another.
67 -a, --auto-compress
69 (c mode only) Use the archive suffix to decide a set of the for‐
70 mat and the compressions. As a simple example,
71 bsdtar -a -cf archive.tgz source.c source.h
72 creates a new archive with restricted pax format and gzip com‐
73 pression,
74 bsdtar -a -cf archive.tar.bz2.uu source.c source.h
75 creates a new archive with restricted pax format and bzip2 com‐
76 pression and uuencode compression,
77 bsdtar -a -cf archive.zip source.c source.h
78 creates a new archive with zip format,
79 bsdtar -a -jcf archive.tgz source.c source.h
80 ignores the “-j” option, and creates a new archive with
81 restricted pax format and gzip compression,
82 bsdtar -a -jcf archive.xxx source.c source.h
83 if it is unknown suffix or no suffix, creates a new archive with
84 restricted pax format and bzip2 compression.
85 --acls (c, r, u, x modes only) Archive or extract POSIX.1e or NFSv4
87 ACLs. This is the reverse of --no-acls and the default behavior
88 in c, r, and u modes (except on Mac OS X) or if bsdtar is run in
89 x mode as root. On Mac OS X this option translates extended ACLs
90 to NFSv4 ACLs. To store extended ACLs the --mac-metadata option
91 is preferred.
92 -B, --read-full-blocks
94 Ignored for compatibility with other tar(1) implementations.
95 -b blocksize, --block-size blocksize
97 Specify the block size, in 512-byte records, for tape drive I/O.
98 As a rule, this argument is only needed when reading from or
99 writing to tape drives, and usually not even then as the default
100 block size of 20 records (10240 bytes) is very common.
101 -C directory, --cd directory, --directory directory
103 In c and r mode, this changes the directory before adding the
104 following files. In x mode, change directories after opening the
105 archive but before extracting entries from the archive.
106 --chroot
108 (x mode only) chroot() to the current directory after processing
109 any -C options and before extracting any files.
110 --clear-nochange-fflags
112 (x mode only) Before removing file system objects to replace
113 them, clear platform-specific file attributes or file flags that
114 might prevent removal.
115 --exclude pattern
117 Do not process files or directories that match the specified pat‐
118 tern. Note that exclusions take precedence over patterns or
119 filenames specified on the command line.
120 --exclude-vcs
122 Do not process files or directories internally used by the ver‐
123 sion control systems ‘Arch’, ‘Bazaar’, ‘CVS’, ‘Darcs’,
124 ‘Mercurial’, ‘RCS’, ‘SCCS’, ‘SVN’ and ‘git’.
125 --fflags
127 (c, r, u, x modes only) Archive or extract platform-specific file
128 attributes or file flags. This is the reverse of --no-fflags and
129 the default behavior in c, r, and u modes or if bsdtar is run in
130 x mode as root.
131 --format format
133 (c, r, u mode only) Use the specified format for the created ar‐
134 chive. Supported formats include “cpio”, “pax”, “shar”, and
135 “ustar”. Other formats may also be supported; see
136 libarchive-formats(5) for more information about currently-sup‐
137 ported formats. In r and u modes, when extending an existing ar‐
138 chive, the format specified here must be compatible with the for‐
139 mat of the existing archive on disk.
140 -f file, --file file
142 Read the archive from or write the archive to the specified file.
143 The filename can be - for standard input or standard output. The
144 default varies by system; on FreeBSD, the default is /dev/sa0; on
145 Linux, the default is /dev/st0.
146 --gid id
148 Use the provided group id number. On extract, this overrides the
149 group id in the archive; the group name in the archive will be
150 ignored. On create, this overrides the group id read from disk;
151 if --gname is not also specified, the group name will be set to
152 match the group id.
153 --gname name
155 Use the provided group name. On extract, this overrides the
156 group name in the archive; if the provided group name does not
157 exist on the system, the group id (from the archive or from the
158 --gid option) will be used instead. On create, this sets the
159 group name that will be stored in the archive; the name will not
160 be verified against the system group database.
161 -H (c and r modes only) Symbolic links named on the command line
163 will be followed; the target of the link will be archived, not
164 the link itself.
165 -h (c and r modes only) Synonym for -L.
167 -I Synonym for -T.
169 --help Show usage.
171 --hfsCompression
173 (x mode only) Mac OS X specific (v10.6 or later). Compress
174 extracted regular files with HFS+ compression.
175 --ignore-zeros
177 An alias of --options read_concatenated_archives for compatibil‐
178 ity with GNU tar.
179 --include pattern
181 Process only files or directories that match the specified pat‐
182 tern. Note that exclusions specified with --exclude take prece‐
183 dence over inclusions. If no inclusions are explicitly speci‐
184 fied, all entries are processed by default. The --include option
185 is especially useful when filtering archives. For example, the
186 command
187 bsdtar -c -f new.tar --include='*foo*' @old.tgz
188 creates a new archive new.tar containing only the entries from
189 old.tgz containing the string ‘foo’.
190 -J, --xz
192 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with xz(1). In
193 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
194 tar implementation recognizes XZ compression automatically when
195 reading archives.
196 -j, --bzip, --bzip2, --bunzip2
198 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with bzip2(1). In
199 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
200 tar implementation recognizes bzip2 compression automatically
201 when reading archives.
202 -k, --keep-old-files
204 (x mode only) Do not overwrite existing files. In particular, if
205 a file appears more than once in an archive, later copies will
206 not overwrite earlier copies.
207 --keep-newer-files
209 (x mode only) Do not overwrite existing files that are newer than
210 the versions appearing in the archive being extracted.
211 -L, --dereference
213 (c and r modes only) All symbolic links will be followed. Nor‐
214 mally, symbolic links are archived as such. With this option,
215 the target of the link will be archived instead.
216 -l, --check-links
218 (c and r modes only) Issue a warning message unless all links to
219 each file are archived.
220 --lrzip
222 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with lrzip(1). In
223 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
224 tar implementation recognizes lrzip compression automatically
225 when reading archives.
226 --lz4 (c mode only) Compress the archive with lz4-compatible compres‐
228 sion before writing it. In extract or list modes, this option is
229 ignored. Note that this tar implementation recognizes lz4 com‐
230 pression automatically when reading archives.
231 --zstd (c mode only) Compress the archive with zstd-compatible compres‐
233 sion before writing it. In extract or list modes, this option is
234 ignored. Note that this tar implementation recognizes zstd com‐
235 pression automatically when reading archives.
236 --lzma (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with the original
238 LZMA algorithm. In extract or list modes, this option is
239 ignored. Use of this option is discouraged and new archives
240 should be created with --xz instead. Note that this tar imple‐
241 mentation recognizes LZMA compression automatically when reading
242 archives.
243 --lzop (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with lzop(1). In
245 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
246 tar implementation recognizes LZO compression automatically when
247 reading archives.
248 -m, --modification-time
250 (x mode only) Do not extract modification time. By default, the
251 modification time is set to the time stored in the archive.
252 --mac-metadata
254 (c, r, u and x mode only) Mac OS X specific. Archive or extract
255 extended ACLs and extended file attributes using copyfile(3) in
256 AppleDouble format. This is the reverse of --no-mac-metadata.
257 and the default behavior in c, r, and u modes or if bsdtar is run
258 in x mode as root.
259 -n, --norecurse, --no-recursion
261 Do not operate recursively on the content of directories.
262 --newer date
264 (c, r, u modes only) Only include files and directories newer
265 than the specified date. This compares ctime entries.
266 --newer-mtime date
268 (c, r, u modes only) Like --newer, except it compares mtime
269 entries instead of ctime entries.
270 --newer-than file
272 (c, r, u modes only) Only include files and directories newer
273 than the specified file. This compares ctime entries.
274 --newer-mtime-than file
276 (c, r, u modes only) Like --newer-than, except it compares mtime
277 entries instead of ctime entries.
278 --nodump
280 (c and r modes only) Honor the nodump file flag by skipping this
281 file.
282 --nopreserveHFSCompression
284 (x mode only) Mac OS X specific (v10.6 or later). Do not compress
285 extracted regular files which were compressed with HFS+ compres‐
286 sion before archived. By default, compress the regular files
287 again with HFS+ compression.
288 --null (use with -I or -T) Filenames or patterns are separated by null
290 characters, not by newlines. This is often used to read file‐
291 names output by the -print0 option to find(1).
292 --no-acls
294 (c, r, u, x modes only) Do not archive or extract POSIX.1e or
295 NFSv4 ACLs. This is the reverse of --acls and the default behav‐
296 ior if bsdtar is run as non-root in x mode (on Mac OS X as any
297 user in c, r, u and x modes).
298 --no-fflags
300 (c, r, u, x modes only) Do not archive or extract file attributes
301 or file flags. This is the reverse of --fflags and the default
302 behavior if bsdtar is run as non-root in x mode.
303 --no-mac-metadata
305 (x mode only) Mac OS X specific. Do not archive or extract ACLs
306 and extended file attributes using copyfile(3) in AppleDouble
307 format. This is the reverse of --mac-metadata. and the default
308 behavior if bsdtar is run as non-root in x mode.
309 --no-safe-writes
311 (x mode only) Do not create temporary files and use rename(2) to
312 replace the original ones. This is the reverse of --safe-writes.
313 --no-same-owner
315 (x mode only) Do not extract owner and group IDs. This is the
316 reverse of --same-owner and the default behavior if bsdtar is run
317 as non-root.
318 --no-same-permissions
320 (x mode only) Do not extract full permissions (SGID, SUID, sticky
321 bit, file attributes or file flags, extended file attributes and
322 ACLs). This is the reverse of -p and the default behavior if
323 bsdtar is run as non-root.
324 --no-xattrs
326 (c, r, u, x modes only) Do not archive or extract extended file
327 attributes. This is the reverse of --xattrs and the default
328 behavior if bsdtar is run as non-root in x mode.
329 --numeric-owner
331 This is equivalent to --uname "" --gname "". On extract, it
332 causes user and group names in the archive to be ignored in favor
333 of the numeric user and group ids. On create, it causes user and
334 group names to not be stored in the archive.
335 -O, --to-stdout
337 (x, t modes only) In extract (-x) mode, files will be written to
338 standard out rather than being extracted to disk. In list (-t)
339 mode, the file listing will be written to stderr rather than the
340 usual stdout.
341 -o (x mode) Use the user and group of the user running the program
343 rather than those specified in the archive. Note that this has
344 no significance unless -p is specified, and the program is being
345 run by the root user. In this case, the file modes and flags
346 from the archive will be restored, but ACLs or owner information
347 in the archive will be discarded.
348 -o (c, r, u mode) A synonym for --format ustar
350 --older date
352 (c, r, u modes only) Only include files and directories older
353 than the specified date. This compares ctime entries.
354 --older-mtime date
356 (c, r, u modes only) Like --older, except it compares mtime
357 entries instead of ctime entries.
358 --older-than file
360 (c, r, u modes only) Only include files and directories older
361 than the specified file. This compares ctime entries.
362 --older-mtime-than file
364 (c, r, u modes only) Like --older-than, except it compares mtime
365 entries instead of ctime entries.
366 --one-file-system
368 (c, r, and u modes) Do not cross mount points.
369 --options options
371 Select optional behaviors for particular modules. The argument
372 is a text string containing comma-separated keywords and values.
373 These are passed to the modules that handle particular formats to
374 control how those formats will behave. Each option has one of
375 the following forms:
376 key=value
377 The key will be set to the specified value in every mod‐
378 ule that supports it. Modules that do not support this
379 key will ignore it.
380 key The key will be enabled in every module that supports it.
381 This is equivalent to key=1.
382 !key The key will be disabled in every module that supports
383 it.
384 module:key=value, module:key, module:!key
385 As above, but the corresponding key and value will be
386 provided only to modules whose name matches module.
387 The complete list of supported modules and keys for create and
389 append modes is in archive_write_set_options(3) and for extract
390 and list modes in archive_read_set_options(3).
391 Examples of supported options:
393 iso9660:joliet
394 Support Joliet extensions. This is enabled by default,
395 use !joliet or iso9660:!joliet to disable.
396 iso9660:rockridge
397 Support Rock Ridge extensions. This is enabled by
398 default, use !rockridge or iso9660:!rockridge to disable.
399 gzip:compression-level
400 A decimal integer from 1 to 9 specifying the gzip com‐
401 pression level.
402 gzip:timestamp
403 Store timestamp. This is enabled by default, use
404 !timestamp or gzip:!timestamp to disable.
405 lrzip:compression=type
406 Use type as compression method. Supported values are
407 bzip2, gzip, lzo (ultra fast), and zpaq (best, extremely
408 slow).
409 lrzip:compression-level
410 A decimal integer from 1 to 9 specifying the lrzip com‐
411 pression level.
412 lz4:compression-level
413 A decimal integer from 1 to 9 specifying the lzop com‐
414 pression level.
415 lz4:stream-checksum
416 Enable stream checksum. This is by default, use
417 lz4:!stream-checksum to disable.
418 lz4:block-checksum
419 Enable block checksum (Disabled by default).
420 lz4:block-size
421 A decimal integer from 4 to 7 specifying the lz4 compres‐
422 sion block size (7 is set by default).
423 lz4:block-dependence
424 Use the previous block of the block being compressed for
425 a compression dictionary to improve compression ratio.
426 zstd:compression-level
427 A decimal integer from 1 to 22 specifying the zstd com‐
428 pression level.
429 lzop:compression-level
430 A decimal integer from 1 to 9 specifying the lzop com‐
431 pression level.
432 xz:compression-level
433 A decimal integer from 0 to 9 specifying the xz compres‐
434 sion level.
435 mtree:keyword
436 The mtree writer module allows you to specify which mtree
437 keywords will be included in the output. Supported key‐
438 words include: cksum, device, flags, gid, gname, indent,
439 link, md5, mode, nlink, rmd160, sha1, sha256, sha384,
440 sha512, size, time, uid, uname. The default is equiva‐
441 lent to: “device, flags, gid, gname, link, mode, nlink,
442 size, time, type, uid, uname”.
443 mtree:all
444 Enables all of the above keywords. You can also use
445 mtree:!all to disable all keywords.
446 mtree:use-set
447 Enable generation of /set lines in the output.
448 mtree:indent
449 Produce human-readable output by indenting options and
450 splitting lines to fit into 80 columns.
451 zip:compression=type
452 Use type as compression method. Supported values are
453 store (uncompressed) and deflate (gzip algorithm).
454 zip:encryption
455 Enable encryption using traditional zip encryption.
456 zip:encryption=type
457 Use type as encryption type. Supported values are
458 zipcrypt (traditional zip encryption), aes128 (WinZip
459 AES-128 encryption) and aes256 (WinZip AES-256 encryp‐
460 tion).
461 read_concatenated_archives
462 Ignore zeroed blocks in the archive, which occurs when
463 multiple tar archives have been concatenated together.
464 Without this option, only the contents of the first con‐
465 catenated archive would be read. This option is compara‐
466 ble to the -i, --ignore-zeros option of GNU tar.
467 If a provided option is not supported by any module, that is a
468 fatal error.
469 -P, --absolute-paths
471 Preserve pathnames. By default, absolute pathnames (those that
472 begin with a / character) have the leading slash removed both
473 when creating archives and extracting from them. Also, bsdtar
474 will refuse to extract archive entries whose pathnames contain ..
475 or whose target directory would be altered by a symlink. This
476 option suppresses these behaviors.
477 -p, --insecure, --preserve-permissions
479 (x mode only) Preserve file permissions. Attempt to restore the
480 full permissions, including file modes, file attributes or file
481 flags, extended file attributes and ACLs, if available, for each
482 item extracted from the archive. This is the reverse of
483 --no-same-permissions and the default if bsdtar is being run as
484 root. It can be partially overridden by also specifying
485 --no-acls, --no-fflags, --no-mac-metadata or --no-xattrs.
486 --passphrase passphrase
488 The passphrase is used to extract or create an encrypted archive.
489 Currently, zip is the only supported format that supports encryp‐
490 tion. You shouldn't use this option unless you realize how inse‐
491 cure use of this option is.
492 --posix
494 (c, r, u mode only) Synonym for --format pax
495 -q, --fast-read
497 (x and t mode only) Extract or list only the first archive entry
498 that matches each pattern or filename operand. Exit as soon as
499 each specified pattern or filename has been matched. By default,
500 the archive is always read to the very end, since there can be
501 multiple entries with the same name and, by convention, later
502 entries overwrite earlier entries. This option is provided as a
503 performance optimization.
504 -S (x mode only) Extract files as sparse files. For every block on
506 disk, check first if it contains only NULL bytes and seek over it
507 otherwise. This works similar to the conv=sparse option of dd.
508 -s pattern
510 Modify file or archive member names according to pattern. The
511 pattern has the format /old/new/[ghHprRsS] where old is a basic
512 regular expression, new is the replacement string of the matched
513 part, and the optional trailing letters modify how the replace‐
514 ment is handled. If old is not matched, the pattern is skipped.
515 Within new, ~ is substituted with the match, \1 to \9 with the
516 content of the corresponding captured group. The optional trail‐
517 ing g specifies that matching should continue after the matched
518 part and stop on the first unmatched pattern. The optional
519 trailing s specifies that the pattern applies to the value of
520 symbolic links. The optional trailing p specifies that after a
521 successful substitution the original path name and the new path
522 name should be printed to standard error. Optional trailing H,
523 R, or S characters suppress substitutions for hardlink targets,
524 regular filenames, or symlink targets, respectively. Optional
525 trailing h, r, or s characters enable substitutions for hardlink
526 targets, regular filenames, or symlink targets, respectively.
527 The default is hrs which applies substitutions to all names. In
528 particular, it is never necessary to specify h, r, or s.
529 --safe-writes
531 (x mode only) Extract files atomically. By default bsdtar
532 unlinks the original file with the same name as the extracted
533 file (if it exists), and then creates it immediately under the
534 same name and writes to it. For a short period of time, applica‐
535 tions trying to access the file might not find it, or see incom‐
536 plete results. If --safe-writes is enabled, bsdtar first creates
537 a unique temporary file, then writes the new contents to the tem‐
538 porary file, and finally renames the temporary file to its final
539 name atomically using rename(2). This guarantees that an appli‐
540 cation accessing the file, will either see the old contents or
541 the new contents at all times.
542 --same-owner
544 (x mode only) Extract owner and group IDs. This is the reverse
545 of --no-same-owner and the default behavior if bsdtar is run as
546 root.
547 --strip-components count
549 Remove the specified number of leading path elements. Pathnames
550 with fewer elements will be silently skipped. Note that the
551 pathname is edited after checking inclusion/exclusion patterns
552 but before security checks.
553 -T filename, --files-from filename
555 In x or t mode, bsdtar will read the list of names to be
556 extracted from filename. In c mode, bsdtar will read names to be
557 archived from filename. The special name “-C” on a line by
558 itself will cause the current directory to be changed to the
559 directory specified on the following line. Names are terminated
560 by newlines unless --null is specified. Note that --null also
561 disables the special handling of lines containing “-C”. Note:
562 If you are generating lists of files using find(1), you probably
563 want to use -n as well.
564 --totals
566 (c, r, u modes only) After archiving all files, print a summary
567 to stderr.
568 -U, --unlink, --unlink-first
570 (x mode only) Unlink files before creating them. This can be a
571 minor performance optimization if most files already exist, but
572 can make things slower if most files do not already exist. This
573 flag also causes bsdtar to remove intervening directory symlinks
574 instead of reporting an error. See the SECURITY section below
575 for more details.
576 --uid id
578 Use the provided user id number and ignore the user name from the
579 archive. On create, if --uname is not also specified, the user
580 name will be set to match the user id.
581 --uname name
583 Use the provided user name. On extract, this overrides the user
584 name in the archive; if the provided user name does not exist on
585 the system, it will be ignored and the user id (from the archive
586 or from the --uid option) will be used instead. On create, this
587 sets the user name that will be stored in the archive; the name
588 is not verified against the system user database.
589 --use-compress-program program
591 Pipe the input (in x or t mode) or the output (in c mode) through
592 program instead of using the builtin compression support.
593 -v, --verbose
595 Produce verbose output. In create and extract modes, bsdtar will
596 list each file name as it is read from or written to the archive.
597 In list mode, bsdtar will produce output similar to that of
598 ls(1). An additional -v option will also provide ls-like details
599 in create and extract mode.
600 --version
602 Print version of bsdtar and libarchive, and exit.
603 -w, --confirmation, --interactive
605 Ask for confirmation for every action.
606 -X filename, --exclude-from filename
608 Read a list of exclusion patterns from the specified file. See
609 --exclude for more information about the handling of exclusions.
610 --xattrs
612 (c, r, u, x modes only) Archive or extract extended file
613 attributes. This is the reverse of --no-xattrs and the default
614 behavior in c, r, and u modes or if bsdtar is run in x mode as
615 root.
616 -y (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with bzip2(1). In
618 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
619 tar implementation recognizes bzip2 compression automatically
620 when reading archives.
621 -Z, --compress, --uncompress
623 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with compress(1).
624 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
625 tar implementation recognizes compress compression automatically
626 when reading archives.
627 -z, --gunzip, --gzip
629 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with gzip(1). In
630 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
631 tar implementation recognizes gzip compression automatically when
632 reading archives.
633
635 The following environment variables affect the execution of bsdtar:
636 TAR_READER_OPTIONS
638 The default options for format readers and compression read‐
639 ers. The --options option overrides this.
640 TAR_WRITER_OPTIONS
642 The default options for format writers and compression writ‐
643 ers. The --options option overrides this.
644 LANG The locale to use. See environ(7) for more information.
646 TAPE The default device. The -f option overrides this. Please see
648 the description of the -f option above for more details.
649 TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. See environ(7) for
651 more information.
652
654 The bsdtar utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
655
657 The following creates a new archive called file.tar.gz that contains two
658 files source.c and source.h:
659 bsdtar -czf file.tar.gz source.c source.h
660 To view a detailed table of contents for this archive:
662 bsdtar -tvf file.tar.gz
663 To extract all entries from the archive on the default tape drive:
665 bsdtar -x
666 To examine the contents of an ISO 9660 cdrom image:
668 bsdtar -tf image.iso
669 To move file hierarchies, invoke bsdtar as
671 bsdtar -cf - -C srcdir . | bsdtar -xpf - -C destdir
672 or more traditionally
673 cd srcdir ; bsdtar -cf - . | (cd destdir ; bsdtar -xpf -)
674 In create mode, the list of files and directories to be archived can also
676 include directory change instructions of the form -Cfoo/baz and archive
677 inclusions of the form @archive-file. For example, the command line
678 bsdtar -c -f new.tar foo1 @old.tgz -C/tmp foo2
679 will create a new archive new.tar. bsdtar will read the file foo1 from
680 the current directory and add it to the output archive. It will then
681 read each entry from old.tgz and add those entries to the output archive.
682 Finally, it will switch to the /tmp directory and add foo2 to the output
683 archive.
684 An input file in mtree(5) format can be used to create an output archive
686 with arbitrary ownership, permissions, or names that differ from existing
687 data on disk:
688 $ cat input.mtree
690 #mtree
691 usr/bin uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=dir
692 usr/bin/ls uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=file content=myls
693 $ tar -cvf output.tar @input.mtree
694 The --newer and --newer-mtime switches accept a variety of common date
696 and time specifications, including “12 Mar 2005 7:14:29pm”, “2005-03-12
697 19:14”, “5 minutes ago”, and “19:14 PST May 1”.
698 The --options argument can be used to control various details of archive
700 generation or reading. For example, you can generate mtree output which
701 only contains type, time, and uid keywords:
702 bsdtar -cf file.tar --format=mtree --options='!all,type,time,uid'
703 dir
704 or you can set the compression level used by gzip or xz compression:
705 bsdtar -czf file.tar --options='compression-level=9'.
706 For more details, see the explanation of the archive_read_set_options()
707 and archive_write_set_options() API calls that are described in
708 archive_read(3) and archive_write(3).
709
711 The bundled-arguments format is supported for compatibility with historic
712 implementations. It consists of an initial word (with no leading - char‐
713 acter) in which each character indicates an option. Arguments follow as
714 separate words. The order of the arguments must match the order of the
715 corresponding characters in the bundled command word. For example,
716 bsdtar tbf 32 file.tar
717 specifies three flags t, b, and f. The b and f flags both require argu‐
718 ments, so there must be two additional items on the command line. The 32
719 is the argument to the b flag, and file.tar is the argument to the f
720 flag.
721 The mode options c, r, t, u, and x and the options b, f, l, m, o, v, and
723 w comply with SUSv2.
724 For maximum portability, scripts that invoke tar should use the bundled-
726 argument format above, should limit themselves to the c, t, and x modes,
727 and the b, f, m, v, and w options.
728 Additional long options are provided to improve compatibility with other
730 tar implementations.
731
733 Certain security issues are common to many archiving programs, including
734 bsdtar. In particular, carefully-crafted archives can request that
735 bsdtar extract files to locations outside of the target directory. This
736 can potentially be used to cause unwitting users to overwrite files they
737 did not intend to overwrite. If the archive is being extracted by the
738 superuser, any file on the system can potentially be overwritten. There
739 are three ways this can happen. Although bsdtar has mechanisms to pro‐
740 tect against each one, savvy users should be aware of the implications:
741 · Archive entries can have absolute pathnames. By default, bsdtar
743 removes the leading / character from filenames before restoring
744 them to guard against this problem.
745 · Archive entries can have pathnames that include .. components.
747 By default, bsdtar will not extract files containing .. compo‐
748 nents in their pathname.
749 · Archive entries can exploit symbolic links to restore files to
751 other directories. An archive can restore a symbolic link to
752 another directory, then use that link to restore a file into that
753 directory. To guard against this, bsdtar checks each extracted
754 path for symlinks. If the final path element is a symlink, it
755 will be removed and replaced with the archive entry. If -U is
756 specified, any intermediate symlink will also be unconditionally
757 removed. If neither -U nor -P is specified, bsdtar will refuse
758 to extract the entry.
759 To protect yourself, you should be wary of any archives that come from
760 untrusted sources. You should examine the contents of an archive with
761 bsdtar -tf filename
762 before extraction. You should use the -k option to ensure that bsdtar
763 will not overwrite any existing files or the -U option to remove any pre-
764 existing files. You should generally not extract archives while running
765 with super-user privileges. Note that the -P option to bsdtar disables
766 the security checks above and allows you to extract an archive while pre‐
767 serving any absolute pathnames, .. components, or symlinks to other
768 directories.
769
771 bzip2(1), compress(1), cpio(1), gzip(1), mt(1), pax(1), shar(1), xz(1),
772 libarchive(3), libarchive-formats(5), tar(5)
773
775 There is no current POSIX standard for the tar command; it appeared in
776 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) but was dropped from IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
777 (“POSIX.1”). The options supported by this implementation were developed
778 by surveying a number of existing tar implementations as well as the old
779 POSIX specification for tar and the current POSIX specification for pax.
780 The ustar and pax interchange file formats are defined by IEEE Std
782 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) for the pax command.
783
785 A tar command appeared in Seventh Edition Unix, which was released in
786 January, 1979. There have been numerous other implementations, many of
787 which extended the file format. John Gilmore's pdtar public-domain
788 implementation (circa November, 1987) was quite influential, and formed
789 the basis of GNU tar. GNU tar was included as the standard system tar in
790 FreeBSD beginning with FreeBSD 1.0.
791 This is a complete re-implementation based on the libarchive(3) library.
793 It was first released with FreeBSD 5.4 in May, 2005.
794
796 This program follows ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) for the definition
797 of the -l option. Note that GNU tar prior to version 1.15 treated -l as
798 a synonym for the --one-file-system option.
799 The -C dir option may differ from historic implementations.
801 All archive output is written in correctly-sized blocks, even if the out‐
803 put is being compressed. Whether or not the last output block is padded
804 to a full block size varies depending on the format and the output
805 device. For tar and cpio formats, the last block of output is padded to
806 a full block size if the output is being written to standard output or to
807 a character or block device such as a tape drive. If the output is being
808 written to a regular file, the last block will not be padded. Many com‐
809 pressors, including gzip(1) and bzip2(1), complain about the null padding
810 when decompressing an archive created by bsdtar, although they still
811 extract it correctly.
812 The compression and decompression is implemented internally, so there may
814 be insignificant differences between the compressed output generated by
815 bsdtar -czf - file
816 and that generated by
817 bsdtar -cf - file | gzip
818 The default should be to read and write archives to the standard I/O
820 paths, but tradition (and POSIX) dictates otherwise.
821 The r and u modes require that the archive be uncompressed and located in
823 a regular file on disk. Other archives can be modified using c mode with
824 the @archive-file extension.
825 To archive a file called @foo or -foo you must specify it as ./@foo or
827 ./-foo, respectively.
828 In create mode, a leading ./ is always removed. A leading / is stripped
830 unless the -P option is specified.
831 There needs to be better support for file selection on both create and
833 extract.
834 There is not yet any support for multi-volume archives.
836 Converting between dissimilar archive formats (such as tar and cpio)
838 using the @- convention can cause hard link information to be lost.
839 (This is a consequence of the incompatible ways that different archive
840 formats store hardlink information.)
841BSD January 31, 2020 BSD