1BSDCPIO(1) BSD General Commands Manual BSDCPIO(1)
2
4 bsdcpio — copy files to and from archives
5
7 bsdcpio -i [options] [pattern ...] [< archive]
8 bsdcpio -o [options] < name-list [> archive]
9 bsdcpio -p [options] dest-dir < name-list
10
12 bsdcpio copies files between archives and directories. This implementa‐
13 tion can extract from tar, pax, cpio, zip, jar, ar, and ISO 9660 cdrom
14 images and can create tar, pax, cpio, ar, and shar archives.
15 The first option to bsdcpio is a mode indicator from the following list:
17 -i Input. Read an archive from standard input (unless overridden)
18 and extract the contents to disk or (if the -t option is speci‐
19 fied) list the contents to standard output. If one or more file
20 patterns are specified, only files matching one of the patterns
21 will be extracted.
22 -o Output. Read a list of filenames from standard input and produce
23 a new archive on standard output (unless overridden) containing
24 the specified items.
25 -p Pass-through. Read a list of filenames from standard input and
26 copy the files to the specified directory.
27
29 Unless specifically stated otherwise, options are applicable in all oper‐
30 ating modes.
31 -0, --null
33 Read filenames separated by NUL characters instead of newlines.
34 This is necessary if any of the filenames being read might con‐
35 tain newlines.
36 -A (o mode only) Append to the specified archive. (Not yet imple‐
38 mented.)
39 -a (o and p modes) Reset access times on files after they are read.
41 -B (o mode only) Block output to records of 5120 bytes.
43 -C size
45 (o mode only) Block output to records of size bytes.
46 -c (o mode only) Use the old POSIX portable character format.
48 Equivalent to --format odc.
49 -d, --make-directories
51 (i and p modes) Create directories as necessary.
52 -E file
54 (i mode only) Read list of file name patterns from file to list
55 and extract.
56 -F file, --file file
58 Read archive from or write archive to file.
59 -f pattern
61 (i mode only) Ignore files that match pattern.
62 -H format, --format format
64 (o mode only) Produce the output archive in the specified format.
65 Supported formats include:
66 cpio Synonym for odc.
68 newc The SVR4 portable cpio format.
69 odc The old POSIX.1 portable octet-oriented cpio format.
70 pax The POSIX.1 pax format, an extension of the ustar for‐
71 mat.
72 ustar The POSIX.1 tar format.
73 The default format is odc. See libarchive-formats(5) for more
75 complete information about the formats currently supported by the
76 underlying libarchive(3) library.
77 -h, --help
79 Print usage information.
80 -I file
82 Read archive from file.
83 -i, --extract
85 Input mode. See above for description.
86 --insecure
88 (i and p mode only) Disable security checks during extraction or
89 copying. This allows extraction via symbolic links, absolute
90 paths, and path names containing ‘..’ in the name.
91 -J, --xz
93 (o mode only) Compress the file with xz-compatible compression
94 before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; xz
95 compression is recognized automatically on input.
96 -j Synonym for -y.
98 -L (o and p modes) All symbolic links will be followed. Normally,
100 symbolic links are archived and copied as symbolic links. With
101 this option, the target of the link will be archived or copied
102 instead.
103 -l, --link
105 (p mode only) Create links from the target directory to the orig‐
106 inal files, instead of copying.
107 --lrzip
109 (o mode only) Compress the resulting archive with lrzip(1). In
110 input mode, this option is ignored.
111 --lz4 (o mode only) Compress the archive with lz4-compatible compres‐
113 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
114 lz4 compression is recognized automatically on input.
115 --zstd (o mode only) Compress the archive with zstd-compatible compres‐
117 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
118 zstd compression is recognized automatically on input.
119 --lzma (o mode only) Compress the file with lzma-compatible compression
121 before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; lzma
122 compression is recognized automatically on input.
123 --lzop (o mode only) Compress the resulting archive with lzop(1). In
125 input mode, this option is ignored.
126 --passphrase passphrase
128 The passphrase is used to extract or create an encrypted archive.
129 Currently, zip is only a format that bsdcpio can handle encrypted
130 archives. You shouldn't use this option unless you realize how
131 insecure use of this option is.
132 -m, --preserve-modification-time
134 (i and p modes) Set file modification time on created files to
135 match those in the source.
136 -n, --numeric-uid-gid
138 (i mode, only with -t) Display numeric uid and gid. By default,
139 bsdcpio displays the user and group names when they are provided
140 in the archive, or looks up the user and group names in the sys‐
141 tem password database.
142 --no-preserve-owner
144 (i mode only) Do not attempt to restore file ownership. This is
145 the default when run by non-root users.
146 -O file
148 Write archive to file.
149 -o, --create
151 Output mode. See above for description.
152 -p, --pass-through
154 Pass-through mode. See above for description.
155 --preserve-owner
157 (i mode only) Restore file ownership. This is the default when
158 run by the root user.
159 --quiet
161 Suppress unnecessary messages.
162 -R [user][:][group], --owner [user][:][group]
164 Set the owner and/or group on files in the output. If group is
165 specified with no user (for example, -R :wheel) then the group
166 will be set but not the user. If the user is specified with a
167 trailing colon and no group (for example, -R root:) then the
168 group will be set to the user's default group. If the user is
169 specified with no trailing colon, then the user will be set but
170 not the group. In -i and -p modes, this option can only be used
171 by the super-user. (For compatibility, a period can be used in
172 place of the colon.)
173 -r (All modes.) Rename files interactively. For each file, a
175 prompt is written to /dev/tty containing the name of the file and
176 a line is read from /dev/tty. If the line read is blank, the
177 file is skipped. If the line contains a single period, the file
178 is processed normally. Otherwise, the line is taken to be the
179 new name of the file.
180 -t, --list
182 (i mode only) List the contents of the archive to stdout; do not
183 restore the contents to disk.
184 -u, --unconditional
186 (i and p modes) Unconditionally overwrite existing files. Ordi‐
187 narily, an older file will not overwrite a newer file on disk.
188 -V, --dot
190 Print a dot to stderr for each file as it is processed. Super‐
191 seded by -v.
192 -v, --verbose
194 Print the name of each file to stderr as it is processed. With
195 -t, provide a detailed listing of each file.
196 --version
198 Print the program version information and exit.
199 -y (o mode only) Compress the archive with bzip2-compatible compres‐
201 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
202 bzip2 compression is recognized automatically on input.
203 -Z (o mode only) Compress the archive with compress-compatible com‐
205 pression before writing it. In input mode, this option is
206 ignored; compression is recognized automatically on input.
207 -z (o mode only) Compress the archive with gzip-compatible compres‐
209 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
210 gzip compression is recognized automatically on input.
211
213 The bsdcpio utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
214
216 The following environment variables affect the execution of bsdcpio:
217 LANG The locale to use. See environ(7) for more information.
219 TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. See environ(7) for
221 more information.
222
224 The bsdcpio command is traditionally used to copy file hierarchies in
225 conjunction with the find(1) command. The first example here simply
226 copies all files from src to dest:
227 find src | bsdcpio -pmud dest
228 By carefully selecting options to the find(1) command and combining it
230 with other standard utilities, it is possible to exercise very fine con‐
231 trol over which files are copied. This next example copies files from
232 src to dest that are more than 2 days old and whose names match a partic‐
233 ular pattern:
234 find src -mtime +2 | grep foo[bar] | bsdcpio -pdmu dest
235 This example copies files from src to dest that are more than 2 days old
237 and which contain the word “foobar”:
238 find src -mtime +2 | xargs grep -l foobar | bsdcpio -pdmu dest
239
241 The mode options i, o, and p and the options a, B, c, d, f, l, m, r, t,
242 u, and v comply with SUSv2.
243 The old POSIX.1 standard specified that only -i, -o, and -p were inter‐
245 preted as command-line options. Each took a single argument of a list of
246 modifier characters. For example, the standard syntax allows -imu but
247 does not support -miu or -i -m -u, since m and u are only modifiers to
248 -i, they are not command-line options in their own right. The syntax
249 supported by this implementation is backwards-compatible with the stan‐
250 dard. For best compatibility, scripts should limit themselves to the
251 standard syntax.
252
254 bzip2(1), gzip(1), mt(1), pax(1), tar(1), libarchive(3), cpio(5),
255 libarchive-formats(5), tar(5)
256
258 There is no current POSIX standard for the cpio command; it appeared in
259 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) but was dropped from IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
260 (“POSIX.1”).
261 The cpio, ustar, and pax interchange file formats are defined by IEEE Std
263 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) for the pax command.
264
266 The original cpio and find utilities were written by Dick Haight while
267 working in AT&T's Unix Support Group. They first appeared in 1977 in
268 PWB/UNIX 1.0, the “Programmer's Work Bench” system developed for use
269 within AT&T. They were first released outside of AT&T as part of System
270 III Unix in 1981. As a result, cpio actually predates tar, even though
271 it was not well-known outside of AT&T until some time later.
272 This is a complete re-implementation based on the libarchive(3) library.
274
276 The cpio archive format has several basic limitations: It does not store
277 user and group names, only numbers. As a result, it cannot be reliably
278 used to transfer files between systems with dissimilar user and group
279 numbering. Older cpio formats limit the user and group numbers to 16 or
280 18 bits, which is insufficient for modern systems. The cpio archive for‐
281 mats cannot support files over 4 gigabytes, except for the “odc” variant,
282 which can support files up to 8 gigabytes.
283BSD September 16, 2014 BSD