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 specifying the zstd compression level.
428 Supported values depend on the library version, common
429 values are from 1 to 22.
430 lzop:compression-level
431 A decimal integer from 1 to 9 specifying the lzop com‐
432 pression level.
433 xz:compression-level
434 A decimal integer from 0 to 9 specifying the xz compres‐
435 sion level.
436 mtree:keyword
437 The mtree writer module allows you to specify which mtree
438 keywords will be included in the output. Supported key‐
439 words include: cksum, device, flags, gid, gname, indent,
440 link, md5, mode, nlink, rmd160, sha1, sha256, sha384,
441 sha512, size, time, uid, uname. The default is equiva‐
442 lent to: “device, flags, gid, gname, link, mode, nlink,
443 size, time, type, uid, uname”.
444 mtree:all
445 Enables all of the above keywords. You can also use
446 mtree:!all to disable all keywords.
447 mtree:use-set
448 Enable generation of /set lines in the output.
449 mtree:indent
450 Produce human-readable output by indenting options and
451 splitting lines to fit into 80 columns.
452 zip:compression=type
453 Use type as compression method. Supported values are
454 store (uncompressed) and deflate (gzip algorithm).
455 zip:encryption
456 Enable encryption using traditional zip encryption.
457 zip:encryption=type
458 Use type as encryption type. Supported values are
459 zipcrypt (traditional zip encryption), aes128 (WinZip
460 AES-128 encryption) and aes256 (WinZip AES-256 encryp‐
461 tion).
462 read_concatenated_archives
463 Ignore zeroed blocks in the archive, which occurs when
464 multiple tar archives have been concatenated together.
465 Without this option, only the contents of the first con‐
466 catenated archive would be read. This option is compara‐
467 ble to the -i, --ignore-zeros option of GNU tar.
468 If a provided option is not supported by any module, that is a
469 fatal error.
470 -P, --absolute-paths
472 Preserve pathnames. By default, absolute pathnames (those that
473 begin with a / character) have the leading slash removed both
474 when creating archives and extracting from them. Also, bsdtar
475 will refuse to extract archive entries whose pathnames contain ..
476 or whose target directory would be altered by a symlink. This
477 option suppresses these behaviors.
478 -p, --insecure, --preserve-permissions
480 (x mode only) Preserve file permissions. Attempt to restore the
481 full permissions, including file modes, file attributes or file
482 flags, extended file attributes and ACLs, if available, for each
483 item extracted from the archive. This is the reverse of
484 --no-same-permissions and the default if bsdtar is being run as
485 root. It can be partially overridden by also specifying
486 --no-acls, --no-fflags, --no-mac-metadata or --no-xattrs.
487 --passphrase passphrase
489 The passphrase is used to extract or create an encrypted archive.
490 Currently, zip is the only supported format that supports encryp‐
491 tion. You shouldn't use this option unless you realize how inse‐
492 cure use of this option is.
493 --posix
495 (c, r, u mode only) Synonym for --format pax
496 -q, --fast-read
498 (x and t mode only) Extract or list only the first archive entry
499 that matches each pattern or filename operand. Exit as soon as
500 each specified pattern or filename has been matched. By default,
501 the archive is always read to the very end, since there can be
502 multiple entries with the same name and, by convention, later
503 entries overwrite earlier entries. This option is provided as a
504 performance optimization.
505 -S (x mode only) Extract files as sparse files. For every block on
507 disk, check first if it contains only NULL bytes and seek over it
508 otherwise. This works similar to the conv=sparse option of dd.
509 -s pattern
511 Modify file or archive member names according to pattern. The
512 pattern has the format /old/new/[ghHprRsS] where old is a basic
513 regular expression, new is the replacement string of the matched
514 part, and the optional trailing letters modify how the replace‐
515 ment is handled. If old is not matched, the pattern is skipped.
516 Within new, ~ is substituted with the match, \1 to \9 with the
517 content of the corresponding captured group. The optional trail‐
518 ing g specifies that matching should continue after the matched
519 part and stop on the first unmatched pattern. The optional
520 trailing s specifies that the pattern applies to the value of
521 symbolic links. The optional trailing p specifies that after a
522 successful substitution the original path name and the new path
523 name should be printed to standard error. Optional trailing H,
524 R, or S characters suppress substitutions for hardlink targets,
525 regular filenames, or symlink targets, respectively. Optional
526 trailing h, r, or s characters enable substitutions for hardlink
527 targets, regular filenames, or symlink targets, respectively.
528 The default is hrs which applies substitutions to all names. In
529 particular, it is never necessary to specify h, r, or s.
530 --safe-writes
532 (x mode only) Extract files atomically. By default bsdtar
533 unlinks the original file with the same name as the extracted
534 file (if it exists), and then creates it immediately under the
535 same name and writes to it. For a short period of time, applica‐
536 tions trying to access the file might not find it, or see incom‐
537 plete results. If --safe-writes is enabled, bsdtar first creates
538 a unique temporary file, then writes the new contents to the tem‐
539 porary file, and finally renames the temporary file to its final
540 name atomically using rename(2). This guarantees that an appli‐
541 cation accessing the file, will either see the old contents or
542 the new contents at all times.
543 --same-owner
545 (x mode only) Extract owner and group IDs. This is the reverse
546 of --no-same-owner and the default behavior if bsdtar is run as
547 root.
548 --strip-components count
550 Remove the specified number of leading path elements. Pathnames
551 with fewer elements will be silently skipped. Note that the
552 pathname is edited after checking inclusion/exclusion patterns
553 but before security checks.
554 -T filename, --files-from filename
556 In x or t mode, bsdtar will read the list of names to be
557 extracted from filename. In c mode, bsdtar will read names to be
558 archived from filename. The special name “-C” on a line by
559 itself will cause the current directory to be changed to the
560 directory specified on the following line. Names are terminated
561 by newlines unless --null is specified. Note that --null also
562 disables the special handling of lines containing “-C”. Note:
563 If you are generating lists of files using find(1), you probably
564 want to use -n as well.
565 --totals
567 (c, r, u modes only) After archiving all files, print a summary
568 to stderr.
569 -U, --unlink, --unlink-first
571 (x mode only) Unlink files before creating them. This can be a
572 minor performance optimization if most files already exist, but
573 can make things slower if most files do not already exist. This
574 flag also causes bsdtar to remove intervening directory symlinks
575 instead of reporting an error. See the SECURITY section below
576 for more details.
577 --uid id
579 Use the provided user id number and ignore the user name from the
580 archive. On create, if --uname is not also specified, the user
581 name will be set to match the user id.
582 --uname name
584 Use the provided user name. On extract, this overrides the user
585 name in the archive; if the provided user name does not exist on
586 the system, it will be ignored and the user id (from the archive
587 or from the --uid option) will be used instead. On create, this
588 sets the user name that will be stored in the archive; the name
589 is not verified against the system user database.
590 --use-compress-program program
592 Pipe the input (in x or t mode) or the output (in c mode) through
593 program instead of using the builtin compression support.
594 -v, --verbose
596 Produce verbose output. In create and extract modes, bsdtar will
597 list each file name as it is read from or written to the archive.
598 In list mode, bsdtar will produce output similar to that of
599 ls(1). An additional -v option will also provide ls-like details
600 in create and extract mode.
601 --version
603 Print version of bsdtar and libarchive, and exit.
604 -w, --confirmation, --interactive
606 Ask for confirmation for every action.
607 -X filename, --exclude-from filename
609 Read a list of exclusion patterns from the specified file. See
610 --exclude for more information about the handling of exclusions.
611 --xattrs
613 (c, r, u, x modes only) Archive or extract extended file
614 attributes. This is the reverse of --no-xattrs and the default
615 behavior in c, r, and u modes or if bsdtar is run in x mode as
616 root.
617 -y (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with bzip2(1). In
619 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
620 tar implementation recognizes bzip2 compression automatically
621 when reading archives.
622 -Z, --compress, --uncompress
624 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with compress(1).
625 In extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
626 tar implementation recognizes compress compression automatically
627 when reading archives.
628 -z, --gunzip, --gzip
630 (c mode only) Compress the resulting archive with gzip(1). In
631 extract or list modes, this option is ignored. Note that this
632 tar implementation recognizes gzip compression automatically when
633 reading archives.
634
636 The following environment variables affect the execution of bsdtar:
637 TAR_READER_OPTIONS
639 The default options for format readers and compression read‐
640 ers. The --options option overrides this.
641 TAR_WRITER_OPTIONS
643 The default options for format writers and compression writ‐
644 ers. The --options option overrides this.
645 LANG The locale to use. See environ(7) for more information.
647 TAPE The default device. The -f option overrides this. Please see
649 the description of the -f option above for more details.
650 TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. See environ(7) for
652 more information.
653
655 The bsdtar utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
656
658 The following creates a new archive called file.tar.gz that contains two
659 files source.c and source.h:
660 bsdtar -czf file.tar.gz source.c source.h
661 To view a detailed table of contents for this archive:
663 bsdtar -tvf file.tar.gz
664 To extract all entries from the archive on the default tape drive:
666 bsdtar -x
667 To examine the contents of an ISO 9660 cdrom image:
669 bsdtar -tf image.iso
670 To move file hierarchies, invoke bsdtar as
672 bsdtar -cf - -C srcdir . | bsdtar -xpf - -C destdir
673 or more traditionally
674 cd srcdir ; bsdtar -cf - . | (cd destdir ; bsdtar -xpf -)
675 In create mode, the list of files and directories to be archived can also
677 include directory change instructions of the form -Cfoo/baz and archive
678 inclusions of the form @archive-file. For example, the command line
679 bsdtar -c -f new.tar foo1 @old.tgz -C/tmp foo2
680 will create a new archive new.tar. bsdtar will read the file foo1 from
681 the current directory and add it to the output archive. It will then
682 read each entry from old.tgz and add those entries to the output archive.
683 Finally, it will switch to the /tmp directory and add foo2 to the output
684 archive.
685 An input file in mtree(5) format can be used to create an output archive
687 with arbitrary ownership, permissions, or names that differ from existing
688 data on disk:
689 $ cat input.mtree
691 #mtree
692 usr/bin uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=dir
693 usr/bin/ls uid=0 gid=0 mode=0755 type=file content=myls
694 $ tar -cvf output.tar @input.mtree
695 The --newer and --newer-mtime switches accept a variety of common date
697 and time specifications, including “12 Mar 2005 7:14:29pm”, “2005-03-12
698 19:14”, “5 minutes ago”, and “19:14 PST May 1”.
699 The --options argument can be used to control various details of archive
701 generation or reading. For example, you can generate mtree output which
702 only contains type, time, and uid keywords:
703 bsdtar -cf file.tar --format=mtree --options='!all,type,time,uid'
704 dir
705 or you can set the compression level used by gzip or xz compression:
706 bsdtar -czf file.tar --options='compression-level=9'.
707 For more details, see the explanation of the archive_read_set_options()
708 and archive_write_set_options() API calls that are described in
709 archive_read(3) and archive_write(3).
710
712 The bundled-arguments format is supported for compatibility with historic
713 implementations. It consists of an initial word (with no leading - char‐
714 acter) in which each character indicates an option. Arguments follow as
715 separate words. The order of the arguments must match the order of the
716 corresponding characters in the bundled command word. For example,
717 bsdtar tbf 32 file.tar
718 specifies three flags t, b, and f. The b and f flags both require argu‐
719 ments, so there must be two additional items on the command line. The 32
720 is the argument to the b flag, and file.tar is the argument to the f
721 flag.
722 The mode options c, r, t, u, and x and the options b, f, l, m, o, v, and
724 w comply with SUSv2.
725 For maximum portability, scripts that invoke tar should use the bundled-
727 argument format above, should limit themselves to the c, t, and x modes,
728 and the b, f, m, v, and w options.
729 Additional long options are provided to improve compatibility with other
731 tar implementations.
732
734 Certain security issues are common to many archiving programs, including
735 bsdtar. In particular, carefully-crafted archives can request that
736 bsdtar extract files to locations outside of the target directory. This
737 can potentially be used to cause unwitting users to overwrite files they
738 did not intend to overwrite. If the archive is being extracted by the
739 superuser, any file on the system can potentially be overwritten. There
740 are three ways this can happen. Although bsdtar has mechanisms to pro‐
741 tect against each one, savvy users should be aware of the implications:
742 · Archive entries can have absolute pathnames. By default, bsdtar
744 removes the leading / character from filenames before restoring
745 them to guard against this problem.
746 · Archive entries can have pathnames that include .. components.
748 By default, bsdtar will not extract files containing .. compo‐
749 nents in their pathname.
750 · Archive entries can exploit symbolic links to restore files to
752 other directories. An archive can restore a symbolic link to
753 another directory, then use that link to restore a file into that
754 directory. To guard against this, bsdtar checks each extracted
755 path for symlinks. If the final path element is a symlink, it
756 will be removed and replaced with the archive entry. If -U is
757 specified, any intermediate symlink will also be unconditionally
758 removed. If neither -U nor -P is specified, bsdtar will refuse
759 to extract the entry.
760 To protect yourself, you should be wary of any archives that come from
761 untrusted sources. You should examine the contents of an archive with
762 bsdtar -tf filename
763 before extraction. You should use the -k option to ensure that bsdtar
764 will not overwrite any existing files or the -U option to remove any pre-
765 existing files. You should generally not extract archives while running
766 with super-user privileges. Note that the -P option to bsdtar disables
767 the security checks above and allows you to extract an archive while pre‐
768 serving any absolute pathnames, .. components, or symlinks to other
769 directories.
770
772 bzip2(1), compress(1), cpio(1), gzip(1), mt(1), pax(1), shar(1), xz(1),
773 libarchive(3), libarchive-formats(5), tar(5)
774
776 There is no current POSIX standard for the tar command; it appeared in
777 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) but was dropped from IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
778 (“POSIX.1”). The options supported by this implementation were developed
779 by surveying a number of existing tar implementations as well as the old
780 POSIX specification for tar and the current POSIX specification for pax.
781 The ustar and pax interchange file formats are defined by IEEE Std
783 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) for the pax command.
784
786 A tar command appeared in Seventh Edition Unix, which was released in
787 January, 1979. There have been numerous other implementations, many of
788 which extended the file format. John Gilmore's pdtar public-domain
789 implementation (circa November, 1987) was quite influential, and formed
790 the basis of GNU tar. GNU tar was included as the standard system tar in
791 FreeBSD beginning with FreeBSD 1.0.
792 This is a complete re-implementation based on the libarchive(3) library.
794 It was first released with FreeBSD 5.4 in May, 2005.
795
797 This program follows ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) for the definition
798 of the -l option. Note that GNU tar prior to version 1.15 treated -l as
799 a synonym for the --one-file-system option.
800 The -C dir option may differ from historic implementations.
802 All archive output is written in correctly-sized blocks, even if the out‐
804 put is being compressed. Whether or not the last output block is padded
805 to a full block size varies depending on the format and the output
806 device. For tar and cpio formats, the last block of output is padded to
807 a full block size if the output is being written to standard output or to
808 a character or block device such as a tape drive. If the output is being
809 written to a regular file, the last block will not be padded. Many com‐
810 pressors, including gzip(1) and bzip2(1), complain about the null padding
811 when decompressing an archive created by bsdtar, although they still
812 extract it correctly.
813 The compression and decompression is implemented internally, so there may
815 be insignificant differences between the compressed output generated by
816 bsdtar -czf - file
817 and that generated by
818 bsdtar -cf - file | gzip
819 The default should be to read and write archives to the standard I/O
821 paths, but tradition (and POSIX) dictates otherwise.
822 The r and u modes require that the archive be uncompressed and located in
824 a regular file on disk. Other archives can be modified using c mode with
825 the @archive-file extension.
826 To archive a file called @foo or -foo you must specify it as ./@foo or
828 ./-foo, respectively.
829 In create mode, a leading ./ is always removed. A leading / is stripped
831 unless the -P option is specified.
832 There needs to be better support for file selection on both create and
834 extract.
835 There is not yet any support for multi-volume archives.
837 Converting between dissimilar archive formats (such as tar and cpio)
839 using the @- convention can cause hard link information to be lost.
840 (This is a consequence of the incompatible ways that different archive
841 formats store hardlink information.)
842BSD January 31, 2020 BSD