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 -6, --pwb
38 When reading a binary format archive, assume it's the earlier
39 one, from the PWB variant of 6th Edition UNIX. When writing a
40 cpio archive, use the PWB format.
41 -7, --binary
43 (o mode only) When writing a cpio archive, use the (newer, non-
44 PWB) binary format.
45 -A (o mode only) Append to the specified archive. (Not yet imple‐
47 mented.)
48 -a (o and p modes) Reset access times on files after they are read.
50 -B (o mode only) Block output to records of 5120 bytes.
52 -C size
54 (o mode only) Block output to records of size bytes.
55 -c (o mode only) Use the old POSIX portable character format.
57 Equivalent to --format odc.
58 -d, --make-directories
60 (i and p modes) Create directories as necessary.
61 -E file
63 (i mode only) Read list of file name patterns from file to list
64 and extract.
65 -F file, --file file
67 Read archive from or write archive to file.
68 -f pattern
70 (i mode only) Ignore files that match pattern.
71 -H format, --format format
73 (o mode only) Produce the output archive in the specified format.
74 Supported formats include:
75 cpio Synonym for odc.
77 newc The SVR4 portable cpio format.
78 odc The old POSIX.1 portable octet-oriented cpio format.
79 pax The POSIX.1 pax format, an extension of the ustar for‐
80 mat.
81 ustar The POSIX.1 tar format.
82 The default format is odc. See libarchive-formats(5) for more
84 complete information about the formats currently supported by the
85 underlying libarchive(3) library.
86 -h, --help
88 Print usage information.
89 -I file
91 Read archive from file.
92 -i, --extract
94 Input mode. See above for description.
95 --insecure
97 (i and p mode only) Disable security checks during extraction or
98 copying. This allows extraction via symbolic links, absolute
99 paths, and path names containing ‘..’ in the name.
100 -J, --xz
102 (o mode only) Compress the file with xz-compatible compression
103 before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; xz
104 compression is recognized automatically on input.
105 -j Synonym for -y.
107 -L (o and p modes) All symbolic links will be followed. Normally,
109 symbolic links are archived and copied as symbolic links. With
110 this option, the target of the link will be archived or copied
111 instead.
112 -l, --link
114 (p mode only) Create links from the target directory to the orig‐
115 inal files, instead of copying.
116 --lrzip
118 (o mode only) Compress the resulting archive with lrzip(1). In
119 input mode, this option is ignored.
120 --lz4 (o mode only) Compress the archive with lz4-compatible compres‐
122 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
123 lz4 compression is recognized automatically on input.
124 --zstd (o mode only) Compress the archive with zstd-compatible compres‐
126 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
127 zstd compression is recognized automatically on input.
128 --lzma (o mode only) Compress the file with lzma-compatible compression
130 before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; lzma
131 compression is recognized automatically on input.
132 --lzop (o mode only) Compress the resulting archive with lzop(1). In
134 input mode, this option is ignored.
135 --passphrase passphrase
137 The passphrase is used to extract or create an encrypted archive.
138 Currently, zip is only a format that bsdcpio can handle encrypted
139 archives. You shouldn't use this option unless you realize how
140 insecure use of this option is.
141 -m, --preserve-modification-time
143 (i and p modes) Set file modification time on created files to
144 match those in the source.
145 -n, --numeric-uid-gid
147 (i mode, only with -t) Display numeric uid and gid. By default,
148 bsdcpio displays the user and group names when they are provided
149 in the archive, or looks up the user and group names in the sys‐
150 tem password database.
151 --no-preserve-owner
153 (i mode only) Do not attempt to restore file ownership. This is
154 the default when run by non-root users.
155 -O file
157 Write archive to file.
158 -o, --create
160 Output mode. See above for description.
161 -p, --pass-through
163 Pass-through mode. See above for description.
164 --preserve-owner
166 (i mode only) Restore file ownership. This is the default when
167 run by the root user.
168 --quiet
170 Suppress unnecessary messages.
171 -R [user][:][group], --owner [user][:][group]
173 Set the owner and/or group on files in the output. If group is
174 specified with no user (for example, -R :wheel) then the group
175 will be set but not the user. If the user is specified with a
176 trailing colon and no group (for example, -R root:) then the
177 group will be set to the user's default group. If the user is
178 specified with no trailing colon, then the user will be set but
179 not the group. In -i and -p modes, this option can only be used
180 by the super-user. (For compatibility, a period can be used in
181 place of the colon.)
182 -r (All modes.) Rename files interactively. For each file, a
184 prompt is written to /dev/tty containing the name of the file and
185 a line is read from /dev/tty. If the line read is blank, the
186 file is skipped. If the line contains a single period, the file
187 is processed normally. Otherwise, the line is taken to be the
188 new name of the file.
189 -t, --list
191 (i mode only) List the contents of the archive to stdout; do not
192 restore the contents to disk.
193 -u, --unconditional
195 (i and p modes) Unconditionally overwrite existing files. Ordi‐
196 narily, an older file will not overwrite a newer file on disk.
197 -V, --dot
199 Print a dot to stderr for each file as it is processed. Super‐
200 seded by -v.
201 -v, --verbose
203 Print the name of each file to stderr as it is processed. With
204 -t, provide a detailed listing of each file.
205 --version
207 Print the program version information and exit.
208 -y (o mode only) Compress the archive with bzip2-compatible compres‐
210 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
211 bzip2 compression is recognized automatically on input.
212 -Z (o mode only) Compress the archive with compress-compatible com‐
214 pression before writing it. In input mode, this option is ig‐
215 nored; compression is recognized automatically on input.
216 -z (o mode only) Compress the archive with gzip-compatible compres‐
218 sion before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored;
219 gzip compression is recognized automatically on input.
220
222 The bsdcpio utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
223
225 The following environment variables affect the execution of bsdcpio:
226 LANG The locale to use. See environ(7) for more information.
228 TZ The timezone to use when displaying dates. See environ(7) for
230 more information.
231
233 The bsdcpio command is traditionally used to copy file hierarchies in
234 conjunction with the find(1) command. The first example here simply
235 copies all files from src to dest:
236 find src | bsdcpio -pmud dest
237 By carefully selecting options to the find(1) command and combining it
239 with other standard utilities, it is possible to exercise very fine con‐
240 trol over which files are copied. This next example copies files from
241 src to dest that are more than 2 days old and whose names match a partic‐
242 ular pattern:
243 find src -mtime +2 | grep foo[bar] | bsdcpio -pdmu dest
244 This example copies files from src to dest that are more than 2 days old
246 and which contain the word “foobar”:
247 find src -mtime +2 | xargs grep -l foobar | bsdcpio -pdmu dest
248
250 The mode options i, o, and p and the options a, B, c, d, f, l, m, r, t,
251 u, and v comply with SUSv2.
252 The old POSIX.1 standard specified that only -i, -o, and -p were inter‐
254 preted as command-line options. Each took a single argument of a list of
255 modifier characters. For example, the standard syntax allows -imu but
256 does not support -miu or -i -m -u, since m and u are only modifiers to
257 -i, they are not command-line options in their own right. The syntax
258 supported by this implementation is backwards-compatible with the stan‐
259 dard. For best compatibility, scripts should limit themselves to the
260 standard syntax.
261
263 bzip2(1), gzip(1), mt(1), pax(1), tar(1), libarchive(3), cpio(5),
264 libarchive-formats(5), tar(5)
265
267 There is no current POSIX standard for the cpio command; it appeared in
268 ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) but was dropped from IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
269 (“POSIX.1”).
270 The cpio, ustar, and pax interchange file formats are defined by IEEE Std
272 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) for the pax command.
273
275 The original cpio and find utilities were written by Dick Haight while
276 working in AT&T's Unix Support Group. They first appeared in 1977 in
277 PWB/UNIX 1.0, the “Programmer's Work Bench” system developed for use
278 within AT&T. They were first released outside of AT&T as part of System
279 III Unix in 1981. As a result, cpio actually predates tar, even though
280 it was not well-known outside of AT&T until some time later.
281 This is a complete re-implementation based on the libarchive(3) library.
283
285 The cpio archive format has several basic limitations: It does not store
286 user and group names, only numbers. As a result, it cannot be reliably
287 used to transfer files between systems with dissimilar user and group
288 numbering. Older cpio formats limit the user and group numbers to 16 or
289 18 bits, which is insufficient for modern systems. The cpio archive for‐
290 mats cannot support files over 4 gigabytes, except for the “odc” variant,
291 which can support files up to 8 gigabytes.
292BSD September 16, 2014 BSD