TAR(1) GNU TAR Manual TAR(1)
NAME
tar - an archiving utility
SYNOPSIS
Traditional usage
tar {A|c|d|r|t|u|x}[GnSkUWOmpsMBiajJzZhPlRvwo] [ARG...]
UNIX-style usage
tar -A [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE ARCHIVE
tar -c [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar -d [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar -t [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
tar -r [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar -u [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar -x [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
GNU-style usage
tar {--catenate|--concatenate} [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE ARCHIVE
tar --create [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar {--diff|--compare} [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar --delete [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
tar --append [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar --list [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
tar --test-label [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [LABEL...]
tar --update [--file ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar --update [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [FILE...]
tar {--extract|--get} [-f ARCHIVE] [OPTIONS] [MEMBER...]
NOTE
This manpage is a short description of GNU tar. For a detailed discus-
sion, including examples and usage recommendations, refer to the GNU
Tar Manual available in texinfo format. If the info reader and the tar
documentation are properly installed on your system, the command
info tar
should give you access to the complete manual.
You can also view the manual using the info mode in emacs(1), or find
it in various formats online at
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual
If any discrepancies occur between this manpage and the GNU Tar Manual,
the later shall be considered the authoritative source.
DESCRIPTION
GNU tar is an archiving program designed to store multiple files in a
single file (an archive), and to manipulate such archives. The archive
can be either a regular file or a device (e.g. a tape drive, hence the
name of the program, which stands for tape archiver), which can be lo-
cated either on the local or on a remote machine.
Option styles
Options to GNU tar can be given in three different styles. In tradi-
tional style, the first argument is a cluster of option letters and all
subsequent arguments supply arguments to those options that require
them. The arguments are read in the same order as the option letters.
Any command line words that remain after all options has been processed
are treated as non-optional arguments: file or archive member names.
For example, the c option requires creating the archive, the v option
requests the verbose operation, and the f option takes an argument that
sets the name of the archive to operate upon. The following command,
written in the traditional style, instructs tar to store all files from
the directory /etc into the archive file etc.tar verbosely listing the
files being archived:
tar cfv etc.tar /etc
In UNIX or short-option style, each option letter is prefixed with a
single dash, as in other command line utilities. If an option takes
argument, the argument follows it, either as a separate command line
word, or immediately following the option. However, if the option
takes an optional argument, the argument must follow the option letter
without any intervening whitespace, as in -g/tmp/snar.db.
Any number of options not taking arguments can be clustered together
after a single dash, e.g. -vkp. Options that take arguments (whether
mandatory or optional), can appear at the end of such a cluster, e.g.
-vkpf a.tar.
The example command above written in the short-option style could look
like:
tar -cvf etc.tar /etc
or
tar -c -v -f etc.tar /etc
In GNU or long-option style, each option begins with two dashes and has
a meaningful name, consisting of lower-case letters and dashes. When
used, the long option can be abbreviated to its initial letters, pro-
vided that this does not create ambiguity. Arguments to long options
are supplied either as a separate command line word, immediately fol-
lowing the option, or separated from the option by an equals sign with
no intervening whitespace. Optional arguments must always use the lat-
ter method.
Here are several ways of writing the example command in this style:
tar --create --file etc.tar --verbose /etc
or (abbreviating some options):
tar --cre --file=etc.tar --verb /etc
The options in all three styles can be intermixed, although doing so
with old options is not encouraged.
Operation mode
The options listed in the table below tell GNU tar what operation it is
to perform. Exactly one of them must be given. Meaning of non-op-
tional arguments depends on the operation mode requested.
-A, --catenate, --concatenate
Append archive to the end of another archive. The arguments are
treated as the names of archives to append. All archives must
be of the same format as the archive they are appended to, oth-
erwise the resulting archive might be unusable with non-GNU im-
plementations of tar. Notice also that when more than one ar-
chive is given, the members from archives other than the first
one will be accessible in the resulting archive only if using
the -i (--ignore-zeros) option.
Compressed archives cannot be concatenated.
-c, --create
Create a new archive. Arguments supply the names of the files
to be archived. Directories are archived recursively, unless
the --no-recursion option is given.
-d, --diff, --compare
Find differences between archive and file system. The arguments
are optional and specify archive members to compare. If not
given, the current working directory is assumed.
--delete
Delete from the archive. The arguments supply names of the ar-
chive members to be removed. At least one argument must be
given.
This option does not operate on compressed archives. There is
no short option equivalent.
-r, --append
Append files to the end of an archive. Arguments have the same
meaning as for -c (--create).
-t, --list
List the contents of an archive. Arguments are optional. When
given, they specify the names of the members to list.
--test-label
Test the archive volume label and exit. When used without argu-
ments, it prints the volume label (if any) and exits with status
0. When one or more command line arguments are given. tar com-
pares the volume label with each argument. It exits with code 0
if a match is found, and with code 1 otherwise. No output is
displayed, unless used together with the -v (--verbose) option.
There is no short option equivalent for this option.
-u, --update
Append files which are newer than the corresponding copy in the
archive. Arguments have the same meaning as with -c and -r op-
tions. Notice, that newer files don't replace their old archive
copies, but instead are appended to the end of archive. The re-
sulting archive can thus contain several members of the same
name, corresponding to various versions of the same file.
-x, --extract, --get
Extract files from an archive. Arguments are optional. When
given, they specify names of the archive members to be ex-
tracted.
--show-defaults
Show built-in defaults for various tar options and exit. No ar-
guments are allowed.
-?, --help
Display a short option summary and exit. No arguments allowed.
--usage
Display a list of available options and exit. No arguments al-
lowed.
--version
Print program version and copyright information and exit.
OPTIONS
Operation modifiers
--check-device
Check device numbers when creating incremental archives (de-
fault).
-g, --listed-incremental=FILE
Handle new GNU-format incremental backups. FILE is the name of
a snapshot file, where tar stores additional information which
is used to decide which files changed since the previous incre-
mental dump and, consequently, must be dumped again. If FILE
does not exist when creating an archive, it will be created and
all files will be added to the resulting archive (the level 0
dump). To create incremental archives of non-zero level N, cre-
ate a copy of the snapshot file created during the level N-1,
and use it as FILE.
When listing or extracting, the actual contents of FILE is not
inspected, it is needed only due to syntactical requirements.
It is therefore common practice to use /dev/null in its place.
--hole-detection=METHOD
Use METHOD to detect holes in sparse files. This option implies
--sparse. Valid values for METHOD are seek and raw. Default is
seek with fallback to raw when not applicable.
-G, --incremental
Handle old GNU-format incremental backups.
--ignore-failed-read
Do not exit with nonzero on unreadable files.
--level=NUMBER
Set dump level for created listed-incremental archive. Cur-
rently only --level=0 is meaningful: it instructs tar to trun-
cate the snapshot file before dumping, thereby forcing a level 0
dump.
-n, --seek
Assume the archive is seekable. Normally tar determines auto-
matically whether the archive can be seeked or not. This option
is intended for use in cases when such recognition fails. It
takes effect only if the archive is open for reading (e.g. with
--list or --extract options).
--no-check-device
Do not check device numbers when creating incremental archives.
--no-seek
Assume the archive is not seekable.
--occurrence[=N]
Process only the Nth occurrence of each file in the archive.
This option is valid only when used with one of the following
subcommands: --delete, --diff, --extract or --list and when a
list of files is given either on the command line or via the -T
option. The default N is 1.
--restrict
Disable the use of some potentially harmful options.
--sparse-version=MAJOR[.MINOR]
Set version of the sparse format to use (implies --sparse).
This option implies --sparse. Valid argument values are 0.0,
0.1, and 1.0. For a detailed discussion of sparse formats, re-
fer to the GNU Tar Manual, appendix D, "Sparse Formats". Using
info reader, it can be accessed running the following command:
info tar 'Sparse Formats'.
-S, --sparse
Handle sparse files efficiently. Some files in the file system
may have segments which were actually never written (quite often
these are database files created by such systems as DBM). When
given this option, tar attempts to determine if the file is
sparse prior to archiving it, and if so, to reduce the resulting
archive size by not dumping empty parts of the file.
Overwrite control
These options control tar actions when extracting a file over an exist-
ing copy on disk.
-k, --keep-old-files
Don't replace existing files when extracting.
--keep-newer-files
Don't replace existing files that are newer than their archive
copies.
--keep-directory-symlink
Don't replace existing symlinks to directories when extracting.
--no-overwrite-dir
Preserve metadata of existing directories.
--one-top-level[=DIR]
Extract all files into DIR, or, if used without argument, into a
subdirectory named by the base name of the archive (minus stan-
dard compression suffixes recognizable by --auto-compress).
--overwrite
Overwrite existing files when extracting.
--overwrite-dir
Overwrite metadata of existing directories when extracting (de-
fault).
--recursive-unlink
Recursively remove all files in the directory prior to extract-
ing it.
--remove-files
Remove files from disk after adding them to the archive.
--skip-old-files
Don't replace existing files when extracting, silently skip over
them.
-U, --unlink-first
Remove each file prior to extracting over it.
-W, --verify
Verify the archive after writing it.
Output stream selection
--ignore-command-error
Ignore subprocess exit codes.
--no-ignore-command-error
Treat non-zero exit codes of children as error (default).
-O, --to-stdout
Extract files to standard output.
--to-command=COMMAND
Pipe extracted files to COMMAND. The argument is the pathname
of an external program, optionally with command line arguments.
The program will be invoked and the contents of the file being
extracted supplied to it on its standard input. Additional data
will be supplied via the following environment variables:
TAR_FILETYPE
Type of the file. It is a single letter with the follow-
ing meaning:
f Regular file
d Directory
l Symbolic link
h Hard link
b Block device
c Character device
Currently only regular files are supported.
TAR_MODE
File mode, an octal number.
TAR_FILENAME
The name of the file.
TAR_REALNAME
Name of the file as stored in the archive.
TAR_UNAME
Name of the file owner.
TAR_GNAME
Name of the file owner group.
TAR_ATIME
Time of last access. It is a decimal number, representing
seconds since the Epoch. If the archive provides times
with nanosecond precision, the nanoseconds are appended
to the timestamp after a decimal point.
TAR_MTIME
Time of last modification.
TAR_CTIME
Time of last status change.
TAR_SIZE
Size of the file.
TAR_UID
UID of the file owner.
TAR_GID
GID of the file owner.
Additionally, the following variables contain information about
tar operation mode and the archive being processed:
TAR_VERSION
GNU tar version number.
TAR_ARCHIVE
The name of the archive tar is processing.
TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR
Current blocking factor, i.e. number of 512-byte blocks
in a record.
TAR_VOLUME
Ordinal number of the volume tar is processing (set if
reading a multi-volume archive).
TAR_FORMAT
Format of the archive being processed. One of: gnu,
oldgnu, posix, ustar, v7.
TAR_SUBCOMMAND
A short option (with a leading dash) describing the oper-
ation tar is executing.
Handling of file attributes
--atime-preserve[=METHOD]
Preserve access times on dumped files, either by restoring the
times after reading (METHOD=replace, this is the default) or by
not setting the times in the first place (METHOD=system)
--delay-directory-restore
Delay setting modification times and permissions of extracted
directories until the end of extraction. Use this option when
extracting from an archive which has unusual member ordering.
--group=NAME[:GID]
Force NAME as group for added files. If GID is not supplied,
NAME can be either a user name or numeric GID. In this case the
missing part (GID or name) will be inferred from the current
host's group database.
When used with --group-map=FILE, affects only those files whose
owner group is not listed in FILE.
--group-map=FILE
Read group translation map from FILE. Empty lines are ignored.
Comments are introduced with # sign and extend to the end of
line. Each non-empty line in FILE defines translation for a
single group. It must consist of two fields, delimited by any
amount of whitespace:
OLDGRP NEWGRP[:NEWGID]
OLDGRP is either a valid group name or a GID prefixed with +.
Unless NEWGID is supplied, NEWGRP must also be either a valid
group name or a +GID. Otherwise, both NEWGRP and NEWGID need
not be listed in the system group database.
As a result, each input file with owner group OLDGRP will be
stored in archive with owner group NEWGRP and GID NEWGID.
--mode=CHANGES
Force symbolic mode CHANGES for added files.
--mtime=DATE-OR-FILE
Set mtime for added files. DATE-OR-FILE is either a date/time
in almost arbitrary format, or the name of an existing file. In
the latter case the mtime of that file will be used.
-m, --touch
Don't extract file modified time.
--no-delay-directory-restore
Cancel the effect of the prior --delay-directory-restore option.
--no-same-owner
Extract files as yourself (default for ordinary users).
--no-same-permissions
Apply the user's umask when extracting permissions from the ar-
chive (default for ordinary users).
--numeric-owner
Always use numbers for user/group names.
--owner=NAME[:UID]
Force NAME as owner for added files. If UID is not supplied,
NAME can be either a user name or numeric UID. In this case the
missing part (UID or name) will be inferred from the current
host's user database.
When used with --owner-map=FILE, affects only those files whose
owner is not listed in FILE.
--owner-map=FILE
Read owner translation map from FILE. Empty lines are ignored.
Comments are introduced with # sign and extend to the end of
line. Each non-empty line in FILE defines translation for a
single UID. It must consist of two fields, delimited by any
amount of whitespace:
OLDUSR NEWUSR[:NEWUID]
OLDUSR is either a valid user name or a UID prefixed with +.
Unless NEWUID is supplied, NEWUSR must also be either a valid
user name or a +UID. Otherwise, both NEWUSR and NEWUID need not
be listed in the system user database.
As a result, each input file owned by OLDUSR will be stored in
archive with owner name NEWUSR and UID NEWUID.
-p, --preserve-permissions, --same-permissions
extract information about file permissions (default for supe-
ruser)
--same-owner
Try extracting files with the same ownership as exists in the
archive (default for superuser).
-s, --preserve-order, --same-order
Sort names to extract to match archive
--sort=ORDER
When creating an archive, sort directory entries according to
ORDER, which is one of none, name, or inode.
The default is --sort=none, which stores archive members in the
same order as returned by the operating system.
Using --sort=name ensures the member ordering in the created ar-
chive is uniform and reproducible.
Using --sort=inode reduces the number of disk seeks made when
creating the archive and thus can considerably speed up archiva-
tion. This sorting order is supported only if the underlying
system provides the necessary information.
Extended file attributes
--acls Enable POSIX ACLs support.
--no-acls
Disable POSIX ACLs support.
--selinux
Enable SELinux context support.
--no-selinux
Disable SELinux context support.
--xattrs
Enable extended attributes support.
--no-xattrs
Disable extended attributes support.
--xattrs-exclude=PATTERN
Specify the exclude pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a POSIX
regular expression, e.g. --xattrs-exclude='^user.', to exclude
attributes from the user namespace.
--xattrs-include=PATTERN
Specify the include pattern for xattr keys. PATTERN is a POSIX
regular expression.
Device selection and switching
-f, --file=ARCHIVE
Use archive file or device ARCHIVE. If this option is not
given, tar will first examine the environment variable `TAPE'.
If it is set, its value will be used as the archive name. Oth-
erwise, tar will assume the compiled-in default. The default
value can be inspected either using the --show-defaults option,
or at the end of the tar --help output.
An archive name that has a colon in it specifies a file or de-
vice on a remote machine. The part before the colon is taken as
the machine name or IP address, and the part after it as the
file or device pathname, e.g.:
--file=remotehost:/dev/sr0
An optional username can be prefixed to the hostname, placing a
@ sign between them.
By default, the remote host is accessed via the rsh(1) command.
Nowadays it is common to use ssh(1) instead. You can do so by
giving the following command line option:
--rsh-command=/usr/bin/ssh
The remote machine should have the rmt(8) command installed. If
its pathname does not match tar's default, you can inform tar
about the correct pathname using the --rmt-command option.
--force-local
Archive file is local even if it has a colon.
-F, --info-script=COMMAND, --new-volume-script=COMMAND
Run COMMAND at the end of each tape (implies -M). The command
can include arguments. When started, it will inherit tar's en-
vironment plus the following variables:
TAR_VERSION
GNU tar version number.
TAR_ARCHIVE
The name of the archive tar is processing.
TAR_BLOCKING_FACTOR
Current blocking factor, i.e. number of 512-byte blocks
in a record.
TAR_VOLUME
Ordinal number of the volume tar is processing (set if
reading a multi-volume archive).
TAR_FORMAT
Format of the archive being processed. One of: gnu,
oldgnu, posix, ustar, v7.
TAR_SUBCOMMAND
A short option (with a leading dash) describing the oper-
ation tar is executing.
TAR_FD File descriptor which can be used to communicate the new
volume name to tar.
If the info script fails, tar exits; otherwise, it begins writ-
ing the next volume.
-L, --tape-length=N
Change tape after writing Nx1024 bytes. If N is followed by a
size suffix (see the subsection Size suffixes below), the suffix
specifies the multiplicative factor to be used instead of 1024.
This option implies -M.
-M, --multi-volume
Create/list/extract multi-volume archive.
--rmt-command=COMMAND
Use COMMAND instead of rmt when accessing remote archives. See
the description of the -f option, above.
--rsh-command=COMMAND
Use COMMAND instead of rsh when accessing remote archives. See
the description of the -f option, above.
--volno-file=FILE
When this option is used in conjunction with --multi-volume, tar
will keep track of which volume of a multi-volume archive it is
working in FILE.
Device blocking
-b, --blocking-factor=BLOCKS
Set record size to BLOCKSx512 bytes.
-B, --read-full-records
When listing or extracting, accept incomplete input records af-
ter end-of-file marker.
-i, --ignore-zeros
Ignore zeroed blocks in archive. Normally two consecutive
512-blocks filled with zeroes mean EOF and tar stops reading af-
ter encountering them. This option instructs it to read further
and is useful when reading archives created with the -A option.
--record-size=NUMBER
Set record size. NUMBER is the number of bytes per record. It
must be multiple of 512. It can can be suffixed with a size
suffix, e.g. --record-size=10K, for 10 Kilobytes. See the sub-
section Size suffixes, for a list of valid suffixes.
Archive format selection
-H, --format=FORMAT
Create archive of the given format. Valid formats are:
gnu GNU tar 1.13.x format
oldgnu GNU format as per tar <= 1.12.
pax, posix
POSIX 1003.1-2001 (pax) format.
ustar POSIX 1003.1-1988 (ustar) format.
v7 Old V7 tar format.
--old-archive, --portability
Same as --format=v7.
--pax-option=keyword[[:]=value][,keyword[[:]=value]]...
Control pax keywords when creating PAX archives (-H pax). This
option is equivalent to the -o option of the pax(1) utility.
--posix
Same as --format=posix.
-V, --label=TEXT
Create archive with volume name TEXT. If listing or extracting,
use TEXT as a globbing pattern for volume name.
Compression options
-a, --auto-compress
Use archive suffix to determine the compression program.
-I, --use-compress-program=COMMAND
Filter data through COMMAND. It must accept the -d option, for
decompression. The argument can contain command line options.
-j, --bzip2
Filter the archive through bzip2(1).
-J, --xz
Filter the archive through xz(1).
--lzip Filter the archive through lzip(1).
--lzma Filter the archive through lzma(1).
--lzop Filter the archive through lzop(1).
--no-auto-compress
Do not use archive suffix to determine the compression program.
-z, --gzip, --gunzip, --ungzip
Filter the archive through gzip(1).
-Z, --compress, --uncompress
Filter the archive through compress(1).
--zstd Filter the archive through zstd(1).
Local file selection
--add-file=FILE
Add FILE to the archive (useful if its name starts with a dash).
--backup[=CONTROL]
Backup before removal. The CONTROL argument, if supplied, con-
trols the backup policy. Its valid values are:
none, off
Never make backups.
t, numbered
Make numbered backups.
nil, existing
Make numbered backups if numbered backups exist, simple
backups otherwise.
never, simple
Always make simple backups
If CONTROL is not given, the value is taken from the VER-
SION_CONTROL environment variable. If it is not set, existing
is assumed.
-C, --directory=DIR
Change to DIR before performing any operations. This option is
order-sensitive, i.e. it affects all options that follow.
--exclude=PATTERN
Exclude files matching PATTERN, a glob(3)-style wildcard pat-
tern.
--exclude-backups
Exclude backup and lock files.
--exclude-caches
Exclude contents of directories containing file CACHEDIR.TAG,
except for the tag file itself.
--exclude-caches-all
Exclude directories containing file CACHEDIR.TAG and the file
itself.
--exclude-caches-under
Exclude everything under directories containing CACHEDIR.TAG
--exclude-ignore=FILE
Before dumping a directory, see if it contains FILE. If so,
read exclusion patterns from this file. The patterns affect
only the directory itself.
--exclude-ignore-recursive=FILE
Same as --exclude-ignore, except that patterns from FILE affect
both the directory and all its subdirectories.
--exclude-tag=FILE
Exclude contents of directories containing FILE, except for FILE
itself.
--exclude-tag-all=FILE
Exclude directories containing FILE.
--exclude-tag-under=FILE
Exclude everything under directories containing FILE.
--exclude-vcs
Exclude version control system directories.
--exclude-vcs-ignores
Exclude files that match patterns read from VCS-specific ignore
files. Supported files are: .cvsignore, .gitignore, .bzrignore,
and .hgignore.
-h, --dereference
Follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to.
--hard-dereference
Follow hard links; archive and dump the files they refer to.
-K, --starting-file=MEMBER
Begin at the given member in the archive.
--newer-mtime=DATE
Work on files whose data changed after the DATE. If DATE starts
with / or . it is taken to be a file name; the mtime of that
file is used as the date.
--no-null
Disable the effect of the previous --null option.
--no-recursion
Avoid descending automatically in directories.
--no-unquote
Do not unquote input file or member names.
--no-verbatim-files-from
Treat each line read from a file list as if it were supplied in
the command line. I.e., leading and trailing whitespace is re-
moved and, if the resulting string begins with a dash, it is
treated as tar command line option.
This is the default behavior. The --no-verbatim-files-from op-
tion is provided as a way to restore it after --verba-
tim-files-from option.
This option is positional: it affects all --files-from options
that occur after it in, until --verbatim-files-from option or
end of line, whichever occurs first.
It is implied by the --no-null option.
--null Instruct subsequent -T options to read null-terminated names
verbatim (disables special handling of names that start with a
dash).
See also --verbatim-files-from.
-N, --newer=DATE, --after-date=DATE
Only store files newer than DATE. If DATE starts with / or . it
is taken to be a file name; the mtime of that file is used as
the date.
--one-file-system
Stay in local file system when creating archive.
-P, --absolute-names
Don't strip leading slashes from file names when creating ar-
chives.
--recursion
Recurse into directories (default).
--suffix=STRING
Backup before removal, override usual suffix. Default suffix is
~, unless overridden by environment variable SIMPLE_BACKUP_SUF-
FIX.
-T, --files-from=FILE
Get names to extract or create from FILE.
Unless specified otherwise, the FILE must contain a list of
names separated by ASCII LF (i.e. one name per line). The names
read are handled the same way as command line arguments. They
undergo quote removal and word splitting, and any string that
starts with a - is handled as tar command line option.
If this behavior is undesirable, it can be turned off using the
--verbatim-files-from option.
The --null option instructs tar that the names in FILE are sepa-
rated by ASCII NUL character, instead of LF. It is useful if
the list is generated by find(1) -print0 predicate.
--unquote
Unquote file or member names (default).
--verbatim-files-from
Treat each line obtained from a file list as a file name, even
if it starts with a dash. File lists are supplied with the
--files-from (-T) option. The default behavior is to handle
names supplied in file lists as if they were typed in the com-
mand line, i.e. any names starting with a dash are treated as
tar options. The --verbatim-files-from option disables this be-
havior.
This option affects all --files-from options that occur after it
in the command line. Its effect is reverted by the --no-verba-
tim-files-from} option.
This option is implied by the --null option.
See also --add-file.
-X, --exclude-from=FILE
Exclude files matching patterns listed in FILE.
File name transformations
--strip-components=NUMBER
Strip NUMBER leading components from file names on extraction.
--transform=EXPRESSION, --xform=EXPRESSION
Use sed replace EXPRESSION to transform file names.
File name matching options
These options affect both exclude and include patterns.
--anchored
Patterns match file name start.
--ignore-case
Ignore case.
--no-anchored
Patterns match after any / (default for exclusion).
--no-ignore-case
Case sensitive matching (default).
--no-wildcards
Verbatim string matching.
--no-wildcards-match-slash
Wildcards do not match /.
--wildcards
Use wildcards (default for exclusion).
--wildcards-match-slash
Wildcards match / (default for exclusion).
Informative output
--checkpoint[=N]
Display progress messages every Nth record (default 10).
--checkpoint-action=ACTION
Run ACTION on each checkpoint.
--clamp-mtime
Only set time when the file is more recent than what was given
with --mtime.
--full-time
Print file time to its full resolution.
--index-file=FILE
Send verbose output to FILE.
-l, --check-links
Print a message if not all links are dumped.
--no-quote-chars=STRING
Disable quoting for characters from STRING.
--quote-chars=STRING
Additionally quote characters from STRING.
--quoting-style=STYLE
Set quoting style for file and member names. Valid values for
STYLE are literal, shell, shell-always, c, c-maybe, escape, lo-
cale, clocale.
-R, --block-number
Show block number within archive with each message.
--show-omitted-dirs
When listing or extracting, list each directory that does not
match search criteria.
--show-transformed-names, --show-stored-names
Show file or archive names after transformation by --strip and
--transform options.
--totals[=SIGNAL]
Print total bytes after processing the archive. If SIGNAL is
given, print total bytes when this signal is delivered. Allowed
signals are: SIGHUP, SIGQUIT, SIGINT, SIGUSR1, and SIGUSR2. The
SIG prefix can be omitted.
--utc Print file modification times in UTC.
-v, --verbose
Verbosely list files processed. Each instance of this option on
the command line increases the verbosity level by one. The max-
imum verbosity level is 3. For a detailed discussion of how
various verbosity levels affect tar's output, please refer to
GNU Tar Manual, subsection 2.5.1 "The --verbose Option".
--warning=KEYWORD
Enable or disable warning messages identified by KEYWORD. The
messages are suppressed if KEYWORD is prefixed with no- and en-
abled otherwise.
Multiple --warning messages accumulate.
Keywords controlling general tar operation:
all Enable all warning messages. This is the default.
none Disable all warning messages.
filename-with-nuls
"%s: file name read contains nul character"
alone-zero-block
"A lone zero block at %s"
Keywords applicable for tar --create:
cachedir
"%s: contains a cache directory tag %s; %s"
file-shrank
"%s: File shrank by %s bytes; padding with zeros"
xdev "%s: file is on a different filesystem; not dumped"
file-ignored
"%s: Unknown file type; file ignored"
"%s: socket ignored"
"%s: door ignored"
file-unchanged
"%s: file is unchanged; not dumped"
ignore-archive
"%s: file is the archive; not dumped"
file-removed
"%s: File removed before we read it"
file-changed
"%s: file changed as we read it"
failed-read
Suppresses warnings about unreadable files or directo-
ries. This keyword applies only if used together with the
--ignore-failed-read option.
Keywords applicable for tar --extract:
existing-file
"%s: skipping existing file"
timestamp
"%s: implausibly old time stamp %s"
"%s: time stamp %s is %s s in the future"
contiguous-cast
"Extracting contiguous files as regular files"
symlink-cast
"Attempting extraction of symbolic links as hard links"
unknown-cast
"%s: Unknown file type '%c', extracted as normal file"
ignore-newer
"Current %s is newer or same age"
unknown-keyword
"Ignoring unknown extended header keyword '%s'"
decompress-program
Controls verbose description of failures occurring when
trying to run alternative decompressor programs. This
warning is disabled by default (unless --verbose is
used). A common example of what you can get when using
this warning is:
$ tar --warning=decompress-program -x -f archive.Z
tar (child): cannot run compress: No such file or directory
tar (child): trying gzip
This means that tar first tried to decompress archive.Z
using compress, and, when that failed, switched to gzip.
record-size
"Record size = %lu blocks"
Keywords controlling incremental extraction:
rename-directory
"%s: Directory has been renamed from %s"
"%s: Directory has been renamed"
new-directory
"%s: Directory is new"
xdev "%s: directory is on a different device: not purging"
bad-dumpdir
"Malformed dumpdir: 'X' never used"
-w, --interactive, --confirmation
Ask for confirmation for every action.
Compatibility options
-o When creating, same as --old-archive. When extracting, same as
--no-same-owner.
Size suffixes
Suffix Units Byte Equivalent
b Blocks SIZE x 512
B Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
c Bytes SIZE
G Gigabytes SIZE x 1024^3
K Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
k Kilobytes SIZE x 1024
M Megabytes SIZE x 1024^2
P Petabytes SIZE x 1024^5
T Terabytes SIZE x 1024^4
w Words SIZE x 2
RETURN VALUE
Tar exit code indicates whether it was able to successfully perform the
requested operation, and if not, what kind of error occurred.
0 Successful termination.
1 Some files differ. If tar was invoked with the --compare
(--diff, -d) command line option, this means that some files in
the archive differ from their disk counterparts. If tar was
given one of the --create, --append or --update options, this
exit code means that some files were changed while being
archived and so the resulting archive does not contain the exact
copy of the file set.
2 Fatal error. This means that some fatal, unrecoverable error
occurred.
If a subprocess that had been invoked by tar exited with a nonzero exit
code, tar itself exits with that code as well. This can happen, for
example, if a compression option (e.g. -z) was used and the external
compressor program failed. Another example is rmt failure during
backup to a remote device.
SEE ALSO
bzip2(1), compress(1), gzip(1), lzma(1), lzop(1), rmt(8), symlink(7),
xz(1), zstd(1).
Complete tar manual: run info tar or use emacs(1) info mode to read it.
Online copies of GNU tar documentation in various formats can be found
at:
http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual
BUG REPORTS
Report bugs to <bug-tar@gnu.org>.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2013-2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/li-
censes/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
TAR July 13, 2020 TAR(1)
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