tar command with simples examples

Intro

According to wikipedia, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes.

Extract

• List and search contents of a tar archive :

user@host $ tar -tz -f archive.tar.gz

• Extract to a specific path :

user@host $ tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz -C /a/folder

• Extract one or more files :

user@host $ tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz "./arch/file01" "./arch/file02"

Create

• Create and compress with lzip a tar archive :

root@host:~# apt-get install lzip

user@host $ tar --lzip -cvf archive.tar.lz /a/folder/*

• Create a tar archive :

user@host $ tar -cvf archive.tar /a/folder/*

• Create and compress with gzip a tar archive :

user@host $ tar -czvf archive.tar.gz /a/folder/*

• Create and compress multiple folders to bzip2 archive :

root@host~# tar cpjf backup.tgz /etc /var/log

• tar archive through ssh :

root@host~# tar -jcvf - /my/fodler/ | ssh root@10.0.0.124 "cat > /backup/$(date +%Y.%m.%d)_backup.tgz"

• Full system backup with tar :

root@host~# tar cvzf /$(date +%Y.%m.%d)_backup.tar.gz --exclude=/$(date +%Y.%m.%d)_backup.tar.gz --exclude=/dev --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/proc --exclude=/sys --exclude=/tmp --exclude=/media --exclude=/lost+found /