Tar Command Examples in Linux?

Tar Command Examples in Linux?

In this article we will going to review and discuss various tar command examples including how to create archive files using (tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2) compression, how to extract archive file, extract a single file, view content of file, verify a file, add files or directories to archive file, estimate the size of tar archive file, etc.

The main purpose of this guide is to provide various tar command examples that might be helpful you to understand and become expert in tar archive manipulation.

Create tar Archive File

The below example command will create a tar archive file tecmint-14-09-12.tar for a directory /home/tecmint in current working directory. See the example command in action.

# tar -cvf tecmint-14-09-12.tar /home/tecmint/

/home/tecmint/

/home/tecmint/cleanfiles.sh

/home/tecmint/openvpn-2.1.4.tar.gz

/home/tecmint/tecmint-14-09-12.tar

/home/tecmint/phpmyadmin-2.11.11.3-1.el5.rf.noarch.rpm

/home/tecmint/rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el5.rf.i386.rpm

Let’s discuss the each option we have used in the above command for creating tar archive file.

o                    c – Creates a new .tar archive file.

o                    v – Verbosely show the .tar file progress.

o                    f – File name type of the archive file.

Create tar.gz Archive File

To create a compressed gzip archive file we use the option as z. For example the below command will create a compressed MyImages-14-09-12.tar.gz file for the directory/home/MyImages. (Note : tar.gz and tgz both are similar).

# tar cvzf MyImages-14-09-12.tar.gz /home/MyImages

OR

# tar cvzf MyImages-14-09-12.tgz /home/MyImages

/home/MyImages/

/home/MyImages/Sara-Khan-and-model-Priyanka-Shah.jpg

/home/MyImages/RobertKristenviolent101201.jpg

/home/MyImages/Justintimerlakenaked101125.jpg

/home/MyImages/Mileynudephoto101203.jpg

/home/MyImages/JenniferRobert101130.jpg

/home/MyImages/katrinabarbiedoll231110.jpg

/home/MyImages/the-japanese-wife-press-conference.jpg

/home/MyImages/ReesewitherspoonCIA101202.jpg

/home/MyImages/yanaguptabaresf231110.jpg

 Create tar.bz2 Archive File

The bz2 feature compress and create archive file less than the size of the gzip. The bz2compression takes more time to compress and decompress files as compared to gzip which takes less time. To create highly compressed tar file we use option as j. The following example of command will create a Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 file for a directory /home/php. (Note: tar.bz2 and tbz is similar as tb2).

# tar cvfj Phpfiles-org.tar.bz2 /home/php

OR

# tar cvfj Phpfiles-org.tar.tbz /home/php

OR 

# tar cvfj Phpfiles-org.tar.tb2 /home/php

/home/php/

/home/php/iframe_ew.php

/home/php/videos_all.php

/home/php/rss.php

/home/php/index.php

/home/php/vendor.php

/home/php/video_title.php

/home/php/report.php

/home/php/object.html

/home/php/video.php

 Untar tar Archive File

To untar or extract a tar file, just issue following command using option x (extract). For example the below command will untar the file public_html-14-09-12.tar in present working directory. If you want untar in a different directory then use option as -C (specified directory).

## Untar files in Current Directory ##

# tar -xvf public_html-14-09-12.tar

## Untar files in specified Directory ##

# tar -xvf public_html-14-09-12.tar -C /home/public_html/videos/

/home/public_html/videos/

/home/public_html/videos/views.php

/home/public_html/videos/index.php

/home/public_html/videos/logout.php

/home/public_html/videos/all_categories.php

/home/public_html/videos/feeds.xml

Uncompress tar.gz Archive File

To Uncompress tar.gz archive file, just run following command. If would like to untar in different directory just use option -C and the path of the directory,  like we shown in the above example.

# tar -xvf thumbnails-14-09-12.tar.gz

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/katdeepika231110.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/katrinabarbiedoll231110.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/onceuponatime101125.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/playbutton.png

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/ReesewitherspoonCIA101202.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/snagItNarration.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/Minissha-Lamba.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/Lindsaydance101201.jpg

/home/public_html/videos/thumbnails/Mileynudephoto101203.jpg

Uncompress tar.bz2 Archive File

To Uncompress highly compressed tar.bz2 file, just use the following command. The below example command will untar all the .flv files from the archive file.

# tar -xvf videos-14-09-12.tar.bz2

/home/public_html/videos/flv/katrinabarbiedoll231110.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/BrookmuellerCIA101125.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/dollybackinbb4101125.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/JenniferRobert101130.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/JustinAwardmovie101125.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/Lakme-Fashion-Week.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/Mileynudephoto101203.flv

/home/public_html/videos/flv/Minissha-Lamba.flv

List Content of tar Archive File

To list the content of tar archive file, just run the following command with option t (list content). The below command will list the content of uploadprogress.tar file.

# tar -tvf uploadprogress.tar

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff   2276 2011-08-15 18:51:10 package2.xml

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff   7877 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/examples/index.php

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff   1685 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/examples/server.php

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff   1697 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/examples/info.php

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff    367 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/config.m4

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff    303 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/config.w32

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff   3563 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/php_uploadprogress.h

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff  15433 2011-08-15 18:51:10 uploadprogress/uploadprogress.c

-rw-r--r-- chregu/staff   1433 2011-08-15 18:51:10 package.xml

Untar Single file from tar File

To extract a single file called cleanfiles.sh from cleanfiles.sh.tar use the following command.

# tar -xvf cleanfiles.sh.tar cleanfiles.sh

OR

# tar --extract --file=cleanfiles.sh.tar cleanfiles.sh

cleanfiles.sh