Archive Compress Unpack And Uncompress Files Using Tar Star Gzip And Bzip2

General Information

About this page/how-to/script.

Options

• -c ⇒ create new archive
• -t ⇒ list contents of archive
• -x ⇒ extract files from archive
• -z ⇒ compress or decompress in gzip (depending upon if -x or -c was also passed)
• -v ⇒ display files as they are processed
• -j ⇒ use bzip2
• -r ⇒ append/add file to the end of the existing archive
• -u ⇒ update a file in an existing archive if the source is newer
• -f ⇒ archive filename
• –selinux ⇒ include selinux contexts

Archive and compress (using gzip) the /var/log directory

tar -cvzf logs.tar.gz /var/log

List contents of archive

tar -tf logs.tar.gz

Decompress and unpack at the same time to current directory

tar -zxvf logs.tar.gz

Decompress and unpack at the same time to a different existing directory

tar -zxvf logs.tar.gz -C /home/rjones/data/

Add a new file to an existing archive

tar -rvf logs.tar newlog.log

Install (usually not there by default)

yum install star

Archive and compress the /var/log directory (name it logs.tar.gz)

star -cz -f logs.tar.gz /var/log

List archive contents

star -t -f logs.tar

Decompress, unpack a bzip2 (star auto selects proper decompression type)

star -x -f logs.tar.bz2

Compress an archive

gzip logs.tar

Decompress an archive

gzip -d logs.tar.gz
OR
gunzip logs.tar.gz

Cat a compressed file (useful for rotated logs)

zcat messages.1.log.gz

Compress an archive

bzip2 logs.tar

Decompress an archive

bzip2 -d logs.tar.bz2
OR
bunzip2 logs.tar.bz2

Cat a compressed file (useful for rotated logs)

bzcat messages.1.log.bz2