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1.1 root 1: .\" @(#)tar.1 6.6 (Berkeley) 5/23/88
2: .\"
3: .TH TAR 1 "May 23, 1988"
4: .AT 3
5: .SH NAME
6: tar \- tape archiver
7: .SH SYNOPSIS
8: .B tar
9: [ key ] [ name ... ]
10: .SH DESCRIPTION
11: .PP
12: .I Tar
13: saves and restores multiple files on a single file (usually a magnetic
14: tape, but it can be any file).
15: .IR Tar 's
16: actions are controlled by the
17: .I key
18: argument. The
19: .I key
20: is a string of characters containing at most one function letter and possibly
21: one or more function modifiers. Other arguments to
22: .I tar
23: are file or directory names specifying which files to dump or restore.
24: In all cases, appearance of a directory name refers to
25: the files and (recursively) subdirectories of that directory.
26: .PP
27: The function portion of the key is specified by one of the following letters:
28: .TP 8
29: .B r
30: The named files are written on the end of the tape. The
31: .B c
32: function implies this.
33: .TP 8
34: .B x
35: The named files are extracted from the tape. If the named file
36: matches a directory whose contents had been written onto the tape, this
37: directory is (recursively) extracted. The owner, modification time, and mode
38: are restored (if possible). If no file argument is given, the entire content
39: of the tape is extracted. Note that if multiple entries specifying the same
40: file are on the tape, the last one overwrites all earlier.
41: .TP 8
42: .B t
43: The names of the specified files are listed each time they occur on
44: the tape. If no file argument is given, all of the names on the tape
45: are listed.
46: .TP 8
47: .B u
48: The named files are added to the tape if either they are not
49: already there or have been modified since last put on the tape.
50: .TP 8
51: .B c
52: Create a new tape; writing begins on the beginning of the tape
53: instead of after the last file. This command implies
54: .BR r .
55: .PP
56: The following characters may be used in addition to the letter
57: which selects the function desired.
58: .TP 10
59: .B o
60: On output, tar normally places information specifying owner and modes
61: of directories in the archive. Former versions of tar, when encountering
62: this information will give error message of the form
63: .br
64: "<name>/: cannot create".
65: .br
66: This modifier will suppress the directory information.
67: .TP 10
68: .B p
69: This modifier says to restore files to their original modes,
70: ignoring the present
71: .IR umask (2).
72: Setuid and sticky information
73: will also be restored to the super-user.
74: .TP 10
75: .B 0, ..., 9
76: This modifier selects an alternate drive on which the tape is mounted.
77: The default is drive 0 at 1600 bpi, which is normally /dev/rmt8.
78: .TP 10
79: .B v
80: Normally
81: .I tar
82: does its work silently. The
83: .B v
84: (verbose) option makes
85: .I tar
86: print the name of each file it treats preceded by the function
87: letter. With the
88: .B t
89: function, the verbose option
90: gives more information about the tape entries than just their names.
91: .TP 10
92: .B w
93: .I Tar
94: prints the action to be taken followed by file name, then
95: wait for user confirmation. If a word beginning with `y'
96: is given, the action is done. Any other input means don't do it.
97: .TP 10
98: .B f
99: .I Tar
100: uses the next argument as the name of the archive instead of
101: /dev/rmt?. If the name of the file is `\-', tar writes to standard output or
102: reads from standard input, whichever is appropriate. Thus,
103: .I tar
104: can be used as the head or tail of a filter chain.
105: .I Tar
106: can also be used to move hierarchies with the command
107: .ce 1
108: cd fromdir; tar cf - . | (cd todir; tar xf -)
109: .TP 10
110: .B b
111: .I Tar
112: uses the next argument as the blocking factor for tape records. The
113: default is 20 (the maximum). This option should only be used with raw magnetic
114: tape archives (See
115: .B f
116: above). The block size is determined automatically
117: when reading tapes (key letters `x' and `t').
118: .TP 10
119: .B s
120: tells tar to strip off any leading slashes from pathnames.
121: .TP 10
122: .B l
123: tells
124: .I tar
125: to complain if it cannot resolve all of the links to the
126: files dumped. If this is not specified, no error messages are printed.
127: .TP 10
128: .B m
129: tells
130: .I tar
131: not to restore the modification times. The modification time
132: will be the time of extraction.
133: .TP 10
134: .B h
135: Force
136: .I tar
137: to follow symbolic links as if they were normal files or
138: directories. Normally,
139: .I tar
140: does not follow symbolic links.
141: .TP 10
142: .B B
143: Forces input and output blocking to 20 blocks per record. This option
144: was added so that
145: .I tar
146: can work across a communications channel where the blocking may not
147: be maintained.
148: .TP 10
149: .B C
150: If a file name is preceded by
151: .BR \-C ,
152: then
153: .I tar
154: will perform a
155: .IR chdir (2)
156: to that file name. This allows multiple directories not
157: related by a close common parent to be archived using short
158: relative path names. For example, to archive files from /usr/include
159: and from /etc, one might use
160: .ti +0.5i
161: tar c -C /usr include -C / etc
162: .PP
163: Previous restrictions dealing with
164: .IR tar 's
165: inability to properly handle blocked archives have been lifted.
166: .PP
167: .SH FILES
168: /dev/rmt?
169: .br
170: /tmp/tar*
171: .SH "SEE ALSO"
172: tar(5)
173: .SH DIAGNOSTICS
174: Complaints about bad key characters and tape read/write errors.
175: .br
176: Complaints if enough memory is not available to hold the link tables.
177: .SH BUGS
178: There is no way to ask for the
179: .IR n -th
180: occurrence of a file.
181: .br
182: Tape errors are handled ungracefully.
183: .br
184: The
185: .B u
186: option can be slow.
187: .br
188: The current limit on file name length is 100 characters.
189: .br
190: There is no way selectively to follow symbolic links.
191: .br
192: When extracting tapes created with the
193: .B r
194: or
195: .B u
196: options, directory modification times may not be set correctly.
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