Commands using tar (226)

  • XZIP many catalogs

    Find (by regular expression) and compress (xzip) catalogs then remove source catalogs


    0
    find . -type d |awk '$1 ~ /[0-9]/ {print $0}' |xargs -P 4 -I NAME tar --remove-files -vcJf NAME.tar.xz NAME
    Glafir · 2017-08-28 08:05:29 19
  • Create a local compressed tarball from remote host directory

    untar in place with out creating a temporary file


    0
    ssh user@host "tar -zcf - /path/to/dir" | tar -xvz
    sandeep048 · 2017-10-07 11:37:51 18
  • tar and bz2 a set of folders as individual files

    I use screenflow to create and edit videos. The default storage for a single video is a folder. If I want to move that someplace, it's easier to zip up the folder and send it. If I'm making a series of short videos, I might have 10 folders. This will go through and make a single bz3 file for EACH folder.


    0
    for f in *screenflow ; do tar cvf "$f.tar.bz2" "$f"; done
    topher1kenobe · 2020-08-02 21:10:27 160
  • Uncompress a directory full of tarred files (*.gz)

    This is a little bash script that will take all files following the *gz pattern in the directory and apply the tar -zxvf command to them.


    -1
    for i in *.tar.gz *.tgz; do tar -zxvf $i; done
    bohemicus · 2009-02-18 10:58:12 8
  • Copy files from one dir to another using tar.

    Add z to the flags to enable compression.


    -1
    tar cf - . | (cd /new/dir; tar xvf -)
    jauderho · 2009-03-09 20:30:34 12
  • Encrypted Tarballs

    gpg's compression is as suitable as gzip's however your backups can now be encrypted. to extract use: gpg < folder.tpg | tar -xf -


    -1
    tar -cf - folder/ | gpg -c > folder.tpg
    copremesis · 2009-05-08 19:20:08 5
  • Move files around local filesystem with tar without wasting space using an intermediate tarball.


    -1
    tar -C <source> -cf - . | tar -C <destination> -xf -
    Tekhne · 2009-07-10 21:16:23 4
  • Tar - Compress by excluding folders

    Tar - Compress by excluding folders Show Sample Output


    -1
    tar -cvf /path/dir.tar /path/dir* --exclude "/path/dir/name" --exclude "/path/dir/opt"
    sandeepverma · 2009-12-15 09:48:41 3
  • wget, tar xzvf, cd, ls

    Combines a few repetitive tasks when compiling source code. Especially useful when a hypen in a file-name breaks tab completion. 1.) wget source.tar.gz 2.) tar xzvf source.tar.gz 3.) cd source 4.) ls From there you can run ./configure, make and etc. Show Sample Output


    -1
    wtzc () { wget "$@"; foo=`echo "$@" | sed 's:.*/::'`; tar xzvf $foo; blah=`echo $foo | sed 's:,*/::'`; bar=`echo $blah | sed -e 's/\(.*\)\..*/\1/' -e 's/\(.*\)\..*/\1/'`; cd $bar; ls; }
    oshazard · 2010-01-17 11:25:47 3
  • Merge tarballs

    You don't need to create an intermediate file, just pipe the output directly to tar command and use stin as file (put a dash after the f flag).


    -1
    cat 1.tar.gz 2.tar.gz | tar zxvif -
    psychopenguin · 2010-05-09 03:50:00 5
  • Create .tar file on Mac OS X Leopard / Snow Leopard without ._* files

    Using the COPYFILE_DISABLE=true environment variable you can prevent tar from adding any ._-files to your .tar-file on Mac OS X.


    -1
    COPYFILE_DISABLE=true tar cvf newTarFile.tar Directory/
    alainkaa · 2010-07-01 09:36:48 3
  • pbzip2 tar pipe to untar


    -1
    pbzip2 -dck <bz2file> | tar xvf -
    maarten · 2010-08-16 22:16:50 3
  • Create a tar file compressed with xz.

    The J option is a recent addition to GNU tar. The xz compression utility is required as well.


    -1
    tar cfJ tarfile.tar.xz pathnames
    jasonjgw · 2010-11-18 05:34:17 2
  • restore <mysqldump>.tar.gz on the fly

    `tar xfzO` extracts to STDOUT which got redirected directly to mysql. Really helpful, when your hard drive can't fit two copies of non-compressed database :)


    -1
    tar xfzO <backup_name>.tar.gz | mysql -u root <database_name>
    alecnmk · 2011-02-10 22:18:42 5
  • Extract 2 copies of .tar.gz content

    Sometimes you might need to have two copies of data that is in tar. You might unpack, and then copy, but if IO is slow, you might lower it by automatically writing it twice (or more times)


    -1
    mkdir copy{1,2}; gzip -dc file.tar.gz | tee >( tar x -C copy1/ ) | tar x -C copy2/
    depesz · 2011-04-14 17:02:05 5
  • Compressed Backup of the /etc

    Simple Compressed Backup of the /etc Linux compatible


    -1
    tar jcpf /home/[usuario]/etc-$(hostname)-backup-$(date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S).tar.bz2 /etc
    mack · 2011-04-29 22:53:11 4
  • tar the current directory wihtout the absolute path

    should do the same as command #12875, just shorter.


    -1
    tar -cf "../${PWD##*/}.tar" .
    joedhon · 2013-11-06 11:15:38 9
  • backup file with tar

    backup your files in tar archive + timestamp of backup Show Sample Output


    -1
    tar -cvf bind9-config-`date +%s`.tar *
    Fuonum · 2014-10-29 05:15:15 9
  • Copy files over network using compression

    This is useful for sending data between 2 computers that you have shell access to. Uses tar compression during transfer. Files are compressed & uncompressed automatically. Note the trailing dash on the listening side that makes netcat listen to stdin for data. on the listening side: sudo nc -lp 2022 | sudo tar -xvf - explanation: open netcat to -l listen on -p port 2022, take the data stream and pipe to tar -x extract, -v verbose, -f using file filename - means "stdin" on the sending side: tar -cvzf - ./*| nc -w 3 name_of_listening_host 2022 explanation: compress all files in current dir using tar -c create, -v verbose, -f using file, - filename - here means "stdout" because we're tar -c instead of tar -x, -w3 wait 3 seconds on stream termination and then end the connection to the listening host name_of_listening_host, on port 2022


    -2
    on the listening side: sudo nc -lp 2022 | sudo tar -xvf - and on the sending side: tar -cvzf - ./*| nc -w 3 name_of_listening_host 2022
    smcpherson · 2009-03-27 09:59:33 12
  • create tar.gz archive

    Create a single tar.gz archive I know it's a very basic one, but it's one I keep forgetting. Show Sample Output


    -2
    tar -pczf archive_name.tar.gz /path/to/dir/or/file
    ryuslash · 2009-07-17 19:53:02 30
  • Bulk copy large blocks of data between File Systems (run as root iff you do not own all of the files!)

    Using tape archive create a tar file in Stdout (-) and pipe that into a compound command to extract the tar file from Stdin at the destination. This similar to "Copy via tar pipe ...", but copies across file systems boundaries. I prefer to use cp -pr for copying within the same file system. Show Sample Output


    -2
    tar cpof - src |( cd des; tar xpof -)
    davidpotter42 · 2009-09-20 20:43:30 3
  • List files in tarballs

    This script will list all the files in the tarballs present on any folder or subfolder of the provided path. The while loop is for echoing the file name of the tarball before listing the files, so the tarball can be identified


    -2
    find <path> -name "*.tgz" -or -name "*.tar.gz" | while read file; do echo "$file: "; tar -tzf $file; done
    polaco · 2009-11-10 20:39:04 36
  • List files in tarballs

    The magic is performed by the parameter -t Show Sample Output


    -2
    for F in $(find ./ -name "*.tgz") ; do tar -tvzf $F ; done
    alchandia · 2009-11-11 00:50:52 3
  • transfer files locally to be sure that file permissions are kept correctly showing progress

    This may seem like a long command, but it is great for making sure all file permissions are kept in tact. What it is doing is streaming the files in a sub-shell and then untarring them in the target directory. Please note that the -z command should not be used for local files and no perfomance increase will be visible as overhead processing (CPU) will be evident, and will slow down the copy. You also may keep simple with, but you don't have the progress info: cp -rpf /some/directory /other/path Show Sample Output


    -2
    dir='path to file'; tar cpf - "$dir" | pv -s $(du -sb "$dir" | awk '{print $1}') | tar xpf - -C /other/path
    starchox · 2010-01-19 19:05:45 3
  • Remove all files previously extracted from a tar(.gz) file.

    xargs deals badly with special characters (such as space, ' and "). To see the problem try this: touch important_file touch 'not important_file' ls not* | xargs rm Parallel https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/parallel/ does not have this problem.


    -2
    tar -tf <file.tar.gz> | parallel rm
    unixmonkey8046 · 2010-01-28 08:28:16 3
  • ‹ First  < 6 7 8 9 10 > 

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. That way others can gain from your CLI wisdom and you from theirs too. All commands can be commented on, discussed and voted up or down.

Share Your Commands

Check These Out

Open a manpage in the default (graphical) web browser
An easy alias for opening a manpage, nicely HTML formatted, in your set internet browser. If you get a "command exited with status 3" error you need to install groff.

Quickly create an alias for changing into the current directory
Put the function in your .bashrc and use "map [alias]" to create the alias you want. Just be careful to not override an existing alias.

Testing ftp server status
I must monitorize a couple of ftp servers every morning WITHOUT a port-scanner Instead of ftp'ing on 100 ftp servers manually to test their status I use this loop. It might be adaptable to other services, however it may require a 'logout' string instead of 'quit'. The file ftps.txt contains the full list of ftp servers to monitorize.

Convert a flv video file to avi using mencoder

Resets your MAC to a random MAC address to make you harder to find.
Next time you are leaching off of someone else's wifi use this command before you start your bittorrent ...for legitimate files only of course. It creates a hexidecimal string using md5sum from the first few lines of /dev/urandom and splices it into the proper MAC address format. Then it changes your MAC and resets your wireless (wlan0:0).

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS
Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Get gzip compressed web page using wget.
Like the original command, but the -f allows this one to succeed even if the website returns uncompressed data. From gzip(1) on the -f flag: If the input data is not in a format recognized by gzip, and if the --stdout is also given, copy the input data without change to the standard output: let zcat behave as cat.

Burst a Single PDF Document into Single Pages and Report its Data to doc_data.txt
Require the pdftk package It ll split each page in your pdf file , into a new pdf file and report info on doc_data.txt

Rename duplicates from MusicBrainz Picard
Renames duplicates from MusicBrainz Picard, so you get the latest copy and not a bunch of duplicates.

Stay in the loop…

Follow the Tweets.

Every new command is wrapped in a tweet and posted to Twitter. Following the stream is a great way of staying abreast of the latest commands. For the more discerning, there are Twitter accounts for commands that get a minimum of 3 and 10 votes - that way only the great commands get tweeted.

» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu3
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu10

Subscribe to the feeds.

Use your favourite RSS aggregator to stay in touch with the latest commands. There are feeds mirroring the 3 Twitter streams as well as for virtually every other subset (users, tags, functions,…):

Subscribe to the feed for: