~$ tar --version tar (GNU tar) 1.20

What happens here is we tell tar to create "-c" an archive of all files in current dir "." (recursively) and output the data to stdout "-f -". Next we specify the size "-s" to pv of all files in current dir. The "du -sb . | awk ?{print $1}?" returns number of bytes in current dir, and it gets fed as "-s" parameter to pv. Next we gzip the whole content and output the result to out.tgz file. This way "pv" knows how much data is still left to be processed and shows us that it will take yet another 4 mins 49 secs to finish. Credit: Peteris Krumins http://www.catonmat.net/blog/unix-utilities-pipe-viewer/ Show Sample Output

Create an AES256 encrypted and compressed tar archive. User is prompted to enter the password. Decrypt with: openssl enc -d -aes256 -in <file> | tar --extract --file - --gzip

this bzips a folder and transfers it over the network to "host" at 777k bit/s. cstream can do a lot more, have a look http://www.cons.org/cracauer/cstream.html#usage for example: echo w00t, i'm 733+ | cstream -b1 -t2 hehe :)

At client side: tar c myfile | nc localhost 7000 ##Send file myfile to server tar c mydir | nc localhost 7000 ## Send directory mydir to server

Create a tar file in multiple parts if it's to large for a single disk, your filesystem, etc. Rejoin later with `cat .tar.*|tar xf -` Show Sample Output

This will uncompress the file while it's being downloaded which makes it much faster

it compresses the files and folders to stdout, secure copies it to the server's stdin and runs tar there to extract the input and output to whatever destination using -C. if you emit "-C /destination", it will extract it to the home folder of the user, much like `scp file user@server:`. the "v" in the tar command can be removed for no verbosity.

Execute it from the source host, where the source files you wish backup resides. With the minus '-' the tar command deliver the compressed output to the standar output and, trough over the ssh session to the remote host. On the other hand the backup host will be receive the stream and read it from the standar input sending it to the /path/to/backup/backupfile.tar.bz2 Show Sample Output

Create a tgz archive of all the files containing local changes relative to a subversion repository. Add the '-q' option to only include files under version control: svn st -q | cut -c 8- | sed 's/^/\"/;s/$/\"/' | xargs tar -czvf ../backup.tgz Useful if you are not able to commit yet but want to create a quick backup of your work. Of course if you find yourself needing this it's probably a sign you should be using a branch, patches or distributed version control (git, mercurial, etc..)

This command will copy a folder tree (keeping the parent folders) through ssh. It will: - compress the data - stream the compressed data through ssh - decompress the data on the local folder This command will take no additional space on the host machine (no need to create compressed tar files, transfer it and then delete it on the host). There is some situations (like mirroring a remote machine) where you simply cant wait for a huge time taking scp command or cant compress the data to a tarball on the host because of file system space limitation, so this command can do the job quite well. This command performs very well mainly when a lot of data is involved in the process. If you copying a low amount of data, use scp instead (easier to type) Show Sample Output

The command extracting the tar contents into particular directory ...

If archive has leading directory level same as archive name and you want to strip it, this command is for you.

Leave it to a proprietary software vendor to turn a cheap and easy parlor trick into a selling point. "Hey guys, why don't we turn our _collection of multiple files_ into a *collection of multiple files*!!" Extract the ^above with this: cat pics.tar.gz.??? | tar xzv ^extract on any Unix - no need to install junkware! (If you must make proprietary software, at least make it do something *new*) if [ -e windows ]; then use 7-Zip

Useful to move many files (thousands or millions files) over ssh. Faster than scp because this way you save a lot of tcp connection establishments (syn/ack packets). If using a fast lan (I have just tested gigabyte ethernet) it is faster to not compress the data so the command would be: tar -cf - /home/user/test | ssh user@sshServer 'cd /tmp; tar xf -'

This Anti-TarBomb function makes it easy to unpack a .tar.gz without worrying about the possibility that it will "explode" in your current directory. I've usually always created a temporary folder in which I extracted the tarball first, but I got tired of having to reorganize the files afterwards. Just add this function to your .zshrc / .bashrc and use it like this; atb arch1.tar.gz and it will create a folder for the extracted files, if they aren't already in a single folder. This only works for .tar.gz, but it's very easy to edit the function to suit your needs, if you want to extract .tgz, .tar.bz2 or just .tar. More info about tarbombs at http://www.linfo.org/tarbomb.html Tested in zsh and bash. UPDATE: This function works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in zsh (not working in bash): atb() { l=$(tar tf $1); if [ $(echo "$l" | wc -l) -eq $(echo "$l" | grep $(echo "$l" | head -n1) | wc -l) ]; then tar xf $1; else mkdir ${1%.t(ar.gz||ar.bz2||gz||bz||ar)} && tar xf $1 -C ${1%.t(ar.gz||ar.bz2||gz||bz||ar)}; fi ;} UPDATE2: From the comments; bepaald came with a variant that works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in bash: atb() {shopt -s extglob ; l=$(tar tf $1); if [ $(echo "$l" | wc -l) -eq $(echo "$l" | grep $(echo "$l" | head -n1) | wc -l) ]; then tar xf $1; else mkdir ${1%.t@(ar.gz|ar.bz2|gz|bz|ar)} && tar xf $1 -C ${1%.t@(ar.gz|ar.bz2|gz|bz|ar)}; fi ; shopt -u extglob} Show Sample Output

Source: http://unix.derkeiler.com/Newsgroups/comp.unix.shell/2008-04/msg00068.html

Using 7z to create archives is OK, but when you use tar, you preserve all file-specific information such as ownership, perms, etc. If that's important to you, this is a better way to do it.

Here how to recover the remote backup over ssh Show Sample Output

This is freaking sweet!!! Here is the full alias, (I didn't want to cause display problems on commandlinefu.com's homepage): alias tarred='( ( D=`builtin pwd`; F=$(date +$HOME/`sed "s,[/ ],#,g" <<< ${D/${HOME}/}`#-%F.tgz); S=$SECONDS; tar --ignore-failed-read --transform "s,^${D%/*},`date +${D%/*}.%F`,S" -czPf "$"F "$D" && logger -s "Tarred $D to $F in $(($SECONDS-$S)) seconds" ) & )' Creates a .tgz archive of whatever directory it is run from, in the background, detached from current shell so if you logout it will still complete. Also, you can run this as many times as you want, if the archive .tgz already exists, it just moves it to a numbered backup '--backup=numbered'. The coolest part of this is the transformation performed by tar and sed so that the archive file names are automatically created, and when you extract the archive file it is completely safe thanks to the transform command. If you archive lets say /home/tombdigger/new-stuff-to-backup/ it will create the archive /home/#home#tombdigger#new-stuff-to-backup#-2010-11-18.tgz Then when you extract it, like tar -xvzf #home#tombdigger#new-stuff-to-backup#-2010-11-18.tgz instead of overwriting an existing /home/tombdigger/new-stuff-to-backup/ directory, it will extract to /home/tombdigger/new-stuff-to-backup.2010-11-18/ Basically, the tar archive filename is the PWD with all '/' replaced with '#', and the date is appended to the name so that multiple archives are easily managed. This example saves all archives to your $HOME/archive-name.tgz, but I have a $BKDIR variable with my backup location for each shell user, so I just replaced HOME with BKDIR in the alias. So when I ran this in /opt/askapache/SOURCE/lockfile-progs-0.1.11/ the archive was created at /askapache-bk/#opt#askapache#SOURCE#lockfile-progs-0.1.11#-2010-11-18.tgz Upon completion, uses the universal logger tool to output its completion to syslog and stderr (printed to your terminal), just remove that part if you don't want it, or just remove the '-s ' option from logger to keep the logs only in syslog and not on your terminal. Here's how my syslog server recorded this.. 2010-11-18T00:44:13-05:00 gravedigger.askapache.com (127.0.0.5) [user] [notice] (logger:) Tarred /opt/askapache/SOURCE/lockfile-progs-0.1.11 to /askapache-bk/tarred/#opt#SOURCE#lockfile-progs-0.1.11#-2010-11-18.tgz in 4 seconds Caveats Really this is very robust and foolproof, the only issues I ever have with it (I've been using this for years on my web servers) is if you run it in a directory and then a file changes in that directory, you get a warning message and your archive might have a problem for the changed file. This happens when running this in a logs directory, a temp dir, etc.. That's the only issue I've ever had, really nothing more than a heads up. Advanced: This is a simple alias, and very useful as it works on basically every linux box with semi-current tar and GNU coreutils, bash, and sed.. But if you want to customize it or pass parameters (like a dir to backup instead of pwd), check out this function I use.. this is what I created the alias from BTW, replacing my aa_status function with logger, and adding $SECONDS runtime instead of using tar's --totals function tarred () { local GZIP='--fast' PWD=${1:-`pwd`} F=$(date +${BKDIR}/%m-%d-%g-%H%M-`sed -u 's/[\/\ ]/#/g' [[ ! -r "$PWD" ]] && echo "Bad permissions for $PWD" 1>&2 && return 2; ( ( tar --totals --ignore-failed-read --transform "s@^${PWD%/*}@`date +${PWD%/*}.%m-%d-%g`@S" -czPf $F $PWD && aa_status "Completed Tarp of $PWD to $F" ) & ) } #From my .bash_profile http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html Show Sample Output