Mastering the TAR Command: 50 Practical Use Cases for Linux

As a Linux System Administrator at YouStable, tar command is essential for efficiently managing files and directories. tar, short for tape archive, is a powerful utility used to create, maintain, manipulate, and extract files stored in a tape or disk archive.

Basic Operations

• Creating a New Archive: Create an archive file from files or directories.

tar -cvf archive.tar file1 directory1

• Viewing an Archive Content: List the contents of an archive without extracting it.

tar -tvf archive.tar

• Extracting an Archive: Extract the contents of an archive to the current directory.

tar -xvf archive.tar

• Appending Files to Archive: Add new files to an existing archive.

tar -rvf archive.tar newfile

• Deleting Files from Archive: Remove files from an archive (GNU tar).arduino

tar --delete -f archive.tar file_to_delete

Advanced Archiving

• Creating a Compressed Archive: Use compression algorithms like gzip or bzip2.

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory1 # gzip 
tar -cjvf archive.tar.bz2 directory1 # bzip2

• Extracting a Compressed Archive: Extract files from a compressed archive.

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz # gzip 
tar -xjvf archive.tar.bz2 # bzip2

• Preserving Permissions: Maintain file permissions while archiving.

tar -cpvf archive.tar directory1

• Incremental Backups: Create backups only of changed files since the last backup.

tar -cvf backup.tar --listed-incremental=/path/to/snapshot.file directory1

• Creating Split Archives: Split an archive into multiple parts.

tar -cvf - directory1 | split -b 100M - archive.part

File Selection

• Excluding Files: Create an archive excluding specific files.

tar -cvf archive.tar --exclude='*.txt' directory1

• Including Files: Archive only files matching a pattern.

tar -cvf archive.tar --include='*.php' directory1

• Archiving Using a File List: Create an archive based on a list of files.

tar -cvf archive.tar -T filelist.txt

• Wildcards in File Selection: Use wildcards to specify files or directories.

tar -cvf archive.tar directory1/*.txt

Security and Integrity

• Encrypting Archives: Encrypt tar archive using gpg.

tar -cvf - directory1 | gpg -c > archive.tar.gpg

• Verifying Archive Integrity: Check the integrity of an archive.

tar -cvf archive.tar directory1 --verify

Networking and Remote Operations

• Creating Archives from Remote Directories: Use SSH to create an archive of a remote directory.sql

ssh user@remote 'tar -cvf - /path/to/directory' > local_archive.tar

• Extracting Archives to Remote Directories: Extract an archive directly to a remote directory.sql

tar -xvf archive.tar | ssh user@remote 'cd /destination && tar -xvf -'

Archiving Strategies

• Full System Backup: Create a complete backup of the filesystem.

tar -cvpzf full_backup.tar.gz /

• Home Directory Backup: Backup the home directory.

tar -cvzf home_backup.tar.gz /home/user

• Database Backup: Archive a database dump file.

mysqldump -u user -p database_name | gzip > database.sql.gz tar -cvzf database_backup.tar.gz database.sql.gz

Miscellaneous

• Archiving Special Files: Archive device files and special files.

tar -cvf archive.tar /dev/sdx

• Comparing Archive Content with the Filesystem: Check differences between the archive and filesystem.

tar -dvf archive.tar

• Preserving SELinux Contexts: Archive files with their SELinux context.

tar --selinux -cvf archive.tar

These basic TAR commands are essentials we frequently use. If you have a particular scenario in mind, feel free to comment below. We’ll strive to provide a tailored command response as swiftly as possible.