What is Tar Packaging#
In the Linux system, Tar packaging is a very important operation that provides us with a convenient and efficient way to organize and backup files and directories.
Tar stands for tape archive, originally used to store files on tape. Today, it is mainly used to merge multiple files and directories into a single archive file for storage, transmission, or backup purposes.
Basic Syntax of Tar Packaging#
The basic syntax of the tar command is as follows:
tar options archive_filename file_or_directory_list
Common options include:
-c: Create a new archive file.
-v: Display detailed processing.
-f: Specify the archive file name.
-z: Use gzip to compress the archive file.
-j: Use bzip2 to compress the archive file.
For example, to create an archive file named myarchive.tar containing all files and subdirectories in the current directory, you can use the following command:
tar -cvf myarchive.tar.
Compression and Decompression#
To save storage space and transmission time, we often need to compress archive files.
Using the -z option applies the gzip compression algorithm to generate a .tar.gz compressed file; using the -j option applies the bzip2 compression algorithm to generate a .tar.bz2 compressed file.
For example, to create an archive file myarchive.tar.gz using gzip compression, you can use the following command:
tar -czvf myarchive.tar.gz.
Decompressing the corresponding file is also simple. For .tar.gz files, you can use the following command to decompress:
tar -xzvf myarchive.tar.gz
For .tar.bz2 files, you can use:
tar -xjvf myarchive.tar.bz2
Specifying Files and Directories#
We can explicitly specify files and directories to include or exclude in the tar command. For example, to only package the docs directory in the current directory, you can use:
tar -cvf myarchive.tar docs
To exclude a specific file or directory, you can use the --exclude option. For instance, to package everything except the temp directory, you can use:
tar -cvf myarchive.tar --exclude=temp.
Split Packaging#
When dealing with very large files, we can use the split function to divide them into smaller parts. For example, to split the archive file into volumes of 100MB each, you can use the following command:
tar -cvMf myarchive.tar 100M.
Practical Applications#
Tar packaging is very useful in many scenarios.
For example, during system backups, important configuration files, user data, etc., can be packaged; during software releases, relevant files can be packaged into an easily distributable archive file; during data migration, a large number of files can be conveniently packaged for transmission.