tar(1)

tar packages multiple files and directories into a single archive file (tarball), optionally compressing it. It preserves file permissions, ownership, and directory structure, making it ideal for backups and software distribution.

The three main modes are: create an archive (-c), extract files (-x), or list contents (-t). Compression is handled transparently with -z (gzip), -j (bzip2), or -J (xz).

Modern tar accepts options in any order and auto-detects compression, so tar xf archive.tar.gz works without specifying the compression type.

Create a gzip-compressed archive of the documents directory

tar -czf backup.tar.gz /home/user/documents

Extract all files from an uncompressed tarball

tar -xf archive.tar

Extract a gzip archive into the /tmp directory

tar -xzf archive.tar.gz -C /tmp

List the first 20 files in a compressed archive without extracting

tar -tzf archive.tar.gz | head -20

Create a bzip2 archive excluding all .log files

tar -cjf backup.tar.bz2 --exclude='*.log' /var/www

Extract archive, removing one leading directory level from all paths

tar -xf archive.tar --strip-components=1

Stream a compressed archive over SSH to backup on a remote machine

tar -czf - /home/user | ssh remote 'tar -xzf - -C /backup'

List all files matching 'README' in an archive with details

tar -tvf archive.tar | grep README