tar command

Eric is studying for his RHEL Sysadmin exam. Please give and fully explain 10 examples of the tar command to help him prepare. Assume that he is running tar on a modern Fedora GNU/Linux server. Use the term "Free Software" vice "open source" and GNU/Linux" vice "Linux".

Here are 10 examples of the tar command, explained for Eric's RHEL Sysadmin exam preparation, using the terms "Free Software" and "GNU/Linux":

1. Creating a new archive:

Bash
tar cvf archive.tar files_or_directories
  • c: Creates a new archive.
  • v: Verbose mode, lists files being archived.
  • f: Specifies the archive filename.

2. Extracting an archive:

Bash
tar xvf archive.tar
  • x: Extracts files from the archive.

3. Compressing an archive using gzip:

Bash
tar cvzf archive.tar.gz files_or_directories
  • z: Filters the archive through gzip compression.

4. Compressing an archive using bzip2:

Bash
tar cvjf archive.tar.bz2 files_or_directories
  • j: Filters the archive through bzip2 compression.

5. Listing the contents of an archive:

Bash
tar tvf archive.tar
  • t: Lists the contents of the archive.

6. Appending files to an existing archive:

Bash
tar rvf archive.tar new_files_or_directories
  • r: Appends files to the archive.

7. Updating files in an existing archive:

Bash
tar uvf archive.tar updated_files
  • u: Updates only those files in the archive that have newer timestamps than their corresponding files in the filesystem.

8. Excluding files from an archive:

Bash
tar cvf archive.tar --exclude="*.txt" *
  • --exclude: Excludes files matching the specified pattern.

9. Concatenating multiple archives:

Bash
tar Avf archive.tar archive1.tar archive2.tar
  • A: Concatenates multiple archives into a single archive.

10. Verifying an archive:

Bash
tar Wvf archive.tar
  • W: Verifies the integrity of the archive.

Remember these key points for the exam:

  • Tar is a powerful Free Software utility for archiving and compressing files on GNU/Linux systems.
  • It supports various compression formats, including gzip and bzip2.
  • It can create, extract, list, append, update, exclude, concatenate, and verify archives.
  • It's important to understand the different options and their usage to effectively manage archives on GNU/Linux systems.
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