There are multiple tools available in Linux system for creating archive files. In this article you will find uses of multiple tools for creating or extracting archive files through command line
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Tool 1 – Zip
zip is the most popular command line archiving utility for Linux systems.
Create Archive of File
# zip output.zip /var/log/*.log
Create Archive of Directory
# zip -r output.zip /var/log
Extract Archive
# unzip output.zip
Tool 2 – Tar
Tar is the another most popular command line archiving utility for Linux systems.
Create Archive of File
# tar -cf output.tar /var/log/*.log
Create Archive of Directory
# zip -cf output.tar /var/log
Extract Archive
# tar -xf output.tar
Tool 3 – Gzip
Gzip is one more tool for command line users for making archive files. Gzip also supports to take input of data as standard input or through pipe and create zip file.
Create Archive of File
# gzip -k access.log
Create zip file of piped data
# cat /var/log/messages | gzip > messages.gz
Extract Archive
# gunzip access.log.gz
Combined – Tar + Gzip
Tar also combined gzip program to enable higher compression level of files. Uisng tar with gzip created files extension will be .tar.gz.
Create Archive of File
# tar -czf output.tar.gz /var/log/*.log
Create Archive of Directory
# zip -czf output.tar.gz /var/log
Extract Archive
# tar -xzf output.tar.gz