NAME

tarlz - creates tar archives with multimember lzip compression

SYNOPSIS

tarlz [options] [files]

DESCRIPTION

Tarlz is a massively parallel (multi-threaded) combined implementation of the tar archiver and the lzip compressor. Tarlz uses the compression library lzlib.

Tarlz creates, lists, and extracts archives in a simplified and safer variant of the POSIX pax format compressed in lzip format, keeping the alignment between tar members and lzip members. The resulting multimember tar.lz archive is fully backward compatible with standard tar tools like GNU tar, which treat it like any other tar.lz archive. Tarlz can append files to the end of such compressed archives.

Keeping the alignment between tar members and lzip members has two advantages. It adds an indexed lzip layer on top of the tar archive, making it possible to decode the archive safely in parallel. It also minimizes the amount of data lost in case of corruption.

The tarlz file format is a safe POSIX-style backup format. In case of corruption, tarlz can extract all the undamaged members from the tar.lz archive, skipping over the damaged members, just like the standard (uncompressed) tar. Moreover, the option '--keep-damaged' can be used to recover as much data as possible from each damaged member, and lziprecover can be used to recover some of the damaged members.

OPTIONS

--help: display this help and exit
-V, --version: output version information and exit
-A, --concatenate: append archives to the end of an archive
-B, --data-size=<bytes>: set target size of input data blocks [2x8=16 MiB]
-c, --create: create a new archive
-C, --directory=<dir>: change to directory <dir>
-d, --diff: find differences between archive and file system
--ignore-ids: ignore differences in owner and group IDs
--delete: delete files/directories from an archive
--exclude=<pattern>: exclude files matching a shell pattern
-f, --file=<archive>: use archive file <archive>
-h, --dereference: follow symlinks; archive the files they point to
--mtime=<date>: use <date> as mtime for files added to archive
-n, --threads=<n>: set number of (de)compression threads [2]
-p, --preserve-permissions: don't subtract the umask on extraction
-q, --quiet: suppress all messages
-r, --append: append files to the end of an archive
-t, --list: list the contents of an archive
-v, --verbose: verbosely list files processed
-x, --extract: extract files/directories from an archive
-0 .. -9: set compression level [default 6]
--uncompressed: don't compress the archive created
--asolid: create solidly compressed appendable archive
--bsolid: create per block compressed archive (default)
--dsolid: create per directory compressed archive
--no-solid: create per file compressed archive
--solid: create solidly compressed archive
--anonymous: equivalent to '--owner=root --group=root'
--owner=<owner>: use <owner> name/ID for files added to archive
--group=<group>: use <group> name/ID for files added to archive
--keep-damaged: don't delete partially extracted files
--missing-crc: exit with error status if missing extended CRC
--out-slots=<n>: number of 1 MiB output packets buffered [64]
--check-lib: compare version of lzlib.h with liblz.{a,so}

Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not found, files differ, invalid flags, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or invalid input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (eg, bug) which caused tarlz to panic.

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to lzip-bug@nongnu.org
Tarlz home page: http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/tarlz.html

COPYRIGHT