How to create tar.gz file in Linux using command line

How to create tar.gz file in Linux using command line – In computing, tar is a computer software utility for collecting many files into one archive file, often referred to as a tarball, for distribution or backup purposes. The name is derived from “tape archive”, as it was originally developed to write data to sequential I/O devices with no file system of their own.

How to create tar.gz file in Linux using command line

Please follow below steps to create a tar.gz file on Linux;

• Open the terminal application in Linux
• Run tar command to create an archived named file.tar.gz for given directory name
• Verify tar.gz file using the ls command and tar command

tar command options

• c = create a new tar file
• v = verbose , display file to compress or uncompress
• f = create the tar file with filename provided as the argument
• z = use gzip to zip it
• x = extract file

Example command to create tar.gz file

tar -cvzf new_tarname.tar.gz folder-you-want-to-compress

In this example, compress a folder named “public_html”, into a new tar file “scheduler.tar.gz”.

tar -cvzf public_html.tar.gz public_html

Example command to extract tar.gz file

tar -xzvf tarname-you-want-to-unzip.tar.gz

In this example, uncompressed a file named “public_html.tar.gz”, into a new tar folder “public_html”.

tar -xzvf public_html.tar.gz

How to verify compress file

Please use below command to verify compressed file

ls -l public_html.tar.gz

Example outputs:

-rw-r--r-- 1 vivek vivek 59262 Oct  25 07:23  public_html.tar.gz

list the contents of a tar or tar.gz file using the tar command;

tar -ztvf public_html.tar.gz

To Preserve permissions

tar -pcvzf tar-archive-name.tar.gz source-folder-name

Example command

tar -pcvzf public_html.tar.gz public_html

Switch the ‘c’ flag to an ‘x’ to extract (uncompress).

tar -pxvzf tar-archive-name.tar.gz

Example Command

tar -pxvzf public_html.tar.gz

If you’re using a graphical Linux desktop, you could also use the file-compression utility or file manager included with your desktop to create or extract .tar files. On Windows, you can extract and create .tar archives with the free 7-Zip utility.

Use bzip2 Compression Instead

While gzip compression is most frequently used to create .tar.gz or .tgz files, tar also supports bzip2 compression. This allows you to create bzip2-compressed files, often named .tar.bz2, .tar.bz, or .tbz files. To do so, just replace the -z for gzip in the commands here with a -j for bzip2.

Sample command for bzip2

tar -cjvf public_html.tar.bz2 public_html

Online TAR.GZ compressor

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