Gnu Cpio: by Robert Carleton and Sergey Poznyakoff
Gnu Cpio: by Robert Carleton and Sergey Poznyakoff
Gnu Cpio: by Robert Carleton and Sergey Poznyakoff
Chapter 2: Tutorial
1 Introduction
GNU cpio copies files into or out of a cpio or tar archive, The archive can be another file
on the disk, a magnetic tape, or a pipe.
GNU cpio supports the following archive formats: binary, old ASCII, new ASCII, crc,
HPUX binary, HPUX old ASCII, old tar, and POSIX.1 tar. The tar format is provided for
compatibility with the tar program. By default, cpio creates binary format archives, for
compatibility with older cpio programs. When extracting from archives, cpio automatically
recognizes which kind of archive it is reading and can read archives created on machines
with a different byte-order.
2 Tutorial
GNU cpio performs three primary functions. Copying files to an archive, Extracting files
from an archive, and passing files to another directory tree. An archive can be a file on
disk, one or more floppy disks, or one or more tapes.
When creating an archive, cpio takes the list of files to be processed from the standard
input, and then sends the archive to the standard output, or to the device defined by the
-F option. See Section 3.1 [Copy-out mode], page 2. Usually find or ls is used to provide
this list to the standard input. In the following example you can see the possibilities for
archiving the contents of a single directory.
The -o option creates the archive, and the -v option prints the names of the files
archived as they are added. Notice that the options can be put together after a single -
or can be placed separately on the command line. The > redirects the cpio output to the
file directory.cpio.
If you wanted to archive an entire directory tree, the find command can provide the file
list to cpio:
This will take all the files in the current directory, the directories below and place them
in the archive tree.cpio. Again the -o creates an archive, and the -v option shows you
the name of the files as they are archived. See Section 3.1 [Copy-out mode], page 2. Using
the . in the find statement will give you more flexibility when doing restores, as it will
save file names with a relative path vice a hard wired, absolute path. The -depth option
forces find to print of the entries in a directory before printing the directory itself. This
limits the effects of restrictive directory permissions by printing the directory entries in a
directory before the directory name itself.
Extracting an archive requires a bit more thought because cpio will not create directories
by default. Another characteristic, is it will not overwrite existing files unless you tell it to.
This will retrieve the files archived in the file directory.cpio and place them in the present
directory. The -i option extracts the archive and the -v shows the file names as they
are extracted. If you are dealing with an archived directory tree, you need to use the -d
option to create directories as necessary, something like:
This will take the contents of the archive tree.cpio and extract it to the current directory.
If you try to extract the files on top of files of the same name that already exist (and have
the same or later modification time) cpio will not extract the file unless told to do so by
the -u option. See Section 3.2 [Copy-in mode], page 4.
In copy-pass mode, cpio copies files from one directory tree to another, combining the
copy-out and copy-in steps without actually using an archive. It reads the list of files to copy
from the standard input; the directory into which it will copy them is given as a non-option
argument. See Section 3.3 [Copy-pass mode], page 6.
The example shows copying the files of the present directory, and sub-directories to a
new directory called new-dir. Some new options are the -print0 available with GNU
find, combined with the --null option of cpio. These two options act together to send
file names between find and cpio, even if special characters are embedded in the file names.
Another is -p, which tells cpio to pass the files it finds to the directory new-dir.
3 Invoking cpio
3.1 Copy-out mode
In copy-out mode, cpio copies files into an archive. It reads a list of filenames, one per line,
on the standard input, and writes the archive onto the standard output. A typical way to
generate the list of filenames is with the find command; you should give find the -depth
option to minimize problems with permissions on directories that are unreadable.
Copy-out mode is requested by the -o (--create) command line option, e.g.:
Filenames in the list are delimited by ASCII null characters instead of newlines.
-A
--append
Append to an existing archive.
-a
--reset-access-time
Reset the access times of files after reading them.
--absolute-filenames
Do not strip file system prefix components from the file names.
--no-absolute-filenames
Strip file system prefix components from the file names before storing them to
the archive.
--block-size=block-size
Sets the I/O block size to block-size * 512 bytes.
-B
-c
-C number
--io-size=number
Set the I/O block size to the given number of bytes.
-D dir
--directory=dir
Change to directory dir
--force-local
Treat the archive file as local, even if its name contains colons.
-F [[user @]host :]archive-file
-O [[user @]host :]archive-file
--file=[[user @]host :]archive-file
Use the supplied archive-file instead of standard input. Optional user and host
specify the user and host names in case of a remote archive.
-H format
--format=format
Use given archive format. See [format], page 10, for a list of available formats.
-L
--dereference
Dereference symbolic links (copy the files that they point to instead of copying
the links).
-M string
--message=string
Print string when the end of a volume of the backup media is reached.
--quiet
--rsh-command=command
Use command instead of rsh to access remote archives.
-R
--owner=[user ][:.][group ]
Set the ownership of all files created to the specified user and/or group. See
[owner], page 12.
-v
--verbose
Verbosely list the files processed.
-V
--dot
-W
--warning=flag
Control warning display. Argument is one of none, truncate, no-truncate
or all. See [warning], page 14, for a detailed discussion of these.
Swap both halfwords of words and bytes of halfwords in the data. Equivalent
to -sS.
-B
-c
-C number
--io-size=number
Set the I/O block size to the given number of bytes.
-D dir
--directory=dir
Change to directory dir
-d
--make-directories
Create leading directories where needed.
-E file
--pattern-file=file
Read additional patterns specifying filenames to extract or list from file.
-f
--nonmatching
Only copy files that do not match any of the given patterns.
--force-local
Treat the archive file as local, even if its name contains colons.
-F [[user @]host :]archive-file
-I [[user @]host :]archive-file
--file=[[user @]host :]archive-file
Use the supplied archive-file instead of standard input. Optional user and host
specify the user and host names in case of a remote archive.
-H format
--format=format
Use given archive format. See [format], page 10, for a list of available formats.
-m
--preserve-modification-time
Retain previous file modification times when creating files.
-M string
--message=string
Print string when the end of a volume of the backup media is reached.
--no-preserve-owner
Do not change the ownership of the files.
-n
--numeric-uid-gid
In the verbose table of contents listing, show numeric UID and GID values.
--only-verify-crc
When reading a CRC format archive, only verify the CRCs of each file in the
archive, dont actually extract the files
--quiet
--rsh-command=command
Use command instead of rsh to access remote archives.
-r
--rename
Interactively rename files
--sparse
Write files with large blocks of zeros as sparse files.
-s
--swap-bytes
Swap the bytes of each halfword in the files
-S
--swap-halfwords
Swap the halfwords of each word (4 bytes) in the files
--to-stdout
Extract files to standard output.
-u
--unconditional
Replace all files unconditionally.
-v
--verbose
Verbosely list the files processed.
-V
--dot
-W
--warning=flag
Control warning display. Argument is one of none, truncate, no-truncate
or all. See [warning], page 14, for a detailed discussion of these.
Filenames in the list are delimited by ASCII null characters instead of newlines.
-a
--reset-access-time
Reset the access times of files after reading them.
-b
--swap
Swap both halfwords of words and bytes of halfwords in the data. Equivalent
to -sS.
--block-size=block-size
Sets the I/O block size to block-size * 512 bytes.
-B
-c
-C number
--io-size=number
Set the I/O block size to the given number of bytes.
-d
--make-directories
Create leading directories where needed.
--device-independent
--reproducible
Create reproducible archives.
--renumber-inodes.
-D dir
--directory=dir
Change to directory dir
-E file
--pattern-file=file
Read additional patterns specifying filenames to extract or list from file.
-f
--nonmatching
Only copy files that do not match any of the given patterns.
-F [[user @]host :]archive-file
-O [[user @]host :]archive-file
--file=[[user @]host :]archive-file
Use the supplied archive-file instead of standard input. Optional user and host
specify the user and host names in case of a remote archive.
--force-local
Treat the archive file as local, even if its name contains colons.
-H format
--format=format
Use given archive format. See [format], page 10, for a list of available formats.
--ignore-devno
Store 0 in the device number field of each archive member, instead of the actual
device number.
-l
--link
-L
--dereference
Dereference symbolic links (copy the files that they point to instead of copying
the links).
-m
--preserve-modification-time
Retain previous file modification times when creating files.
-M string
--message=string
Print string when the end of a volume of the backup media is reached.
-n
--numeric-uid-gid
In the verbose table of contents listing, show numeric UID and GID values.
--no-preserve-owner
Do not change the ownership of the files.
--only-verify-crc
When reading a CRC format archive, only verify the CRCs of each file in the
archive, dont actually extract the files
--quiet
--rsh-command=command
Use command instead of rsh to access remote archives.
-r
--rename
Interactively rename files
--renumber-inodes
Renumber inodes when storing them in the archive.
-R
--owner=[user ][:.][group ]
Set the ownership of all files created to the specified user and/or group. See
[owner], page 12.
-s
--swap-bytes
Swap the bytes of each halfword in the files
--sparse
Write files with large blocks of zeros as sparse files.
-S
--swap-halfwords
Swap the halfwords of each word (4 bytes) in the files
--to-stdout
Extract files to standard output.
-u
--unconditional
Replace all files unconditionally.
-v
--verbose
Verbosely list the files processed.
-V
--dot
-W
--warning=flag
Control warning display. Argument is one of none, truncate, no-truncate
or all. See [warning], page 14, for a detailed discussion of these.
3.4 Options
This section summarizes all available command line options. References in square brackets
after each option indicate cpio modes in which this option is valid.
-0
--null
-a
--reset-access-time
[[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Reset the access times of files after reading them, so that it does not look like
they have just been read.
-A
--append
-b
--swap
-B
[[copy-out], page 2]
Append to an existing archive. Only works in copy-out mode. The archive
must be a disk file specified with the -O or -F (--file) option.
[[copy-in], page 4]
Swap both halfwords of words and bytes of halfwords in the data. Equivalent
to -sS. This option may be used in copy-in mode. Use this option to convert
32-bit integers between big-endian and little-endian machines.
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Set the I/O block size to 5120 bytes. Initially the block size is 512 bytes.
--block-size=block-size
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Set the I/O block size to block-size * 512 bytes.
-c
-C io-size
--io-size=io-size
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Set the I/O block size to io-size bytes.
-d
--make-directories
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-pass], page 6]
Create leading directories where needed.
10
-D dir
--directory=dir
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Change to the directory dir before starting the operation. This can be used,
for example, to extract an archive contents in a different directory:
$ cpio -i -D /usr/local < archive
or to copy-pass files from one directory to another:
$ cpio -D /usr/bin -p /usr/local/bin < filelist
The -D option does not affect file names supplied as arguments to another
command line options, such as -F or -E. For example, the following invocation:
cpio -D /tmp/foo -d -i -F arc
instructs cpio to open the archive file arc in the current working directory,
then change to the directory /tmp/foo and extract files to that directory. If
/tmp/foo does not exist, it will be created first (the -d option) and then
changed to.
-E file
--pattern-file=file
[[copy-in], page 4]
Read additional patterns specifying filenames to extract or list from file. The
lines of file are treated as if they had been non-option arguments to cpio. This
option is used in copy-in mode,
-f
--nonmatching
[[copy-in], page 4]
Only copy files that do not match any of the given patterns.
-F archive
--file=archive
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2]
Archive filename to use instead of standard input or output. To use a tape drive
on another machine as the archive, use a filename that starts with hostname :,
where hostname is the name or IP address of the machine. The hostname can be
preceded by a username and an @ to access the remote tape drive as that user,
if you have permission to do so (typically an entry in that users ~/.rhosts
file).
--force-local
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2]
With -F, -I, or -O, take the archive file name to be a local file even if it
contains a colon, which would ordinarily indicate a remote host name.
-H format
--format=format
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Use archive format format. The valid formats are listed below with file size
11
limits for individual files in parentheses; the same names are also recognized
in all-caps. The default in copy-in mode is to automatically detect the archive
format, and in copy-out mode is bin.
bin
odc
newc
The new (SVR4) portable format, which supports file systems having more than 65536 i-nodes. (4294967295 bytes)
crc
tar
ustar
The POSIX.1 tar format. Also recognizes GNU tar archives, which
are similar but not identical. (8589934591 bytes)
hpbin
hpodc
The portable format used by HPUXs cpio (which stores device files
differently).
-i
--extract
Run in copy-in mode. See Section 3.2 [Copy-in mode], page 4.
-I archive
[[copy-in], page 4]
Archive filename to use instead of standard input. To use a tape drive on
another machine as the archive, use a filename that starts with hostname :,
where hostname is the name or IP address of the remote host. The hostname
can be preceded by a username and an @ to access the remote tape drive as
that user, if you have permission to do so (typically an entry in that users
~/.rhosts file).
-l
--link
[[copy-pass], page 6]
Link files instead of copying them, when possible.
-L
--dereference
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-pass], page 6]
Copy the file that a symbolic link points to, rather than the symbolic link itself.
-m
--preserve-modification-time
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-pass], page 6]
Retain previous file modification times when creating files.
-M message
--message=message
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2]
Print message when the end of a volume of the backup media (such as a tape or
12
a floppy disk) is reached, to prompt the user to insert a new volume. If message
contains the string %d, it is replaced by the current volume number (starting
at 1).
-n
--numeric-uid-gid
[[copy-in], page 4]
Show numeric UID and GID instead of translating them into names when using
the --verbose option.
--no-absolute-filenames
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2]
Create all files relative to the current directory in copy-in mode, even if they
have an absolute file name in the archive.
--no-preserve-owner
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-pass], page 6]
Do not change the ownership of the files; leave them owned by the user extracting them. This is the default for non-root users, so that users on System V
dont inadvertantly give away files. This option can be used in copy-in mode
and copy-pass mode
-o
--create
-O archive
[[copy-out], page 2]
Archive filename to use instead of standard output. To use a tape drive on
another machine as the archive, use a filename that starts with hostname :,
where hostname is the name or IP address of the machine. The hostname
can be preceded by a username and an @ to access the remote tape drive as
that user, if you have permission to do so (typically an entry in that users
~/.rhosts file).
--only-verify-crc
[[copy-in], page 4]
Verify the CRCs of each file in the archive, when reading a CRC format archive.
Dont actually extract the files.
-p
--pass-through
Run in copy-pass mode. See Section 3.3 [Copy-pass mode], page 6.
--quiet
-r
--rename
13
-R owner
--owner owner
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
In copy-in and copy-pass mode, set the ownership of all files created to the
specified owner (this operation is allowed only for the super-user). In copy-out
mode, store the supplied owner information in the archive.
The argument can be either the user name or the user name and group name,
separated by a dot or a colon, or the group name, preceeded by a dot or a colon,
as shown in the examples below:
cpio
cpio
cpio
cpio
--owner
--owner
--owner
--owner
smith
smith:
smith:users
:users
The argument parts are first looked up in the system user and group databases,
correspondingly. If any of them is not found there, it is treated as numeric UID
or GID, provided that it consists of decimal digits only.
To avoid the lookup and ensure that arguments are treated as numeric values,
prefix them with a plus sign, e.g.:
cpio
cpio
cpio
cpio
--owner
--owner
--owner
--owner
+0
+0:
+0:+0
:+0
-t
--list
14
--to-stdout
[[copy-in], page 4]
Extract files to standard output. This option may be used in copy-in mode.
-u
--unconditional
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-pass], page 6]
Replace all files, without asking whether to replace existing newer files with
older files.
-v
--verbose
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
List the files processed, or with -t, give an ls -l style table of contents
listing. In a verbose table of contents of a ustar archive, user and group names
in the archive that do not exist on the local system are replaced by the names
that correspond locally to the numeric UID and GID stored in the archive.
-V
--dot
--version
Print the cpio program version number and exit.
-W
--warning=flag
[[copy-in], page 4,[copy-out], page 2,[copy-pass], page 6]
Control warning display. The argument is one of the following:
none
all
truncate
no-truncate
Disable truncation warnings.
4 Magnetic Media
Archives are usually written on removable mediatape cartridges, mag tapes, or floppy
disks.
The amount of data a tape or disk holds depends not only on its size, but also on how it
is formatted. A 2400 foot long reel of mag tape holds 40 megabytes of data when formated
at 1600 bits per inch. The physically smaller EXABYTE tape cartridge holds 2.3 gigabytes.
Magnetic media are re-usableonce the archive on a tape is no longer needed, the archive
can be erased and the tape or disk used over. Media quality does deteriorate with use,
however. Most tapes or disks should be disgarded when they begin to produce data errors.
Magnetic media are written and erased using magnetic fields, and should be protected
from such fields to avoid damage to stored data. Sticking a floppy disk to a filing cabinet
using a magnet is probably not a good idea.
Concept Index
15
Concept Index
A
archive creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
archive extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2
6
4
2
6
1
2
1
invoking cpio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
M
magnetic media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
P
passing directory structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Table of Contents
1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Invoking cpio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
Copy-out mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Copy-in mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Copy-pass mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2
4
6
9
Magnetic Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Concept Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15