Hello All,

I've tried a few different things, and i can't seem be able to untar a
file into
a different directory. It always untars to the same structure as is
within the tar.
So i tarred up /etc on a remote machine, and when i untar it on my
local machine
it overwrites my exsisting local /etc rather then untar in the current
/tmp directory

Thanks,

In article <1147727878.390791.106310@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
onlineviewer <lancerset@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>I've tried a few different things, and i can't seem be able to untar a
>file into
>a different directory. It always untars to the same structure as is
>within the tar.
>So i tarred up /etc on a remote machine, and when i untar it on my
>local machine
>it overwrites my exsisting local /etc rather then untar in the current
>/tmp directory

1)	star by default strips off leading slashes on extract

2)	star -x -s/from/to/

-- 
EMail:joerg@schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J�rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
      js@cs.tu-berlin.de		(uni)  
      schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de	(work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

onlineviewer wrote:

> So i tarred up /etc on a remote machine, and when i untar it on my
> local machine
> it overwrites my exsisting local /etc rather then untar in the current
> /tmp directory

You should use relative paths when creating a tar file, e.g.

cd /etc; tar cf filename.tar .

or

tar cf filename.tar etc   (not /etc)

and always check the paths in the tar file before untarring
so that you know where the files are going to go.

tar tf filename.tar

onlineviewer wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> I've tried a few different things, and i can't seem be able to untar a
> file into
> a different directory. It always untars to the same structure as is
> within the tar.
> So i tarred up /etc on a remote machine, and when i untar it on my
> local machine
> it overwrites my exsisting local /etc rather then untar in the current
> /tmp directory
> 
> Thanks,
> 
gtar if you have it (Companion CD/DVD) does remove leading / from archives.

$ /opt/sfw/bin/gtar cvf /tmp/hej.tar /tmp/hej
gtar: Removing leading `/' from member names
/tmp/hej/
/tmp/hej/hej

../J�rgen ;-)

Jorgen Moquist wrote:
> onlineviewer wrote:
> 
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I've tried a few different things, and i can't seem be able to untar a
>> file into
>> a different directory. It always untars to the same structure as is
>> within the tar.
>> So i tarred up /etc on a remote machine, and when i untar it on my
>> local machine
>> it overwrites my exsisting local /etc rather then untar in the current
>> /tmp directory
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
> gtar if you have it (Companion CD/DVD) does remove leading / from archives.
> 
> $ /opt/sfw/bin/gtar cvf /tmp/hej.tar /tmp/hej
> gtar: Removing leading `/' from member names
> /tmp/hej/
> /tmp/hej/hej
> 
> ./J�rgen ;-)

sorry forgot to list it.

$ tar tvf /tmp/hej.tar
-rwxr-xr-x 1000/10       0 May 16 00:17 2006 tmp/hej/
-rw-r--r-- 1000/10       0 May 16 00:17 2006 tmp/hej/hej

../J�rgen

thanks all,,,

I've also been bitten by this problem. Oscar mentioned the relative
paths solution earlier; I like to use a relative path from the root
directory when I tar something up, then take care on the un-tar to cd
to another directory before un-tar-ing. That way it preserves the
directory structure as well. Probably 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other,
but this is how I was able to keep is straight in my mind. And his
advice about always tar-ing with the -t option to see the actual
contents BEFORE actually extracting the files is spot-on; been bitten
by THAT before, too!  :~)

Source machine:
cd /
tar -cf  tarfile ./etc

Target machine:
cd /
tar -xf tarfile   #  re-creates ./etc relative to your current
directory (in this case, the root directory)

- or -

cd /tmp
tar -xf tarfile  # re-creates ./etc under the /tmp directory, leaving
original /etc alone

Joe D.

pax -r -s ',^/,,' -f <tarfile>

-Raf

Joe D. wrote:

> cd /tmp
> tar -xf tarfile  # re-creates ./etc under the /tmp directory, leaving
> original /etc alone

careful there too... some tar files might include "." which might
mess up the permissions of your current directory (/tmp) if running
as root

I was sent a tar file to look at the other day, a tar of /etc/ssh.

tar tf showed me that explicit file names were used.

So I copied the tar file to a box where the ssh directories were all
under /usr/local, and untarred it safely into /etc.

Since I can't think of any flavors of unix that don't have /etc, 
perhaps you could untar the blob on a Windows box?

-Mike

In article <e4cpl7$plj$1@hubcap.clemson.edu>,
hubcap  <hubcap@clemson.edu> wrote:
>
>
>I was sent a tar file to look at the other day, a tar of /etc/ssh.
>
>tar tf showed me that explicit file names were used.
>
>So I copied the tar file to a box where the ssh directories were all
>under /usr/local, and untarred it safely into /etc.
>
>Since I can't think of any flavors of unix that don't have /etc, 
>perhaps you could untar the blob on a Windows box?
>
>-Mike

From "man chroot" on Solaris 9:

EXAMPLES
     Example 1: Using the chroot utility.

     The chroot utility provides an easy way to extract tar files
     (see  tar(1)) written with absolute filenames to a different
     location:

     example# cp /usr/sbin/static/tar /tmp
     example# dd if=/dev/nrst0 | chroot /tmp tar xvf -

     Note that tar is statically linked, so it is  not  necessary
     to copy any shared libraries to the  newroot filesystem.

I have been bitten by this exact thing; extracted a file in /tmp that
changed the permissions and broke just about EVERYTHING!

Gotta be careful with that one, especially when untarring a file that
you didnt tar in the first place.  I always use 'tar tvf'  first to
find out how the file was tarred.

I expect this guy is the winner. Thanks Ted...

Some of the other ideas were winners too, but everyone doesn't
have star (for example) lying about already. 

-Mike

ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) writes:
>From "man chroot" on Solaris 9:

>EXAMPLES
>     Example 1: Using the chroot utility.

>     The chroot utility provides an easy way to extract tar files
>     (see  tar(1)) written with absolute filenames to a different
>     location:

>     example# cp /usr/sbin/static/tar /tmp
>     example# dd if=/dev/nrst0 | chroot /tmp tar xvf -

>     Note that tar is statically linked, so it is  not  necessary
>     to copy any shared libraries to the  newroot filesystem.