tar is a popular tool to create and manipulate streaming archive files.
The z option specifies gzip compression and j option specifies bzip compression. It is also possible to create uncompressed archives.
Extract a tar.gz archive
tar xzf archive.tar.gzExtract a tar.bz2/bzip archive
tar xjf archive.tar.bz2Extract to a specific path
tar xzf archive.tar.gz -C /tmp/archive/Extract specific files (by wildcard)
tar xzf archive.tar.gz --wildcards "*.txt"List files from an archive
tar tzf archive.tar.gzCreate a tar.gz archive
tar czf archive.tar.gz archive/Create a tar.bz2 archive
tar cjf archive.tar.bz2 archive/Create an archive (with file confirmation)
tar czwf archive.tar.gz archive/Append a file to existing archive
tar rf archive.tar file.txtFiles can only be added to plain (uncompressed) tar archives.
Backup directories at specific intervals
Add the following to your crontab.
tar czf archive-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /home/zaisteMove a file tree between directories
tar cf - -C srcdir . | tar xpf - -C destdirMove a file tree between machines
tar cf - * | ssh user@host "(cd /destination/path ; tar xf - )"