tar

[j773303]

How to extract tar file to
assign directory?

for ex: tar -xvf test.tar ??

[Michael Tully · Accepted solution]

You cannot extract tar to just any directory. If it has been created (the tar backup) with absolute path names it cannot be done.
If the backup was created as ./dir/file (example) then it can be extracted to any filesystem, but the directory hierarchy will also get created.
If you not sure run

# tar tvf test.tar

[malay boy]

1) if you backup not using fullpath i.e

cd /home/malay
tar cvf malay.tar *

then you extract :

cd /tmp/malay
tar xvf malay.tar

all the file will be extracted to /tmp/malay

2) if backup using fullpath i.e

tar cvf malay.tar /home/malay

then on recover if you do i.e

cd /tmp/malay
tar xvf malay tar

you file will be restored in /home/malay instead of /tmp/malay

hope this help

regards
mB

[Denver Osborn]

If the archive was created using the full paths, you could still extract the archive to an alternate location.

# cp /sbin/tar /newpath
# cp tarfile.tar /newpath
# cd /newpath
# chroot ./ tar xvf tarfile.tar

You can then remove /newpath/tar and tarfile.tar

The files will be extracted relative to the new path. Instead of /mypath/myfile being extracted to the orignal location, it would now be /newpath/mypath/myfile

The short version to achieve the same results as above... use pax.

pax -r -p e -s '%^/%/newpath/%' -f tarfile.tar

-denver