Read and write file archives and copy directory hierarchies.
Syntax
pax [-0cdjnvzO] [-f archive] [-s replstr] ... [-U user] ... [-G group] ...
[-T [from_date] [,to_date]] ... [pattern ...]
pax -r [-0cdijknuvzDOYZ] [-f archive] [-o options] ... [-p string] ... [-s replstr] ... [-E limit]
[-U user] ... [-G group] ... [-T [from_date] [,to_date]] ... [pattern ...]
pax -w [-0dijtuvzHLOPX] [-b blocksize] [[-a] [-f archive]] [-x format] [-s replstr] ... [-o options] ...
[-U user] ... [-G group] ... [-B bytes] [-T [from_date] [,to_date] [/[c][m]]] ... [file ...]
pax -r -w [-0dijklntuvDHLOPXYZ] [-p string] ... [-s replstr] ... [-U user] ... [-G group] ...
[-T [from_date] [,to_date] [/[c][m]]] ... [file ...] directory
Options
-r Read an archive file from standard input and extract the specified files.
If any intermediate directories are needed in order to extract an archive member, these
directories will be created as if mkdir(2) was called with the bitwise inclusive OR of S_IRWXU,
S_IRWXG, and S_IRWXO as the mode argument. When the selected archive format supports the
specification of linked files and these files cannot be linked while the archive is being extracted,
pax will write a diagnostic message to standard error and exit with a non-zero exit status
at the completion of operation.
-w Write files to the standard output in the specified archive format.
When no file operands are specified, standard input is read for a list of pathnames with one per
line without any leading or trailing â¨blanksâŠ.
-0 Use the NUL (â\0â) character as a pathname terminator, instead of newline (â\nâ).
This applies only to the pathnames read from standard input in the write and copy modes, and to
the pathnames written to standard output in list mode.
This option is expected to be used in concert with the -print0 function in find(1) or the -0 flag
in xargs(1).
-a Append files to the end of an archive that was previously written.
If an archive format is not specified with a -x option, the format currently being used in the
archive will be selected. Any attempt to append to an archive in a format different from the format
already used in the archive will cause pax to exit immediately with a non-zero exit status.
The blocking size used in the archive volume where writing starts will continue to be used for
the remainder of that archive volume.
Warning: Many storage devices are not able to support the operations necessary to perform an append
operation. Any attempt to append to an archive stored on such a device may damage the archive or
have other unpredictable results. Tape drives in particular are more likely to not support an
append operation. An archive stored in a regular file system file or on a disk device will usually
support an append operation.
-b blocksize
When writing an archive, block the output at a positive decimal integer number of bytes per write
to the archive file. The blocksize must be a multiple of 512 bytes with a maximum of 64512 bytes.
A blocksize larger than 32256 bytes violates the POSIX standard and will not be portable to all systems.
A blocksize can end with k or b to specify multiplication by 1024 (1K) or 512, respectively.
A pair of blocksizes can be separated by x to indicate a product.
A specific archive device may impose additional restrictions on the size of blocking it will support.
When blocking is not specified, the default blocksize is dependent on the specific archive format
being used (see the -x option).
-c Match all file or archive members except those specified by the pattern and file operands.
-d Cause files of type directory being copied or archived, or archive members of type directory being
extracted, to match only the directory file or archive member and not the file hierarchy rooted at
the directory.
-f archive
Specify archive as the pathname of the input or output archive, overriding the default standard input
(for list and read) or standard output (for write).
A single archive may span multiple files and different archive devices. When required, pax will prompt
for the pathname of the file or device of the next volume in the archive.
-i Interactively rename files or archive members.
For each archive member matching a pattern operand or each file matching a file operand, pax will prompt
to /dev/tty giving the name of the file, its file mode and its modification time.
The pax utility will then read a line from /dev/tty. If this line is blank, the file or archive member is
skipped. If this line consists of a single period, the file or archive member is processed with no
modification to its name. Otherwise, its name is replaced with the contents of the line.
The pax utility will immediately exit with a non-zero exit status if EOF is encountered when reading a
response or if /dev/tty cannot be opened for reading and writing.
-j Use bzip2 to compress (decompress) the archive while writing (reading).
The bzip2 utility must be installed separately. Incompatible with -a.
-k Do not overwrite existing files.
-l Link files. (The letter ell).
In the copy mode (-r -w), hard links are made between the source and destination file hierarchies
whenever possible.
-n Select the first archive member that matches each pattern operand.
No more than one archive member is matched for each pattern. When members of type directory are matched,
the file hierarchy rooted at that directory is also matched (unless -d is also specified).
-o options
Information to modify the algorithm for extracting or writing archive files which is specific to the
archive format specified by -x. In general, options take the form: name=value
The following options are available for the old BSD tar format:
nodir
write_opt=nodir
When writing archives, omit the storage of directories.
-p string
Specify one or more file characteristic options (privileges).
The string option-argument is a string specifying file characteristics to be retained or discarded on
extraction. The string consists of the specification characters a, e, m, o, and p.
Multiple characteristics can be concatenated within the same string and multiple -p options can be
specified. The meaning of the specification characters are as follows:
a Do not preserve file access times. By default, file access times are preserved whenever possible.
e âPreserve everythingâ, the user ID, group ID, file mode bits, file access time, and file
modification time. This is intended to be used by root, someone with all the appropriate
privileges, in order to preserve all aspects of the files as they are recorded in the archive.
The e flag is the sum of the o and p flags.
m Do not preserve file modification times.
By default, file modification times are preserved whenever possible.
o Preserve the user ID and group ID.
p âPreserveâ the file mode bits.
This is intended to be used by a user with regular privileges who wants to preserve all aspects of
the file other than the ownership. The file times are preserved by default, but two other flags
are offered to disable this and use the time of extraction instead.
In the preceding list, âpreserveâ indicates that an attribute stored in the archive is given to the
extracted file, subject to the permissions of the invoking process. Otherwise the attribute of the
extracted file is determined as part of the normal file creation action. If neither the e nor the o
specification character is specified, or the user ID and group ID are not preserved for any reason, pax
will not set the S_ISUID (setuid) and S_ISGID (setgid) bits of the file mode.
If the preservation of any of these items fails for any reason, pax will write a diagnostic message to
standard error. Failure to preserve these items will affect the final exit status, but will not cause
the extracted file to be deleted.
If the file characteristic letters in any of the string option-arguments are duplicated or conflict with
each other, the one(s) given last will take precedence. For example, if -p eme is specified, file
modification times are still preserved.
File flags set by chflags(1) are not understood by pax, however tar(1) and dump(8) will preserve these.
-r Read an archive file from standard input and extract the specified file operands.
If any intermediate directories are needed in order to extract an archive member, these directories will
be created as if mkdir(2) was called with the bitwise inclusive OR of S_IRWXU, S_IRWXG, and S_IRWXO
as the mode argument. When the selected archive format supports the specification of linked files and
these files cannot be linked while the archive is being extracted, pax will write a diagnostic message
to standard error and exit with a non-zero exit status at the completion of operation.
-s replstr
Modify the file or archive member names specified by the pattern or file operands according to the
substitution expression replstr, using the syntax of the ed(1) utility regular expressions.
file or pattern arguments may be given to restrict the list of archive members to those specified.
The format of these regular expressions is:
/old/new/[gp]
As in ed(1), old is a basic regular expression and new can contain an ampersand (&), \n
(where n is a digit) back-references, or subexpression matching. The old string may also contain
newline characters. Any non-null character can be used as a delimiter (/ is shown here).
Multiple -s expressions can be specified. The expressions are applied in the order they are
specified on the command line, terminating with the first successful substitution.
The optional trailing g continues to apply the substitution expression to the pathname substring,
which starts with the first character following the end of the last successful substitution.
The first unsuccessful substitution stops the operation of the g option.
The optional trailing p will cause the final result of a successful substitution to be written to
standard error in the following format:
original pathname >> new pathname
File or archive member names that substitute to the empty string are not selected and will be skipped.
-t Reset the access times of any file or directory read or accessed by pax to be the same as they were
before being read or accessed by pax.
-u Ignore files that are older (having a less recent file modification time) than a pre-existing file or
archive member with the same name.
During read, an archive member with the same name as a file in the
file system will be extracted if the archive member is newer than the file.
During write, a file system member with the same name as an archive member will be written to the
archive if it is newer than the archive member.
During copy, the file in the destination hierarchy is replaced by the file in the source hierarchy or
by a link to the file in the source hierarchy if the file in the source hierarchy is newer.
-v During a list operation, produce a verbose table of contents using the format of the ls(1) utility
with the -l option. For pathnames representing a hard link to a previous member of the archive,
the output has the format:
ls -l listing == link_name
For pathnames representing a symbolic link, the output has the format:
ls -l listing => link_name
Where ls -l listing is the output format specified by the ls(1) utility when used with the -l option.
Otherwise for all the other operational modes (read, write, and copy), pathnames are written and flushed
to standard error without a trailing newline as soon as processing begins on that file or archive member.
The trailing newline, is not buffered, and is written only after the file has been read or written.
-x format
Specify the output archive format, with the default format being ustar.
The pax utility currently supports the following formats:
cpio The extended cpio interchange format specified in the IEEE Std 1003.2 (âPOSIX.2â) standard.
The default blocksize for this format is 5120 bytes. Inode and device information about a file
(used for detecting file hard links by this format) which may be truncated by this format is
detected by pax and is repaired.
bcpio The old binary cpio format. The default blocksize for this format is 5120 bytes.
This format is not very portable and should not be used when other formats are available.
Inode and device information about a file (used for detecting file hard links by this format),
which may be truncated by this format, is detected by pax and is repaired.
sv4cpio The System V release 4 cpio. The default blocksize for this format is 5120 bytes.
Inode and device information about a file (used for detecting file hard links by this format),
which may be truncated by this format, is detected by pax and is repaired.
sv4crc The System V release 4 cpio with file crc checksums. The default blocksize for this format is
5120 bytes. Inode and device information about a file (used for detecting file hard links by
this format), which may be truncated by this format, is detected by pax and is repaired.
tar The old BSD tar format as found in 4.3BSD. The default blocksize for this format is 10240 bytes.
Pathnames stored by this format must be 100 characters or less in length.
Only regular files, hard links, soft links, and directories will be archived (other file system
types are not supported). For backwards compatibility with even older tar formats, a -o option
can be used when writing an archive to omit the storage of directories. This option takes the form:
-o write_opt=nodir
ustar The extended tar interchange format specified in the IEEE Std 1003.2 (âPOSIX.2â) standard.
The default blocksize for this format is 10240 bytes. Pathnames stored by this format must be
255 characters or less in length. The directory part may be at most 155 characters and each
path component must be less than 100 characters.
The pax utility will detect and report any file that it is unable to store or extract as the result of any
specific archive format restrictions. The individual archive formats may impose additional restrictions on use.
Typical archive format restrictions include (but are not limited to): file pathname length, file size,
link pathname length and the type of the file.
-z Use gzip(1) to compress (decompress) the archive while writing (reading). Incompatible with -a.
-B bytes
Limit the number of bytes written to a single archive volume to bytes.
The bytes limit can end with m, k, or b to specify multiplication by 1048576 (1M), 1024 (1K) or 512,
respectively. A pair of bytes limits can be separated by x to indicate a product.
Note that the specified size is for the uncompressed pax image itself. If the -z option is also used,
the resulting file may contain fewer bytes, according to the compressibility of the archive contents.
See zip if compressed volumes of predictable size are required.
Warning: Only use this option when writing an archive to a device which supports an end of file read
condition based on last (or largest) write offset (such as a regular file or a tape drive).
The use of this option with a floppy or hard disk is not recommended.
-D This option is the same as the -u option, except that the file inode change time is checked instead of the
file modification time. The file inode change time can be used to select files whose inode information
(e.g., uid, gid, etc.) is newer than a copy of the file in the destination directory.
-E limit
Limit the number of consecutive read faults while trying to read a flawed archives to limit.
With a positive limit, pax will attempt to recover from an archive read error and will continue processing
starting with the next file stored in the archive. A limit of 0 will cause pax to stop operation
after the first read error is detected on an archive volume. A limit of NONE will cause pax to attempt to
recover from read errors forever. The default limit is a small positive number of retries.
Warning: Using this option with NONE should be used with extreme caution as pax may get stuck in an infinite
loop on a very badly flawed archive.
-G group
Select a file based on its group name, or when starting with a #, a numeric gid.
A '\' can be used to escape the #. Multiple -G options may be supplied and checking stops with the
first match.
-H Follow only command line symbolic links while performing a physical file system traversal.
-L Follow all symbolic links to perform a logical file system traversal.
-O Force the archive to be one volume.
If a volume ends prematurely, pax will not prompt for a new volume. This option can be useful
for automated tasks where error recovery cannot be performed by a human.
-P Do not follow symbolic links, perform a physical file system traversal. This is the default mode.
-T [from_date][,to_date][/[c][m]]
Allow files to be selected based on a file modification or inode change time falling within a
specified time range of from_date to to_date (the dates are inclusive).
If only a from_date is supplied, all files with a modification or inode change time equal to or
younger are selected. If only a to_date is supplied, all files with a modification or inode change time
equal to or older will be selected. When the from_date is equal to the to_date, only files with a
modification or inode change time of exactly that time will be selected.
When pax is in the write or copy mode, the optional trailing field [c][m] can be used to determine
which file time (inode change, file modification or both) are used in the comparison.
If neither is specified, the default is to use file modification time only. The m specifies the
comparison of file modification time (the time when the file was last written).
The c specifies the comparison of inode change time (the time when the file inode was last changed;
e.g., a change of owner, group, mode, etc).
When c and m are both specified, then the modification and inode change times are both compared.
The inode change time comparison is useful in selecting files whose attributes were recently changed
or selecting files which were recently created and had their modification time reset to an older
time (as what happens when a file is extracted from an archive and the modification time is preserved).
Time comparisons using both file times is useful when pax is used to create a time based incremental
archive (only files that were changed during a specified time range will be archived).
A time range is made up of six different fields and each field must contain two digits. The format is:
[[[[[cc]yy]mm]dd]HH]MM[.SS]
Where cc is the first two digits of the year (the century), yy is the last two digits of the year,
the first mm is the month (from 01 to 12), dd is the day of the month (from 01 to 31), HH is the
hour of the day (from 00 to 23), MM is the minute (from 00 to 59), and SS is the seconds (from 00 to 59).
The minute field MM is required, while the other fields are optional and must be added in the following
order: HH, dd, mm, yy, cc. The ss field may be added independently of the other fields.
Time ranges are relative to the current time, so
-T 1234/cm
would select all files with a modification or inode change time of 12:34 PM today or later.
Multiple -T time range can be supplied and checking stops with the first match.
-U user
Select a file based on its user name, or when starting with a #, a numeric uid.
A '\' can be used to escape the #. Multiple -U options may be supplied and checking stops with
the first match.
-X When traversing the file hierarchy specified by a pathname, do not descend into directories that have
a different device ID. See the st_dev field as described in stat(2) for more information about device ID's.
-Y This option is the same as the -D option, except that the inode change time is checked using the pathname
created after all the file name modifications have completed.
-Z This option is the same as the -u option, except that the modification time is checked using the pathname
created after all the file name modifications have completed.
--insecure
Normally pax ignores filenames or symbolic links that contain â..â as a path component.
With this option, files that contain â..â can be processed.
The pax utility will read, write, and list the members of an archive file, and will copy directory hierarchies. These operations are
independent of the specific archive format, and support a wide variety of different archive formats. A list of supported archive formats
can be found under the description of the -x option.
The pax utility does not recognize multibyte (unicode) characters.
The presence of the -r and the -w options specifies which of the following functional modes pax will operate under: list, read, write, and
copy as follows:
<none> List. Write to standard output a table of contents of the members of the archive file read from standard input, whose pathnames
match the specified patterns. The table of contents contains one filename per line and is written using single line buffering.-r Read. Extract the members of the archive file read from the standard input, with pathnames matching the specified patterns. The
archive format and blocking is automatically determined on input. When an extracted file is a directory, the entire file hierarchy
rooted at that directory is extracted. Extracted files are created either at absolute paths (those that begin with a / character)
or relative to the current file hierarchy unless the -s option is used to remove leading slashes or add a relative path prefix.
Files being extracted to absolute paths may overwrite files outside of the current working directory, so care should be taken when
extracting untrusted archives. The setting of ownership, access and modification times, and file mode of the extracted files are
discussed in more detail under the -p option.-w Write. Write an archive containing the file operands to standard output using the specified archive format. When no file operands
are specified, a list of files to copy with one per line is read from standard input. When a file operand is also a directory, the
entire file hierarchy rooted at that directory will be included.-r -w Copy. Copy the file operands to the destination directory. When no file operands are specified, a list of files to copy with one
per line is read from the standard input. When a file operand is also a directory the entire file hierarchy rooted at that
directory will be included. The effect of the copy is as if the copied files were written to an archive file and then subsequently
extracted, except that there may be hard links between the original and the copied files (see the -l option below).Warning: The destination directory must not be one of the file operands or a member of a file hierarchy rooted at one of the file
operands. The result of a copy under these conditions is unpredictable.
While processing a damaged archive during a read or list operation, pax will attempt to recover from media defects and will search through
the archive to locate and process the largest number of archive members possible (see the -E option for more details on error handling).
File flags set by chflags are not preserved by pax. The BUGS section of chflags(1) has a list of utilities that are unaware of flags.
The options that operate on the names of files or archive members (-c, -i, -j, -n, -s, -u, -v, -D, -G, -T, -U, -Y, and -Z) interact as
follows.
The directory operand specifies a destination directory pathname. If the directory operand does not exist, or it is not writable by the
user, or it is not of type directory,paxwill exit with a non-zero exit status.The pattern operand is used to select one or more pathnames of archive members. Archive members are selected using the pattern matching notation described by glob(3). When the pattern operand is not supplied, all members of the archive will be selected. When a pattern matches a directory, the entire file hierarchy rooted at that directory will be selected. When a pattern operand does not select at least one archive member,
paxwill write these pattern operands in a diagnostic message to standard error and then exit with a non-zero exit status.The file operand specifies the pathname of a file to be copied or archived. When a file operand does not select at least one archive member,
paxwill write these file operand pathnames in a diagnostic message to standard error and then exit with a non-zero exit status.
Whenever
paxcannot create a file or a link when reading an archive or cannot find a file when writing an archive, or cannot preserve the
user ID, group ID, or file mode when the -p option is specified, a diagnostic message is written to standard error and a non-zero exit
status will be returned, but processing will continue. In the case wherepaxcannot create a link to a file,paxwill not create a second
copy of the file.If the extraction of a file from an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or error,
paxmay have only partially extracted a file the
user wanted. Additionally, the file modes of extracted files and directories may have incorrect file bits, and the modification and access
times may be wrong.If the creation of an archive is prematurely terminated by a signal or error,
paxmay have only partially created the archive, which may
violate the specific archive format specification.If while doing a copy,
paxdetects a file is about to overwrite itself, the file is not copied, a diagnostic message is written to standard
error and whenpaxcompletes it will exit with a non-zero exit status.
TMPDIR Path in which to store temporary files.
The
paxutility will exit with one of the following values:0 All files were processed successfully.
1 An error occurred.
Copy the contents of the current directory to the device /dev/sa0:
pax -w -f /dev/sa0 .
List the verbose table of contents for an archive stored in filename:
pax -v -f filename
Copy the entire /tmp/from directory hierarchy to /tmp/to:
mkdir /tmp/to
cd /tmp/from
pax -rw . /tmp/to
Read the archive a.pax, with all files rooted in '/usr' into the archive extracted relative to the current directory:
pax -r -s ',^//*usr//*,,' -f a.pax
Interactively select the files to copy from the current directory to dest_dir:
pax -rw -i . dest_dir
Extract all files from the archive a.pax which are owned by root with group bin and will preserve all file permissions:
pax -r -pe -U root -G bin -f a.pax
List the files in the CPIO archive archive.cpio:
pax -f archive.cpio
List the files in the compressed CPIO archive archive.cpgz:
pax -zf archive.cpgz
âAll Universities worthy of the name posses three functions: The storage of knowledge already acquired, the dissemination of knowledge in man's possession, and the search for new knowledgeâ ~ A. R. Kerr
Local man page: pax - Command line help page on your local machine.
cp - Copy files.
dd - Data Duplicator - convert and copy a file.
install - Copy files and set attributes.
mv - Move Files.
unzip - List, test and extract compressed files from a ZIP archive
tar - store or extract files to an archive (allows symbolic
links to be copied as links.)
