Tar

Basic Commands

Create archive with gzip

tar cvzf archive_name.tar.gz /path/to/dir/

Untar to different directory

tar -zxvf tarball.tar.gz -C /path/to/dir/

Search a tar archive for a file

tar tf archive.tar.gz | grep foo

Extract a specific file or dir

Use relative paths for within the file, helpful to tar -tf first

tar -zxvf /path/to/backup.tar.gz -C /destination/dir backup/path/to/fileordir

Test a tarball to see if it's valid

tar -tf tarball.tar.gz >/dev/null

Docs & Links

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/unix-tar-command-examples/