Archiving Files on the Command Line

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Archiving Files on the Command Line

In this hands-on lab, we will practice archiving and compression. Archiving is often used for backing up and moving files, and the ability to create compressed archives is a fundamental skill for a systems architect. By the end of this lab, you will be familiar with creating and working with archives.

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Lab Info

Level

Beginner

Last updated

Aug 23, 2025

Duration

45m

Challenge

Create a Normal Archive
1. Use the following command to create a tarball of the ~/Practice folder named archive.tar:
```
tar cvf archive.tar Practice/
```
Challenge

Add the File `~/extra.txt` to `archive.tar`
1. Use the following command to add the file ~/extra.txt to the existing tarball:
```
tar rf archive.tar extra.txt
```
Challenge

Create a Compressed Archive
1. Now create another tarball, but this time, compress it during creation with the following command:
```
tar czf archive.tgz Practice/
```
Challenge

Compress the Normal Archive
1. Use the gzip utility to compress the first tarball (archive.tar) with maximum compression:
```
gzip -9 archive.tar
```
1. This will compress the file and rename it archive.tar.gz.
Challenge

Extract the File `Practice/Test/version.txt` from `archive.tar.gz`
1. Use the following command to extract the file Practice/Test/version.txt from the compressed archive archive.tar.gz:
```
tar xzf archive.tar.gz Practice/Test/version.txt
```
1. This will extract the file to the existing path and overwrite the file if it exists.

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