NAME

       sqfs2tar - turn a SquashFS image into a tar archive

SYNOPSIS

       sqfs2tar [OPTIONS...] <sqfsfile>

DESCRIPTION

       Quickly  and  painlessly turn a SquashFS filesystem image into a tar archive that can then
       be examined and processed by any tool that can work on tar archives. The resulting archive
       is written to stdout.

       Possible options:

       --root-becomes, -r <dir>
              Prefix  all paths in the tarball with the given directory name and add an entry for
              this directory that  receives  all  meta  data  (permissions,  ownership,  extended
              attributes, et cetera) of the root inode.

              The  special  value  .  can  be  used  since many tar archivers themselves pack the
              attributes of the root directory that way and naturally support this.

              If this option is not used, all meta data from the root inode IS LOST!

       --subdir, -d <dir>
              Unpack the given sub directory instead of the filesystem  root.  Can  be  specified
              more than once to select multiple directories. If only one is specified, it becomes
              the new root of the archive filesystem tree.

       --keep-as-dir, -k
              If --subdir is used only once, don't make the subdir the archive root, instead keep
              it  as  prefix  for  all  unpacked  files.  Using  --subdir  more than once implies
              --keep-as-dir.

       --no-xattr, -X
              Discard extended attributes from the SquashFS image. The  default  behavior  is  to
              copy all xattrs attached to SquashFS inodes into the resulting tar archive.

       --no-hard-links, -L
              Normally,  sqfs2tar  runs  hard link detection and generates hard links for entries
              that refer to the same inode. If this flag is  set,  hard  link  detection  is  not
              performed and duplicate data records are generated instead.

       --no-skip, -s
              Abort if a file cannot be stored in a tar record instead of skipping it.

       --help, -h
              Print help text and exit.

       --version, -V
              Print version information and exit.

COMPATIBILITY

       The   output   format   is   pre-POSIX   ustar   using  GNU  extensions  where  necessary.
       Experimentation determined that this is  most  widely  supported  by  activeley  used  tar
       implementations  (besides  GNU  tar),  even  more  than  the  newer  POSIX format with PAX
       extensions.

       If any file or directory is encountered that cannot be converted,  it  is  skipped  and  a
       warning  is written to stderr. Unless the --no-skip option is set, which aborts processing
       if a file cannot be converted.

       This is mainly affects socket files which are supported by SquashFS but not by POSIX  tar,
       GNU tar or PAX.

       Since  the  tar  format contains a sequence of files with absolute names, it has no direct
       concept of a tree or an unnamed root node. Consequently, meta data from the SquashFS  root
       inode is lost.

EXAMPLES

       Turn a SquashFS image into a tar archive:

              sqfs2tar rootfs.sqfs > rootfs.tar

       Turn a SquashFS image into a gzip'ed tar archive:

              sqfs2tar rootfs.sqfs | gzip > rootfs.tar.gz

       Turn a SquashFS image into an LZMA2 compressed tar archive:

              sqfs2tar rootfs.sqfs | xz > rootfs.tar.xz

SEE ALSO

       rdsquashfs(1), tar2sqfs(1)

AUTHOR

       Written by David Oberhollenzer.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright  ©  2019  David  Oberhollenzer  License  GPLv3+:  GNU  GPL  version  3  or later
       <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO  WARRANTY,
       to the extent permitted by law.