NAME

       ftar - extract tar files using classes

SYNOPSIS

       ftar [options] SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

       Extract an archive from SOURCE to its target directory using classes.

       SOURCE  is a directory which contains one or more template files for the source archive to
       extract.  Depending on the list of defined classes, one or more  archives  of  the  source
       directory are selected and extracted to the target.  The base target directory is the name
       of the source directory.  Template files must have suffix .tar,  .tgz,  .tar.gz,  .tar.xz,
       .txz, .tbz2 or .tar.bz2 depending on the type of archive.

       The  exit code returned by ftar is mostly 0.  For every successfully extracted tar file, a
       log message is printed to standard output.

OPTIONS

       Options -c, -s, -t (or their analog variables) and a SOURCE are required.

       -1     Use only one archive file matching a class name.

       -c class[class]
              Define classes.  Multiple classes must be space separated.  The first class has the
              lowest priority.  If not specified, use the classes from the file /tmp/FAI_CLASES.

       -d     Delete all files in target directory before extracting the archive(s).

       -D     Create debugging output.

       -h     Show help, version and summary of options.

       -i     Ignore warnings about no matching class and always exit with 0.

       -r     Recursively remove files in target directory before extracting archive.

       -s source_dir
              Look for SOURCE files relative to source_dir.  Use $FAI/files if not specified.

       -t target_dir
              Extract archives relative to target_dir.  Use $FAI_ROOT if not specified.

       -v     Be verbose.  Not yet used.

EXAMPLES

       Suppose the source directory /files/usr/local consists of the following files:

       DATALESS.tar.gz ant01.tar.bz2

       Each  file  is  a  compressed  archive.  If  only class DATALESS is defined, the following
       command

          # ftar -s /files -t /target /usr/local

       is equal to

          # tar -C /target/usr/local -zxf /files/usr/local/DATALESS.tar.gz

       If additionally class ant01 is defined, the following command is also executed

          # tar -C /target/usr/local -jxf /files/usr/local/ant01.tar.bz2

       If only one archive should be extracted, the class with highest priority is used.

NOTES

       Do not create a file DEFAULT if no reasonable default  configuration  file  can  be  used.
       It's better to exit with an error than to extract a wrong archive.

       This  command  can also be used to maintain your complete directory trees on a huge number
       of hosts.

SEE ALSO

       fcopy(8)

       This program is part of FAI (Fully Automatic Installation).  See the FAI manual  for  more
       information on how to use ftar.  The FAI homepage is http://fai-project.org.

AUTHOR

       Thomas Lange <lange@informatik.uni-koeln.de>

                                           29 July 2010                                   ftar(8)