Extracting an Archive From 4mm/8mm Tape

I'm continuing to build on my last post. Moreover, I use tar to extract archive files and directories from tape. This is a lifesaver when you have to restore critical file(s) or directories.

1. tar xvfp /home/directory/filename.tar directoryname

e.g. #tar xvfp /home/esofthub/esofthub.tar esofthub

The aforementioned action extracts the esofthub directory from the esofthub.tar file.

tar – Tape archive utility
xvfp – Extract, verbose, file, preserves permissions -- flags/options
/home/esofthub/esofthub.tar – A tarball
esofthub – The esofthub directory and its contents

2. #tar xvfp /dev/rmt/0 /home/esofthub/esofthub.tar
/dev/rmt/0 – Here’s how to extract a tarball file from tape.

3. #tar xvfp /dev/rmt/0
/dev/rmt/0 – Here’s how to extract all the contents from tape.