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:

       --compressor, -c <name>
              By default the result is a raw, uncompressed tar ball. Using this option it is possible to  select
              a stream compression format (such as gzip, xz, zstd or bzip2) to use for the output archive.

              Run sqfs2tar --help to get a list of all available compressors.

       --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 archive. For instance, the tar format does not support
              socket files, but SquashFS does. The default behaviour of sqfs2tar is to emit a warning to  stderr
              and  skip  the  entry. If this flag is set, processing is aborted and sqfs2tar exits with an error
              status.

       --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 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, unless the
       --root-becomes option is used.

       The output archive can optionally be compressed. Default settings are used for the supported  compressors
       and  there  is currently no intention to expose finer grained control over them. To set custom compressor
       flags, create an uncompressed archive and pipe it into a dedicated compressor process.

EXAMPLES

       Turn a SquashFS image into a tar archive:

              sqfs2tar rootfs.sqfs > rootfs.tar

       Creating a compressed archive with gzip headers:

              sqfs2tar --compressor gzip rootfs.sqfs > rootfs.tar.gz

       Compressing the output archive, but using custom compressor flags:

              sqfs2tar rootfs.sqfs | xz -9e > 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.

sqfs2tar                                            June 2019                                        SQFS2TAR(1)