[Cialug] Can someone translate for me?

[Tim Wilson]

On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:24 AM, Theron Conrey <theron at conrey.org> wrote:

> actually the first command changes who can do what with the file.
>
> for the first command a quicky explanation is there are three groups.  the
> owner, the group, and then everyone else.
> basically changing the permissions to 777 allows EVERYONE (owner, group,
> and everyone) to do everything (read,write, execute) to that file.
> unrelated: triple sevens always scare me a bit.
> the second unpacks the file in the current directory (because no path is
> given).  the x = decompress, the v = tell me ALL about it (verbose), the f =
> don't ask me questions, just f do it.
>

>  the x = decompress, the v = tell me ALL about it (verbose), the f = don't
ask me questions, just f do it.

Not quite accurate.  The x means to extract.  A tar file is not compressed
unless you specify some compression (like using the "z" option gives you
gzip compression).  The f means extract from this file.  The f option is
"force" for other commands, but for tar, it specifies the file to
read/write.  If you do "tar -c dest.tar source1 source2 source3", it
actually will try to tar up all FOUR files, and send it to standard output.
If dest.tar doesn't exist, it will give a warning and continue.  So if you
don't want a bunch of binary characters going to your screen, make sure to
specify the "f" option. :)

And FWIW, I agree, 777 is usually overkill, and bad!  If you're used to the
octet method, a much safer route is 755 (read/write/execute for you,
read/execute for everyone else).  Or if you don't want anyone else to do
anything with the file, use 700.


> for non techies.
>
> 1) change the permissions to the file so that you can....
> 2) decompress (or unzip) the file to the directory it resides in.
>
>
> -theron
>
> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Rob Miller <robarooney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Can someone translate this *nix phrase into "instructional English"?  TIA.
>>
>>
>> *In the FooBar2.1 directory:*
>>
>> **
>>
>> 1.  chmod 777 Foobar_42_X26LMAQ.tar
>>
>> 2.  tar –xvf Foobar_42_X26LMAQ.tar
>>
>>
>> Would the translation be something like:
>>
>> 1.  Copy the compressed Foobar file (*.tar) to the FooBar2.1 directory.
>> 2.  Set the file permissions using the chmod 777 command.
>> 3.  Extract the compressed contents of the Foobar file (*.tar) using the
>> tar -xvf command.
>>
>> Again, thanks for the help.
>>
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>>
>>
>
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>


-- 
Tim
Required reading: http://bccplease.com/
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