cpio —
copy files to and from archives
  
    | cpio | -i[options]
      [pattern ...] [<
      archive] | 
  
    | cpio | -o[options]
      < name-list [>
      archive] | 
  
    | cpio | -p[options]
      dest-dir < name-list | 
cpio copies files between archives and directories. This
  implementation can extract from tar, pax, cpio, zip, jar, ar, and ISO 9660
  cdrom images and can create tar, pax, cpio, ar, and shar archives.
The first option to cpio is a mode
    indicator from the following list:
  - -i
- Input. Read an archive from standard input (unless overridden) and extract
      the contents to disk or (if the -toption is
      specified) list the contents to standard output. If one or more file
      patterns are specified, only files matching one of the patterns will be
      extracted.
- -o
- Output. Read a list of filenames from standard input and produce a new
      archive on standard output (unless overridden) containing the specified
      items.
- -p
- Pass-through. Read a list of filenames from standard input and copy the
      files to the specified directory.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, options are applicable in all operating
  modes.
  - -0,- -- -null
- Read filenames separated by NUL characters instead of newlines. This is
      necessary if any of the filenames being read might contain newlines.
- -A
- (o mode only) Append to the specified archive. (Not yet implemented.)
- -a
- (o and p modes) Reset access times on files after they are read.
- -B
- (o mode only) Block output to records of 5120 bytes.
- -Csize
- (o mode only) Block output to records of size
    bytes.
- -c
- (o mode only) Use the old POSIX portable character format. Equivalent to
      --formatodc.
- -d,- -- -make-directories
- (i and p modes) Create directories as necessary.
- -Efile
- (i mode only) Read list of file name patterns from
      file to list and extract.
- -Ffile,- -- -filefile
- Read archive from or write archive to file.
- -fpattern
- (i mode only) Ignore files that match pattern.
- -Hformat,- -- -formatformat
- (o mode only) Produce the output archive in the specified format.
      Supported formats include:
    
    
      - cpio
- Synonym for odc.
- newc
- The SVR4 portable cpio format.
- odc
- The old POSIX.1 portable octet-oriented cpio format.
- pax
- The POSIX.1 pax format, an extension of the ustar format.
- ustar
- The POSIX.1 tar format.
 The default format is odc. See
        libarchive-formats(5)
        for more complete information about the formats currently supported by
        the underlying
        libarchive(3)
      library. 
- -h,- -- -help
- Print usage information.
- -Ifile
- Read archive from file.
- -i,- -- -extract
- Input mode. See above for description.
- -- -insecure
- (i and p mode only) Disable security checks during extraction or copying.
      This allows extraction via symbolic links, absolute paths, and path names
      containing ‘..’ in the name.
- -J,- -- -xz
- (o mode only) Compress the file with xz-compatible compression before
      writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; xz compression is
      recognized automatically on input.
- -j
- Synonym for -y.
- -L
- (o and p modes) All symbolic links will be followed. Normally, symbolic
      links are archived and copied as symbolic links. With this option, the
      target of the link will be archived or copied instead.
- -l,- -- -link
- (p mode only) Create links from the target directory to the original
      files, instead of copying.
- -- -lrzip
- (o mode only) Compress the resulting archive with
      lrzip(1). In input mode, this
      option is ignored.
- -- -lz4
- (o mode only) Compress the archive with lz4-compatible compression before
      writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; lz4 compression is
      recognized automatically on input.
- -- -zstd
- (o mode only) Compress the archive with zstd-compatible compression before
      writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; zstd compression is
      recognized automatically on input.
- -- -lzma
- (o mode only) Compress the file with lzma-compatible compression before
      writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; lzma compression is
      recognized automatically on input.
- -- -lzop
- (o mode only) Compress the resulting archive with
      lzop(1). In input mode, this
      option is ignored.
- -- -passphrasepassphrase
- The passphrase is used to extract or create an
      encrypted archive. Currently, zip is only a format that
      cpiocan handle encrypted archives. You shouldn't
      use this option unless you realize how insecure use of this option
    is.
- -m,- -- -preserve-modification-time
- (i and p modes) Set file modification time on created files to match those
      in the source.
- -n,- -- -numeric-uid-gid
- (i mode, only with -t) Display numeric uid and
      gid. By default,cpiodisplays the user and group
      names when they are provided in the archive, or looks up the user and
      group names in the system password database.
- -- -no-preserve-owner
- (i mode only) Do not attempt to restore file ownership. This is the
      default when run by non-root users.
- -Ofile
- Write archive to file.
- -o,- -- -create
- Output mode. See above for description.
- -p,- -- -pass-through
- Pass-through mode. See above for description.
- -- -preserve-owner
- (i mode only) Restore file ownership. This is the default when run by the
      root user.
- -- -quiet
- Suppress unnecessary messages.
- -R[user][:][group],- -- -owner[user][:][group]
- Set the owner and/or group on files in the output. If group is specified
      with no user (for example, -R:wheel) then the group will be set but not the user.
      If the user is specified with a trailing colon and no group (for example,-Rroot:) then the group
      will be set to the user's default group. If the user is specified with no
      trailing colon, then the user will be set but not the group. In-iand-pmodes, this
      option can only be used by the super-user. (For compatibility, a period
      can be used in place of the colon.)
- -r
- (All modes.) Rename files interactively. For each file, a prompt is
      written to /dev/tty containing the name of the
      file and a line is read from /dev/tty. If the line
      read is blank, the file is skipped. If the line contains a single period,
      the file is processed normally. Otherwise, the line is taken to be the new
      name of the file.
- -t,- -- -list
- (i mode only) List the contents of the archive to stdout; do not restore
      the contents to disk.
- -u,- -- -unconditional
- (i and p modes) Unconditionally overwrite existing files. Ordinarily, an
      older file will not overwrite a newer file on disk.
- -V,- -- -dot
- Print a dot to stderr for each file as it is processed. Superseded by
      -v.
- -v,- -- -verbose
- Print the name of each file to stderr as it is processed. With
      -t, provide a detailed listing of each file.
- -- -version
- Print the program version information and exit.
- -y
- (o mode only) Compress the archive with bzip2-compatible compression
      before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; bzip2
      compression is recognized automatically on input.
- -Z
- (o mode only) Compress the archive with compress-compatible compression
      before writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; compression is
      recognized automatically on input.
- -z
- (o mode only) Compress the archive with gzip-compatible compression before
      writing it. In input mode, this option is ignored; gzip compression is
      recognized automatically on input.
Thecpio utility exits 0 on success,
  and >0 if an error occurs.
The following environment variables affect the execution of
  cpio:
  - LANG
- The locale to use. See
      environ(7) for more
      information.
- TZ
- The timezone to use when displaying dates. See
      environ(7) for more
      information.
Thecpio command is traditionally used to copy file
  hierarchies in conjunction with the
  find(1) command. The first example
  here simply copies all files from src to
  dest:
find
  src | cpio
  -pmud dest
By carefully selecting options to the
    find(1) command and combining it
    with other standard utilities, it is possible to exercise very fine control
    over which files are copied. This next example copies files from
    src to dest that are more
    than 2 days old and whose names match a particular pattern:
find
  src -mtime
  +2 | grep foo[bar] |
  cpio -pdmu
  dest
This example copies files from src to
    dest that are more than 2 days old and which contain
    the word “foobar”:
find
  src -mtime
  +2 | xargs grep
  -l foobar | cpio -pdmu
  dest
The mode options i, o, and p and the options a, B, c, d, f, l, m, r, t, u, and v
  comply with SUSv2.
The old POSIX.1 standard specified that only
    -i, -o, and
    -p were interpreted as command-line options. Each
    took a single argument of a list of modifier characters. For example, the
    standard syntax allows -imu but does not support
    -miu or -i
    -m -u, since
    m and u are only modifiers to
    -i, they are not command-line options in their own
    right. The syntax supported by this implementation is backwards-compatible
    with the standard. For best compatibility, scripts should limit themselves
    to the standard syntax.
There is no current POSIX standard for the cpio command; it appeared in
  ISO/IEC 9945-1:1996 (“POSIX.1”) but was
  dropped from IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
  (“POSIX.1”).
The cpio, ustar, and pax interchange file formats are defined by
    IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) for
    the pax command.
The original cpio and find
  utilities were written by Dick Haight while working in AT&T's Unix Support
  Group. They first appeared in 1977 in PWB/UNIX 1.0, the “Programmer's
  Work Bench” system developed for use within AT&T. They were first
  released outside of AT&T as part of System III Unix in 1981. As a result,
  cpio actually predates tar,
  even though it was not well-known outside of AT&T until some time later.
This is a complete re-implementation based on the
    libarchive(3) library.
The cpio archive format has several basic limitations: It does not store user
  and group names, only numbers. As a result, it cannot be reliably used to
  transfer files between systems with dissimilar user and group numbering. Older
  cpio formats limit the user and group numbers to 16 or 18 bits, which is
  insufficient for modern systems. The cpio archive formats cannot support files
  over 4 gigabytes, except for the “odc” variant, which can
  support files up to 8 gigabytes.