Archiving with cpio

cpio is another archiving format similar to tar. It is used to store files and directories in a file with attributes such as permissions, ownership, and so on. But, it is not commonly used as much as tar. However, cpio is used in RPM package archives (which are used in distros such as Fedora), initramfs files for the Linux kernel which contain the kernel image, and so on. This recipe will give minimal usage examples of cpio.

How to do it...

cpio takes input filenames through stdin and it writes the archive into stdout. We have to redirect stdout to a file to receive the output cpio file as follows:

1. Create test files:

   $ touch file1 file2 file3
   

2. We can archive the test files as follows:

   $ echo file1 file2 file3 | cpio -ov > archive.cpio
   

3. In order to list files in a cpio archive use the following command:

   $ cpio -it < archive.cpio
   

4. In order to extract files from the cpio archive use:

   $ cpio -id < archive.cpio
   

How it works...

For the archiving command:

• -o specifies the output...