fscat - Cat a raw filesystem to an archive or standard output.
fscat [-t fstype] [-v] [-j|-z] [-a archivetype] [-f file] device
fscat is a system to read a filesystem off of a raw device and
archive or copy its files. This allows administrators to recover data
when drivers are not available, and even when the storage is slightly
corrupt.
The fscat program, in its simplest form, dumps the files from a
filesystem to standard output. The format is native to fscat, and
should handle all long path names and large file sizes. This format
is understood for extraction by the fsextract(8) program.
The fscat program has more intelligence than that, though. It can
compress the stream with gzip or bzip2, and it can output other archive
formats if asked. In other words, a tar archive can be created
instead of the native fscat format. See the -a option for more
information on supported archive types.
fscat attempts to determine the type of filesystem on the device. If
it cannot, the user must specify it with the -t option.
- -a archivetype
-
Specifies the type of archive to output. The supported archive types
are:
- fscat
-
The native fscat format. This is the default. It supports arbitrarily
long file names and file sizes.
- tar
-
POSIX-1.2001 format tar (pax) archive. This format, unlike older tar
formats, supports arbitrarily long file names and file sizes. This
format is mostly compatibly with older tar programs.
- cpio
-
The cpio ``newc'' format. This is probably the most flexible of the cpio
formats, but it is still limited. File names are limited to 1024
characters, and file sizes are limited to (2^32 - 1) (
UINT32_MAX)
bytes.
- -f file
-
Archive to the named file instead of standard output. The file name ``-''
is equivalent to standard output. If no archive type or compression
options are given, fscat will attempt to determine the archive type
and compression from the file name (eg, ``foo.tar.gz'' will turn on the
tar archive type and gzip compression). If any archive type or
compression options are given, the file name will not be interpreted at
all.
- -h, --help
-
Print a short usage summary.
- -j
-
Compress using the bzip2 compression program.
- -t fstype
-
Specifies the type of filesystem on the device. fscat will attempt
to determine the filesystem type if this option is not specified. If
specified, fscat will attempt to read the device as this type.
-
If fscat does not have a driver to support the specified or
discovered type, it will be unable to read the device.
- -V, --version
-
Print the fscat program version number.
- -v
-
Increase the verbosity level.
- -z
-
Compress using the gzip compression program.
fscp(8) fsextract(8) fsls(8)
Joel Becker <joel.becker@oracle.com>
Copyright (C) 2005 Oracle. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; see the file COPYING in the source
distribution for the terms under which it can be redistributed and/or
modified.