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@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@ +Description + +Tarlz is a massively parallel (multi-threaded) combined implementation of +the tar archiver and the lzip compressor. Tarlz uses the compression library +lzlib. + +Tarlz creates tar archives using a simplified and safer variant of the POSIX +pax format compressed in lzip format, keeping the alignment between tar +members and lzip members. The resulting multimember tar.lz archive is +backward compatible with standard tar tools like GNU tar, which treat it +like any other tar.lz archive. Tarlz can append files to the end of such +compressed archives. + +Keeping the alignment between tar members and lzip members has two +advantages. It adds an indexed lzip layer on top of the tar archive, making +it possible to decode the archive safely in parallel. It also minimizes the +amount of data lost in case of corruption. Compressing a tar archive with +plzip may even double the amount of files lost for each lzip member damaged +because it does not keep the members aligned. + +Tarlz can create tar archives with five levels of compression granularity: +per file (--no-solid), per block (--bsolid, default), per directory +(--dsolid), appendable solid (--asolid), and solid (--solid). It can also +create uncompressed tar archives. + +Of course, compressing each file (or each directory) individually can't +achieve a compression ratio as high as compressing solidly the whole tar +archive, but it has the following advantages: + + * The resulting multimember tar.lz archive can be decompressed in + parallel, multiplying the decompression speed. + + * New members can be appended to the archive (by removing the + end-of-archive member), and unwanted members can be deleted from the + archive. Just like an uncompressed tar archive. + + * It is a safe POSIX-style backup format. In case of corruption, tarlz + can extract all the undamaged members from the tar.lz archive, + skipping over the damaged members, just like the standard + (uncompressed) tar. Moreover, the option '--keep-damaged' can be used + to recover as much data as possible from each damaged member, and + lziprecover can be used to recover some of the damaged members. + + * A multimember tar.lz archive is usually smaller than the corresponding + solidly compressed tar.gz archive, except when individually + compressing files smaller than about 32 KiB. + +Note that the POSIX pax format has a serious flaw. The metadata stored in +pax extended records are not protected by any kind of check sequence. +Corruption in a long file name may cause the extraction of the file in the +wrong place without warning. Corruption in a large file size may cause the +truncation of the file or the appending of garbage to the file, both +followed by a spurious warning about a corrupt header far from the place of +the undetected corruption. + +Metadata like file name and file size must be always protected in an archive +format because of the adverse effects of undetected corruption in them, +potentially much worse that undetected corruption in the data. Even more so +in the case of pax because the amount of metadata it stores is potentially +large, making undetected corruption and archiver misbehavior more probable. + +Headers and metadata must be protected separately from data because the +integrity checking of lzip may not be able to detect the corruption before +the metadata have been used, for example, to create a new file in the wrong +place. + +Because of the above, tarlz protects the extended records with a Cyclic +Redundancy Check (CRC) in a way compatible with standard tar tools. + +Tarlz does not understand other tar formats like gnu, oldgnu, star, or v7. +The command 'tarlz -t -f archive.tar.lz > /dev/null' can be used to check +that the format of the archive is compatible with tarlz. + +The diagram below shows the correspondence between each tar member (formed +by one or two headers plus optional data) in the tar archive and each lzip +member in the resulting multimember tar.lz archive, when per file +compression is used: + +tar ++========+======+=================+===============+========+======+========+ +| header | data | extended header | extended data | header | data | EOA | ++========+======+=================+===============+========+======+========+ + +tar.lz ++===============+=================================================+========+ +| member | member | member | ++===============+=================================================+========+ + + +Copyright (C) 2013-2024 Antonio Diaz Diaz. + +This file is free documentation: you have unlimited permission to copy, +distribute, and modify it. + +The file Makefile.in is a data file used by configure to produce the Makefile. +It has the same copyright owner and permissions that configure itself. |