NAME

borg-import-tar - Create a backup archive from a tarball

SYNOPSIS

borg [common options] import-tar [options] ARCHIVE TARFILE

DESCRIPTION

This command creates a backup archive from a tarball.

When giving '-' as path, Borg will read a tar stream from standard input.

By default (--tar-filter=auto) Borg will detect whether the file is compressed based on its file extension and pipe the file through an appropriate filter:

.tar.gz or .tgz: gzip -d
.tar.bz2 or .tbz: bzip2 -d
.tar.xz or .txz: xz -d
.tar.zstd or .tar.zst: zstd -d
.tar.lz4: lz4 -d

Alternatively, a --tar-filter program may be explicitly specified. It should read compressed data from stdin and output an uncompressed tar stream on stdout.

Most documentation of borg create applies. Note that this command does not support excluding files.

import-tar is a lossy conversion: BSD flags, ACLs, extended attributes (xattrs), atime and ctime are not exported. Timestamp resolution is limited to whole seconds, not the nanosecond resolution otherwise supported by Borg.

A --sparse option (as found in borg create) is not supported.

import-tar reads POSIX.1-1988 (ustar), POSIX.1-2001 (pax), GNU tar, UNIX V7 tar and SunOS tar with extended attributes.

To import multiple tarballs into a single archive, they can be simply concatenated (e.g. using "cat") into a single file, and imported with an --ignore-zeros option to skip through the stop markers between them.

OPTIONS

See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands.

arguments

ARCHIVE: name of archive to create (must be also a valid directory name)
TARFILE: input tar file. "-" to read from stdin instead.

optional arguments

--tar-filter: filter program to pipe data through
-s, --stats: print statistics for the created archive
--list: output verbose list of items (files, dirs, ...)
--filter STATUSCHARS: only display items with the given status characters
--json: output stats as JSON (implies --stats)
--ignore-zeros: ignore zero-filled blocks in the input tarball

Archive options

--comment COMMENT: add a comment text to the archive
--timestamp TIMESTAMP: manually specify the archive creation date/time (UTC, yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss format). alternatively, give a reference file/directory.
-c SECONDS, --checkpoint-interval SECONDS: write checkpoint every SECONDS seconds (Default: 1800)
--chunker-params PARAMS: specify the chunker parameters (ALGO, CHUNK_MIN_EXP, CHUNK_MAX_EXP, HASH_MASK_BITS, HASH_WINDOW_SIZE). default: buzhash,19,23,21,4095
-C COMPRESSION, --compression COMPRESSION: select compression algorithm, see the output of the "borg help compression" command for details.

AUTHOR

The Borg Collective