virt-tar-out - Man Page

​ virt-tar-out -a disk.img /dir files.tar
​
​ virt-tar-out -d domain /dir files.tar
​
​ virt-tar-out -d domain /dir - | gzip --best > files.tar.gz

virt-tar-out packs a virtual machine disk image directory into a tarball.

The first parameter is the absolute path of the virtual machine directory.  The second parameter is the tar file to write.  Use - to write to standard output.

Download the home directories from a guest:

​ virt-tar-out -d MyGuest /home - | gzip --best > homes.tar.gz

This command is just a simple shell script wrapper around the ​guestfish(1) tar-out command.  For anything more complex than a trivial copy, you are probably better off using guestfish directly.

Since the shell script just passes options straight to guestfish, read ​guestfish(1) to see the full list of options.

guestfish(1), ​virt-cat(1), ​virt-copy-in(1), ​virt-copy-out(1), ​virt-edit(1), ​virt-tar-in(1), http://libguestfs.org/.

Richard W.M. Jones (rjones at redhat dot com)

Copyright (C) 2011-2025 Red Hat Inc.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

To get a list of bugs against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

To report a new bug against libguestfs, use this link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/enter_bug.cgi?component=libguestfs&product=Virtualization+Tools

When reporting a bug, please supply:

• The version of libguestfs.
• Where you got libguestfs (eg. which Linux distro, compiled from source, etc)
• Describe the bug accurately and give a way to reproduce it.
• Run libguestfs-test-tool(1) and paste the complete, unedited output into the bug report.

guestfish(1), guestfs(3), guestfs-hacking(1), virt-cat(1), virt-copy-in(1), virt-copy-out(1), virt-diff(1), virt-log(1), virt-ls(1), virt-tail(1), virt-tar-in(1).