cli-tarHow can I achieve the highest compression when using tar and gzip?

The highest compression when using tar and gzip can be achieved by using the -9 flag. This flag will enable maximum compression, which is the slowest but also the most effective.

Example code

tar -cvzf archive.tar.gz --exclude=*.log * -9

This command will create an archive called archive.tar.gz and compress all files except for those with the .log extension using the maximum compression level.

The parts of the command are as follows:

• tar: the command to create the archive
• -cvzf: the flags for the command
  • -c: create an archive
  • -v: verbose output
  • -z: compress the archive with gzip
  • -f: use archive file
• archive.tar.gz: the name of the archive file
• --exclude=*.log: exclude all files with the .log extension
• *: the files and directories to archive
• -9: the maximum compression level

For more information about tar command, please refer to the following link:

GNU tar manual

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