Extract a compressed directory using tar/bzip2 over SSH to local computer

Question

I'd like to extract and uncompress (tar/bzip2) a compressed directory on a remote machine and save the directory and all its contents to my local computer without having to connect back into my local machine from the remote one. How can I do this over SSH? The tar file doesn't need to be stored on the remote machine, only on the local machine. I have tried:

ssh remotehost.somewhere.com "tar xf mydirectory.tar.bz2 | bzip2 -c " > mylocaldirectory

Jokester · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-18 06:31:11Z

3

What flows through pipe is but a stream of bytes, so you don't "pipe" a directory.

I suppose the archive exists on remote machine. This command extract a remote archive to local directory:

ssh HOST "cat mydirectory.tar.bz2" | tar xj -C mylocaldirectory

answered Nov 18, 2013 at 6:31

Jokester

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6 Comments

Ayesha Over a year ago

Good point, but I need the bzip2 to run on the remote machine, and then save the resulting files to my local machine

Jokester Over a year ago

ssh HOST "bzcat mydirectory.tar.bz2" | tar x -C mylocaldirectory then.

Ayesha Over a year ago

Many thanks for your quick responses! I'm afraid I haven't been clear enough in my problem, allow me to clarify: I need to perform the extraction and decompression remotely, so both tar and bzip2 must run on remote machine. I only want to save the resulting directory (with all its contained files and subdirectories) to my local machine.

Jokester Over a year ago

I'm afraid pipe itself can't handle directories. We archive files into binary streams, often with tar. Can I ask the reason of this full-remote limitation or decision?

Ayesha Over a year ago

After studying your suggestion again, I was able to solve the problem by piping the stream of bytes to bzip2, the solution that worked: ssh HOST "cat mydirectory.tar.bz2 | bzip2 -cd" | tar xj -C mylocaldirectory

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