How to split a tar file

Some file systems have the 2GB file size limit, so when we tar something that over 2GB, we need to split it during the archiving. The following is the command:

tar -cvzf – /home | split -b 2000m – /mnt/big.tar

If you want to log the process, use this command:

(tar -cvzf – /home | split -b 2000m – /mnt/big.tar) > log.txt 2> log.txt

So to extract the split archives, use this:

cat big.tar* | tar -tzvf – # to view the archive

cat big.tar* | tar -xzvf – # to extract

cat big.tar* | tar -zx hello.txt -vf – # to extract only one file from the archives

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