NAME

unsquashfs - tool to uncompress, extract and list squashfs filesystems

SYNOPSIS

unsquashfs [OPTIONS] FILESYSTEM [files to extract or exclude (with -excludes) or cat (with -cat )]

DESCRIPTION

Squashfs is a highly compressed read-only filesystem for Linux. It uses either gzip/xz/lzo/lz4/zstd compression to compress both files, inodes and directories. Inodes in the system are very small and all blocks are packed to minimise data overhead. Block sizes greater than 4K are supported up to a maximum of 1Mbytes (default block size 128K).

Squashfs is intended for general read-only filesystem use, for archival use (i.e. in cases where a .tar.gz file may be used), and in constrained block device/memory systems (e.g. embedded systems) where low overhead is needed.

OPTIONS

-v, -version: print version, licence and copyright information.
-cat: cat the files on the command line to stdout.
-d PATHNAME, -dest PATHNAME: extract to PATHNAME, default "squashfs-root".
-max LEVELS, -max-depth LEVELS: descend at most LEVELS of directories when extracting or listing.
-excludes: treat files on command line as exclude files.
-ex, -exclude-list: list of files to be excluded, terminated with ; e.g. file1 file2 ;.
-follow, -follow-symlinks: follow symlinks in extract files, and add all files/symlinks needed to resolve extract file. Implies -no-wildcards.
-missing, -missing-symlinks: Unsquashfs will abort if any symlink can't be resolved in -follow-symlinks.
-q, -quiet: no verbose output.
-n, -no-progress: don't display the progress bar.
-no, -no-xattrs: don't extract xattrs in file system.
-x, -xattrs: extract xattrs in file system (default).
-u, -user-xattrs: only extract user xattrs in file system. Enables extracting xattrs.
-p NUMBER, -processors NUMBER: use NUMBER processors. By default will use the number of processors available.
-i, -info: print files as they are extracted.
-li, -linfo: print files as they are extracted with file attributes (like ls -l output).
-l, -ls: list filesystem, but don't extract files.
-ll, -lls: list filesystem with file attributes (like ls -l output), but don't extract files.
-lln, -llnumeric: same as -lls but with numeric uids and gids.
-lc: list filesystem concisely, displaying only files and empty directories. Don't extract files.
-llc: list filesystem concisely with file attributes, displaying only files and empty directories. Don't extract files.
-o BYTES, -offset BYTES: skip BYTES at start of FILESYSTEM. Optionally a suffix of K, M or G can be given to specify Kbytes, Mbytes or Gbytes respectively (default 0 bytes).
-f, -force: if file already exists then overwrite.
-ig, -ignore-errors: treat errors writing files to output as non-fatal.
-st, -strict-errors: treat all errors as fatal.
-no-exit, -no-exit-code: don't set exit code (to nonzero) on non-fatal errors.
-s, -stat: display filesystem superblock information.
-UTC: use UTC rather than local time zone when displaying time.
-mkfs-time: display filesystem superblock time, which is an unsigned 32-bit int representing the time in seconds since the epoch (1970-01-01).
-fstime: synonym for -mkfs-time.
-extract-file FILE: list of directories or files to extract. One per line.
-exclude-file FILE: list of directories or files to exclude. One per line.
-pf FILE: output a pseudo file equivalent of the input Squashfs filesystem.
-pseudo-file FILE: alternative name for -pf.
-e, -ef EXTRACT FILE: synonym for -extract-file.
-exc, -excf EXCLUDE FILE: synonym for -exclude-file.
-da SIZE, -data-queue SIZE: set data queue to SIZE Mbytes. Default 256 Mbytes.
-fr SIZE, -frag-queue SIZE: set fragment queue to SIZE Mbytes. Default 256 Mbytes.
-no-wild, -no-wildcards: do not use wildcard matching in extract names.
-r, -regex: treat extract names as POSIX regular expressions rather than use the default shell wildcard expansion (globbing).
-L: synonym for -follow-symlinks.
-h, -help: output this options text to stdout.

DECOMPRESSORS AVAILABLE

gzip, lzo, lz4, xz, zstd

EXIT STATUS

0: The filesystem listed or extracted OK.
1: FATAL errors occurred, e.g. filesystem corruption, I/O errors. Unsquashfs did not continue and aborted.
2: Non-fatal errors occurred, e.g. no support for XATTRs, Symbolic links in output filesystem or couldn't write permissions to output filesystem. Unsquashfs continued and did not abort.

See -ignore-errors, -strict-errors and -no-exit-code options for how they affect the exit status.

EXAMPLES

unsquashfs IMAGE.SQFS: Extract IMAGE.SQFS to "squashfs-root" in the current working directory.
unsquashfs -d output IMAGE.SQFS: Extract IMAGE.SQFS to "output" in the current working directory.
unsquashfs -d . IMAGE.SQFS: Extract IMAGE.SQFS to current working directory.
unsquashfs -linfo IMAGE.SQFS: Output a listing of IMAGE.SQFS with file attributes to stdout, while extracting the filesystem to "squashfs-root".
unsquashfs -lls IMAGE.SQFS: Output a listing of IMAGE.SQFS with file attributes to stdout, but do not extract the filesystem.
unsquashfs IMAGE.SQFS fs/squashfs: Extract only the "fs/squashfs" directory.
unsquashfs IMAGE.SQFS "[Tt]est/example*": Extract all files beginning with "example" inside top level directories called "Test" or "test".
unsquashfs -excludes IMAGE.SQFS "test/*data*.gz": This will extract everything except for files that match *data*.gz in the test directory. The -excludes option tells Unsquashfs to exclude the files on the command line rather than extract them.
unsquashfs -ex "test/*data*.gz" ; IMAGE.SQFS test: This uses both extract and exclude options, to tell Unsquashfs to only extract the "test" directory, and to exclude any files within it that match *data*.gz.
unsquashfs -dest output -max-depth 2 IMAGE.SQFS: Extract only the top two levels of IMAGE.SQFS to "output" directory.
unsquashfs -max-depth 2 IMAGE.SQFS "test/*.gz": Only extract the gzipped files in the test directory.
unsquashfs -llc -max-depth 2 IMAGE.SQFS "test/*.gz": Output a listing of the gzipped files in the test directory to stdout, but do not extract them.

Note: when passing wildcarded names to Unsquashfs, they should be quoted (as in the above examples), to ensure that they are not processed by the shell.

AUTHOR

Written by Phillip Lougher <phillip@squashfs.org.uk>

COPYRIGHT

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, 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.