Create and Compress and Archive
Archive a group of files:
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz file1 file2 file3
Archive an entire directory:
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory/
Extract a Compressed Archive
tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz
List the Contents of a Compressed Archive
tar -tzvf archive.tar.gz
Common tar Switches
-c create a new archive
-x extract files from an archive
-t list the contents of an archive
-z filter the archive through gzip
-v [...]