A file archiver is computer software which brings together a group of files into a single archive file. An archive file is therefore a collection of files and directories that are stored in one file. There are many advantages of storing multiple files this way. For example, an archive is a great way to store backup data, transfer files to another directory, or to a different computer.

When looking at log files or other files that are compressed and rotated automatically, it's useful to be able to deal with them in a uniform fashion. The following bash function does that...

While KDE users get to boss KIO slaves for easier access to system and network resources, humble GNOME users can perform similar feats with its virtual file system, called GnomeVFS, which is an extension of the physical filesystem on a disk. Using GnomeVFS, users can work with non-local data that can come from unusual places, such as within compressed gzip archives.

If you’ve worked in Windows long enough, you have come across the .chm file format. This format is nothing more than a compressed html directory with an included index for easy viewing. Problem is, you can’t view these files in Linux without the help of another tool. And sometimes you want to be able view these files in another format.

Most often, when someone talks about a filesystem or file system, they're referring to disk filesystems such as NTFS, FAT, ext2, ext3, ext4, ISO 9660 and many others but can also refer to network file systems such as CIFS (Common Internet File System aka Samba) and NFS. A filesystem is a specially-designed database of files, their disk location, definition and attributes.

CentOS 6 now includes eCryptfs which provides the ability to encrypt data and files on a per-file basis instead of the entire disk as in block encryption. The eCryptfs system sits on top of the current file system to provide the encryption layer, that is why it is known as the pseudo-file system.

Have a pesky file sent to you in email or downloaded off the web and can't seem to open the darn thing because someone managed to password protect it and not notify you what that password is? No sweat, here's several ways to unlock password protected compressed files and pdf's.

In keeping with our current theme of cool user-space file systems, this article examines the first user-space file system I ever used: SSHFS. SSHFS has a client that can mount and interact with a remote file system as though the file system were local. It uses sftp so it’s as secure as sftp is (I’m not a security expert so I can’t comment on the security of ssh).

Linux continues to innovate in the area of file systems. It supports the largest variety of file systems of any operating system. It also provides cutting-edge file system technology. Two new file systems that are making their way into Linux include the NiLFS(2) log-structured file system and the exofs object-based storage system.