gzexe(1) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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GZEXE(1)                                                 GZEXE(1)



NAME

       gzexe - compress executable files in place


SYNOPSIS

       gzexe [ name ...  ]


DESCRIPTION

       The  gzexe  utility  allows you to compress executables in
       place and have them automatically uncompress  and  execute
       when  you  run  them  (at  a penalty in performance).  For
       example if you execute ``gzexe /bin/cat'' it  will  create
       the following two files:
           -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  bin   9644 Feb 11 11:16 /bin/cat
           -r-xr-xr-x  1 bin   bin  24576 Nov 23 13:21 /bin/cat~
       /bin/cat~  is  the original file and /bin/cat is the self-
       uncompressing executable file.  You can  remove  /bin/cat~
       once you are sure that /bin/cat works properly.

       This  utility  is  most  useful on systems with very small
       disks.


OPTIONS

       -d     Decompress the given executables  instead  of  com-
              pressing them.


SEE ALSO

       gzip(1), znew(1), zmore(1), zcmp(1), zforce(1)


CAVEATS

       The compressed executable is a shell script. This may cre-
       ate some security holes.  In  particular,  the  compressed
       executable relies on the PATH environment variable to find
       gzip and some other utilities (tail, chmod, ln, sleep).


BUGS

       gzexe attempts to retain the original file  attributes  on
       the  compressed  executable,  but you may have to fix them
       manually in some cases, using chmod or chown.



















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