lziprecover - Man Page

lziprecover [options] [files]

Lziprecover is a data recovery tool and decompressor for files in the lzip compressed data format (.lz). Lziprecover also provides Forward Error Correction (FEC) able to repair any kind of file.

With the help of lziprecover, losing an entire archive just because of a corrupt byte near the beginning is a thing of the past.

Lziprecover can remove the damaged members from multimember files, for example multimember tar.lz archives.

Lziprecover provides random access to the data in multimember files; it only decompresses the members containing the desired data.

Lziprecover is not a replacement for regular backups, but a last line of defense for the case where the backups are also damaged.

-h,  --help

display this help and exit

-V,  --version

output version information and exit

-a,  --trailing-error

exit with error status if trailing data

-A,  --alone-to-lz

convert lzma-alone files to lzip format

-b,  --block-size=<bytes>

make FEC block size a multiple of <bytes>

-B,  --byte-repair

try to repair a corrupt byte in file

-c,  --stdout

write to standard output, keep input files

-d,  --decompress

decompress, test compressed file integrity

-D,  --range-decompress=<n-m>

decompress a range of bytes to stdout

-e,  --reproduce

try to reproduce a zeroed sector in file

--lzip-level=N|a|m[N]

reproduce one level, all, or match length

--lzip-name=<name>

name of lzip executable for --reproduce

--reference-file=<file>

reference file for --reproduce

-f,  --force

overwrite existing output files

-F,  --fec=c[N]|r|t|l

create, repair, test, list (using) fec file

-0 .. -9

set FEC fragmentation level [default 9]

--fec-file=<file>[/]

read fec file from <file> or directory

-i,  --ignore-errors

ignore non-fatal errors

-k,  --keep

keep (don't delete) input files

-l,  --list

print (un)compressed file sizes

-m,  --merge

repair errors in file using several copies

-n,  --threads=<n>

set number of threads for fec create [2]

-o,  --output=<file>[/]

place the output into <file> or directory

-q,  --quiet

suppress all messages

-r,  --recursive

(fec) operate recursively on directories

-R,  --dereference-recursive

(fec) recursively follow symbolic links

-s,  --split

split multimember file in single-member files

-t,  --test

test compressed file integrity

-v,  --verbose

be verbose (a 2nd -v gives more)

--dump=<list>:d:e:t

dump members, damaged/empty, tdata to stdout

--remove=<list>:d:e:t

remove members, tdata from files in place

--strip=<list>:d:e:t

copy files to stdout stripping members given

--loose-trailing

allow trailing data seeming corrupt header

--nonzero-repair

repair in place a nonzero first LZMA byte

If no file names are given, or if a file is '-', lziprecover decompresses from standard input to standard output. Numbers may be followed by a multiplier: k = kB = 10^3 = 1000, Ki = KiB = 2^10 = 1024, M = 10^6, Mi = 2^20, G = 10^9, Gi = 2^30, etc... The argument to --fec=create may be a number of blocks (-Fc20), a percentage (-Fc5%), or a size in bytes (-Fc10KiB).

To extract all the files from archive 'foo.tar.lz', use the commands 'tar -xf foo.tar.lz' or 'lziprecover -cd foo.tar.lz | tar -xf -'.

Exit status: 0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not found, invalid command-line options, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt or invalid input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused lziprecover to panic.

Report bugs to lzip-bug@nongnu.org
Lziprecover home page: http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lziprecover.html

Copyright © 2025 Antonio Diaz Diaz. License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

The full documentation for lziprecover is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and lziprecover programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info lziprecover

should give you access to the complete manual.