how to compress and extract files using the tar command on linux

Compress

tar -czvf name-of-archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory-or-file

Here’s what those switches actually mean:

-c: Create an archive.

-z: Compress the archive with gzip.

-v: Display progress in the terminal while creating the archive, also known as “verbose” mode. The v is always optional in these commands, but it’s helpful.

-f: Allows you to specify the filename of the archive.

Extract

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz

use -C to extract to a specific directory,

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz -C /etc