Unpacking compressed files with cPanel's file manager

[redlogic]

Everyone probably knows this one already, but the File Manager inside cPanel has the ability to expand/decompress zip files/tarballs. One of the H9 admins gave me the tip one day when I needed to unpack some files but couldn't access SSH. I was grateful when H9 said they would be glad to help me with the files, but was very grateful when they showed me the process in File Manager.

[kobra]

Probably not everyone - but zip files/tarballs are much smaller for FTP'ing And cPanel uncompressor is extremely fast!!

Aditionally, cPanel file manager has the ability to compress folders/dirs versus the complete home dir via backup

[colt45]

yup, yup, cPanel FM is the way to go. No more FTPing thousands of individual files. Anyone ever tried FTPing all the files for a Gallery2 install (about 10,000 files)?

[level09]

There is One Problem though, you cannot use Extract function to overwrite your existing files (ex. upgrading your files).
it will always fail to overwrite the files.
earlier versions of Cpanel always allowed extracted zip files to replace existing files.

[colt45]

Originally Posted by level09

There is One Problem though, you cannot use Extract function to overwrite your existing files (ex. upgrading your files). it will always fail to overwrite the files. earlier versions of Cpanel always allowed extracted zip files to replace existing files.

Really? Are you sure? Have you tested this recently? Since the upgrade to suExec? Have those files been chowned to the site owner?

I ask because I recently upgraded one of my Joomla sites from 1.0.13 to 1.0.14rc1 by using cPanel's filemanager to unpack the upgrade package on the server and it appears to have worked because the site has all the symptoms of the buggy release and reports that it's v1.0.14rc1

[level09]

Actually I only tried with zip files, joomla upgrade file might be a tar.gz file and looks like file manager handles different file types differently.

[colt45]

Originally Posted by level09

Actually I only tried with zip files, joomla upgrade file might be a tar.gz file and looks like file manager handles different file types differently.

I just tested this.

When extracting a .zip file the overwrite fails.

When extracting a .tar.gz file the overwrite succeeds.

If a tar.gz file is not available or if you can't create on on your local machine
My solution:

1. extract the .zip file to a temp folder on the server
2. use cPanel File Manager to create a new archive selecting GZiped Tar Archive as the archive type
3. move the new .tar.gz file to the location where you want to extract it
4. extract the file

There's probably easier ways to do this like installing a tarball/gzip utility on your local machine but it's not often enough that I need to do this to make it worth the while.

[chinchillables]

Originally Posted by colt45

I just tested this.

When extracting a .zip file the overwrite fails.

When extracting a .tar.gz file the overwrite succeeds.

If a tar.gz file is not available or if you can't create on on your local machine
My solution:

1. extract the .zip file to a temp folder on the server
2. use cPanel File Manager to create a new archive selecting GZiped Tar Archive as the archive type
3. move the new .tar.gz file to the location where you want to extract it
4. extract the file

There's probably easier ways to do this like installing a tarball/gzip utility on your local machine but it's not often enough that I need to do this to make it worth the while.

there is an allow function you need to set, but i forgot where it is.