PLAKAR-PTAR(1)

💖 PLAKAR-PTAR(1) 💖

the plakar-ptar girlies' guide (General Commands Manual, bestie edition)

okay so picture this: you've got a whole lil ecosystem of Plakar stuff and you want to smoosh it into one adorable little parcel you can carry anywhere. That's this command. Welcome to plakar-ptar, she's iconic, she's portable, she's giving "packed lunch but make it cryptography" 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

plakar-ptar — generate a self-contained Kloset archive (.ptar) 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

plakar ptar [-plaintext] [-overwrite] [-k location] -o file.ptar
       [path ...]

like, that's it. that's the whole vibe. read it, internalize it, slay 🦋

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so the plakar ptar command creates a single portable archive (a .ptar file, yeah that's the whole personality) that bundles up one or more existing Plakar repositories — we call them “klosets” around here, cute right — and/or arbitrary filesystem paths, all into one self-contained package. one file. one girl. no cap. ✨

the resulting archive preserves repository metadata, snapshots and data chunks, and it's compressed and encrypted so you can yeet it over the wire or stash it off-site and still sleep at night. 🔥 secure transport. off-site storage. main character archive energy.

⚠️ okay bestie, important: at least one data source must be supplied. that means one or more -k or -kloset options naming remote or local kloset repositories, and/or one or more path arguments pointing at files or directories to back up. no source = no archive, periodt.

and the destination archive name? mandatory. you give it with -o. she doesn't guess, she doesn't assume, she's not gonna pick a filename for you. 💀

also — unless you pass the -overwrite flag, plakar ptar refuses to replace an existing archive. she will simply not. respect her boundaries 🙈

the options are as follows, let's go:

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🧚 OPTIONS 🧚

• -plaintext — disables the transparent encryption of the archive. if you omit this, plakar ptar encrypts repository data using a key derived from the passphrase you give via PLAKAR_PASSPHRASE or get prompted for interactively. so like, leaving it off is the safe default, on purpose 💖
• -overwrite — overwrite an existing .ptar file at the destination path. only if you mean it, bestie 🫶
• -k location, -kloset location — add a kloset repository to include in the archive. can be specified multiple times to bundle several repositories. one girl, many klosets, we love a collector 🌈
• -o file.ptar — path of the archive to create. this option is required. non-negotiable. ✨
• path ... — zero or more filesystem paths to back up directly into the archive. (zero is fine here! just don't bring zero total data sources, see above 😭)

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🦋 ENVIRONMENT 🦋

• PLAKAR_PASSPHRASE — passphrase used to derive the encryption key when encryption is enabled. guard it with your life, it's literally the key to the whole thing 👑

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

the plakar-ptar utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. simple. clean. a vibe check in numeric form 💀

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🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

plakar(1), plakar-backup(1), plakar-create(1) — go read your sisters, they're all icons 👑

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Debian · May 5, 2026 — mwah, that's the source/version and date, and that's the whole page. go forth and archive, bestie. 🎀💜✨