GZEXE(1) | General Commands Manual | GZEXE(1)

# NAME

`gzexe` — create auto-decompressing executables

# SYNOPSIS

`gzexe` | [`-d`] file ...

# DESCRIPTION

The `gzexe` utility uses gzip(1) to compress executables, producing executables that decompress on-the-fly when executed. This saves disk space, at the cost of slower execution times. The original executables are saved by copying each of them to a file with the same name with a ‘~’ suffix appended. After verifying that the compressed executables work as expected, the backup files can be removed.

The options are as follows:

`-d`
  Decompress executables previously compressed by `gzexe`.

The `gzexe` program refuses to compress non-regular or non-executable files, files with a setuid or setgid bit set, files that are already compressed using `gzexe`, files in /bin or /sbin, or programs it needs to perform on-the-fly decompression: sh(1), basename(1), mktemp(1), rm(1), echo(1), tail(1), gzip(1), and chmod(1).

# SEE ALSO

compress(1), gzip(1)

# CAVEATS

The `gzexe` utility replaces files by overwriting them with the generated compressed executable. To be able to do this, it is required that the original files are writable.

August 12, 2013 | Debian