Linux command: tar

#compress .tar.gz
tar -zcvf /var/my-backup.tar.gz /home/rafa/
#view file contents 
tar -ztvf file.tar.gz


#uncompress .tar.gz
tar -zxvf archive.tar.gz

#uncompress .txz
tar Jxvf file.txz

# uncompress .tar.xz
tar -xvf file.tar.xz

# view tar.bz2 contents
tar -jtvf file.tar.bz2