GZEXE(1)                   OpenBSD Reference Manual                   GZEXE(1)

NAME
     gzexe - create auto-decompressing executables

SYNOPSIS
     gzexe [-d] file ...

DESCRIPTION
     The gzexe utility uses gzip(1) to compress executables, producing exe-
     cutables 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 com-
     pressed using gzexe, files in /bin or /sbin, or programs it needs to per-
     form 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.

OpenBSD 4.7                      May 31, 2007                                1
