Nginx HTTP Untar module

This nginx module can serve static file content directly from tar archives. Inspired by nginx-unzip-module.

Features

• Zero-copy: outputs content directly from archive file (no temporary files)
• Caching parsed archive file entries: reduce archive scan-search time
• Supported tar item types: normal file, long file name data

Configuration example

  location ~ ^/(.+?\.tar)/(.*)$ {
      untar_archive "$document_root/$1";
      untar_file "$2";
      untar;
  }

Module directives

---

untar_archive string

context: http, server, location

Specifies tar archive name.

---

untar_file string

context: http, server, location

Specifies file to be extracted from untar_archive.

---

untar

context: location

Invokes untar of untar_file from untar_archive

---

Known limitations

• only GET,HEAD verbs supported
• no archive entries listing
• base tar format support (only normal files: no symlink, sparse e.t.c)

TODO

• Limit cache archive descriptors, free expired archive descriptors
• GNU extension modification time format