## NAME

gzexe - compress executable files in place

## SYNOPSIS

gzexe name .\|.\|.

## DESCRIPTION

The gzexe utility allows you to compress executables in place and have them automatically uncompress and execute when you run them (at a penalty in performance). For example if you execute ``gzexe /usr/bin/gdb'' it will create the following two files:

        -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1026675 Jun  7 13:53 /usr/bin/gdb
        -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 2304524 May 30 13:02 /usr/bin/gdb~

/usr/bin/gdb~ is the original file and /usr/bin/gdb is the self-uncompressing executable file. You can remove /usr/bin/gdb~ once you are sure that /usr/bin/gdb works properly.

This utility is most useful on systems with very small disks.

## OPTIONS

-d Decompress the given executables instead of compressing them.

## SEE ALSO

gzip(1), znew(1), zmore(1), zcmp(1), zforce(1)

## CAVEATS

The compressed executable is a shell script. This may create some security holes. In particular, the compressed executable relies on the PATH environment variable to find gzip and some standard utilities

chmod , ln , mkdir , mktemp , rm , sleep , and tail ).

## BUGS

gzexe attempts to retain the original file attributes on the compressed executable, but you may have to fix them manually in some cases, using chmod or chown .