GZEXE(1)                    General Commands Manual                   GZEXE(1)



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-uncom-
       pressing  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
       (basename, 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.



                                                                      GZEXE(1)
