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 /bin/cat''
       it will create the following two files:
           -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  bin   9644 Feb 11 11:16 /bin/cat
           -r-xr-xr-x  1 bin   bin  24576 Nov 23 13:21 /bin/cat~
       /bin/cat~ is the original file and /bin/cat is  the  self-uncompressing
       executable  file.   You  can  remove  /bin/cat~  once you are sure that
       /bin/cat 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 secu-
       rity holes. In particular, the compressed executable relies on the PATH
       environment variable to find  gzip  and  some  other  utilities  (tail,
       chmod, ln, sleep).

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)