sqfscat
Extract files from squashfs to stdout
TLDR
Display contents of files from squashfs
SYNOPSIS
sqfscat [OPTIONS] FILESYSTEM [files...]
DESCRIPTION
sqfscat outputs the contents of files from a squashfs filesystem to stdout, similar to how cat works on regular filesystems. Squashfs is a highly compressed read-only filesystem supporting gzip, xz, lzo, lz4, zstd, and lzma compression.
The tool allows extracting file contents without mounting the filesystem, useful for inspection, scripting, and embedded systems. Multiple files can be specified and their contents will be concatenated.
PARAMETERS
-v, -version
Display version and copyright-p, -processors number
Number of processors to use for decompression-mem size
Cache memory size (K/M/G suffixes; default: 512MB)-mem-percent percent
Set cache as percentage of physical memory-o, -offset bytes
Skip bytes at filesystem start-ig, -ignore-errors
Treat write errors as non-fatal-st, -strict-errors
Treat all errors as fatal-no-exit, -no-exit-code
Don't set non-zero exit code on non-fatal errors-no-wild, -no-wildcards
Disable wildcard matching in filenames-r, -regex
Treat filenames as POSIX regular expressions-h, -help
Display help summary
EXIT STATUS
0: Successful operation
1: Fatal errors (corruption, I/O failures)
2: Non-fatal errors (invalid file types, path resolution issues)
CAVEATS
Only works with squashfs filesystems. File paths within the squashfs are relative to its root. Large files may require significant memory for decompression. Read-only access only.
HISTORY
sqfscat is part of squashfs-tools, created by Phillip Lougher starting in 2002. Squashfs was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in version 2.6.29 (2009). The tools have evolved to support multiple compression algorithms and are widely used in live CDs, container images, and embedded systems.
SEE ALSO
unsquashfs(1), mksquashfs(1), sqfstar(1)