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  * 3/20/2019
  * 2 minutes to read
  * 
      + [scooley] s

In this article

Beginning in Insider Build 17063, we're introducing two command-line
tools to the Windows toolchain: curl and bsdtar. It's been a long
time coming, I know. We'd like to give credit to the folks who've
created and maintain bsdtar and curl--awesome open-source tools used
by millions of humans every day. Let's take a look at two impactful
ways these tools will make developing on Windows an even better
experience.

1. Developers! Developers! Developers!

Tar and curl are staples in a developer's toolbox; beginning today,
you'll find these tools are available from the command-line for all
SKUs of Windows. And yes, they're the same tools you've come to know
and love! If you're unfamiliar with these tools, here's an overview
of what they do:

  * Tar: A command line tool that allows a user to extract files and
    create archives. Outside of PowerShell or the installation of
    third party software, there was no way to extract a file from
    cmd.exe. We're correcting this behavior :) The implementation
    we're shipping in Windows uses libarchive.
  * Curl: Another command line tool that allows for transferring of
    files to and from servers (so you can, say, now download a file
    from the internet).

Now not only will you be able to perform file transfers from the
command line, you'll also be able to extract files in formats in
addition to .zip (like .tar.gz, for example). PowerShell does already
offer similar functionality (it has curl and it's own file extraction
utilities), but we recognize that there might be instances where
PowerShell is not readily available or the user wants to stay in cmd.
[tar]

2. The Containers Experience

Now that we're shipping these tools inbox, you no longer need to
worry about using a separate container image as the builder when
targeting nanoserver-based containers. Instead, we can invoke the
tools like so:

Background

We offer two base images for our containers: windowsservercore and
nanoserver. The servercore image is the larger of the two and has
support for such things as the full .NET framework. On the opposite
end of the spectrum is nanoserver, which is built to be lightweight
with as minimal a memory footprint as possible. It's capable of
running .NET core but, in keeping with the minimalism, we've tried to
slim down the image size as much as possible. We threw out all
components we felt were not mission-critical for the container image.
PowerShell was one of the components that was put on the chopping
block for our nanoserver image. PowerShell is a whopping 56 Mb (given
that the total size of the nanoserver image is 200 Mb...that's quite
the savings!) But the consequence of removing PowerShell meant there
was no way to pull down a package and unzip it from within the
container. If you're familiar with writing dockerfiles, you'll know
that it's common practice to pull in all the packages (node, mongo,
etc.) you need and install them. Instead, users would have to rely on
using a separate image with PowerShell as the "builder" image to
accomplish constructing an image. This is clearly not the experience
we want our users to have when targeting nanoserver--they'd end up
having to download the much larger servercore image. This is all
resolved with the addition of curl and tar. You can call these tools
from servercore images as well. [curl]  

We want your Feedback!

Are there other developer tools you would like to see added to the
command-line? Drop a comment below with your thoughts! In the mean
time, go grab Insider Build 17063 and get busy curl'ing an tar'ing to
your heart's desire.

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In this article

 
Theme

  * Light
  * Dark
  * High contrast

  * 
  * Previous Version Docs
  * Blog
  * Contribute
  * Privacy & Cookies
  * Terms of Use
  * Trademarks
  * (c) Microsoft 2021