Install afio with Homebrew, apt, MacPorts, Nix

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• afio

Project history

The official README says afio is one of the oldest open-source projects around, started in 1985, and is now in maintenance-only mode. Its HISTORY file preserves older context, including Mark Brukhartz/Lachman Associates-era README material describing afio as a better way to deal with cpio-format archives, faster than cpio, more diverse for magnetic tape options, and more graceful with input corruption.

The Linux line of afio passed through Dave Gymer's port, Andrew Stevens' cleanup work, and Koen Holtman's maintenance beginning around version 2.3.5 for Linux. The HISTORY file records additions such as gzip-aware compression handling, backup scripts, new options, verification improvements, and many portability and hard-link fixes through the 2.4 series.

The current maintainer's 2018 note in the README explains the modern maintenance policy: bug fixes, portability fixes, and security fixes are welcome, but major new features are unlikely because the maintainer prioritizes avoiding silent backup failures and because cheap hard drives made afio's old floppy/tape-oriented strengths less central for average Linux users.

Adoption history

afio's adoption sits in traditional Unix backup culture: scripts feed pathnames into afio, and afio writes cpio-format archives to files, pipes, tape devices, or multi-volume media. The supplied package-manager facts list Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, MacPorts, and Nix, showing that distributions still carry it for compatibility and existing backup workflows.

The README explicitly warns new users not to start using afio if they have never used it as an archive engine before, but also states that existing users can expect compatibility work for Unix time_t extensions before 2038. That is a rare official statement of legacy maintenance rather than growth.

How it is used

The manpage documents five core modes: -o to create an archive from pathnames on standard input, -i to unpack, -t to list contents, -r to verify an archive against the filesystem, and -p to copy files to directories.

A key usage difference from tar -z style archives is that afio compresses individual files inside the archive rather than the whole archive datastream. The manpage and README both emphasize that this makes compressed afio archives more robust after corruption.

Why package nerds care

afio is package-nerd history in executable form: cpio archives, tape/floppy multi-volume workflows, gzip-per-file compression, remote archive names, and backup-script integration all survived into a maintained GitHub repository.

Its README is unusually honest about maintenance economics and bit-rot risk. That makes the package valuable not only as a tool, but as a case study in how old Unix utilities age: keep compatibility, fix security and portability issues, avoid new backup-destroying surprises.

Timeline

• 1985: Official README says afio started.
• 2.3.5: HISTORY records Koen Holtman's Linux maintenance line beginning around this version.
• 2.4.8beta1: README says support for files greater than 2 GB began.
• 2018: Maintainer note describes maintenance-only mode.
• 2.5.2: Current README version with security, multivolume naming, bug, and portability fixes.

Related projects

• Related projects and concepts include cpio, tar, gzip, magnetic tape backup, floppy backup, rsync, Unix backup scripts, and year-2038 time_t compatibility work.

Sources

• https://github.com/kholtman/afio/blob/master/HISTORY
• https://github.com/kholtman/afio/blob/master/README
• https://github.com/kholtman/afio/blob/master/afio.1
• source_facts.package-manager
• source_facts.repo