How to create a self-extracting archive or installer in Linux

Last updated on July 30, 2013 Authored by Dan Nanni 7 Comments

While a typical archive file relies on a separate program (e.g., tar, gunzip) to extract content from the archive file, a self-extracting (SFX) archive is an executable itself, and can self-extract its content simply upon running. A self-extracting installer does the same thing, but it also copies the extracted content to appropriate directories.