You can install busybox
pretty easily on an unrooted Android phone. Steps:
- Grab the file
busybox-android
from the eponymous github project.
- Get it onto your device via
scp
, adb push
, Android File Transfer, etc. Put it somewhere public that you'll have access to from a Terminal Emulator session. Just call it busybox
.
- Start a Terminal Emulator session. Make a directory
~/bin
and copy the busybox
file from the public place you put it to that new directory.
- Since the
cp
command is not available in a Terminal Emulator session (!) do it this way: cat $PATH_TO_BUSYBOX/busybox > ~/bin/busybox
- Now
cd ~/bin
and create a symbolic link: ln -s busybox tar
.
So now create a tarball using tar czv $FILENAME $ROOT_OF_FILES_TO_ARCHIVE
, kick it over to your device, and extract using tar xzv $FILENAME
.
tar
is also available by default to ssh
sessions served by SSHDroid (because SSHDroid provides busybox
). You might need to register it? Don't remember if that stuff works on the free version.