Extract a file or copy a folder from TFTP to flash

Sometimes you need to copy a bunch of files or a folder or maybe extract an archive file to a Cisco device. For instance, you need to upgrade the IOS of your Cisco Catalyst Switch or Cisco Aironet Access Points. If you need to upgrade to a newer IOS, usually Cisco provides an archived IOS.
For example, a 1200 Aironet IOS image will be available like this in cisco.com: c1200-k9w7-tar.123-8.JA2.tar.
That is a bit different compared to a Cisco Router image that used to be a *.bin file.

If you extract the c1200-k9w7-tar.123-8.JA2.tar file, then you will have the image with a name like this: c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2, with another couple of files.
You will need to copy all these files into your Access Point.

So how to copy the the image to the Access Point?
Do we need to copy it one by one from tftp using "copy tftp flash" command?
The answer is no, that's where the "archive tar" command comes into play.

The example below, I extract a c1200-k9w7-tar.123-8.JA2.tar file from my TFTP server (192.168.3.250) to Cisco Aironet 's flash:

ap#archive tar /xtract tftp://192.168.3.250/c1200-k9w7-tar.123-8.JA2.tar flash:
Loading c1200-k9w7-tar.123-8.JA2.tar from 192.168.3.250 (via BVI1): !
extracting info (274 bytes)
c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/ (directory) 0 (bytes)
c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/html/ (directory) 0 (bytes)
c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/html/level/ (directory) 0 (bytes)
c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/html/level/1/ (directory) 0 (bytes)
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/html/level/1/appsui.js (557 bytes)
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/html/level/1/back.shtml (498 bytes)!
...
...
...
(output truncated)
...
...
...
c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/html/level/15/ap_contextmgr_scm_summary.shtml.gz (5559 bytes)!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2 (3654874 bytes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/5001.img (131328 bytes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/5101.img (131328 bytes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/6301.img (131328 bytes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/6701.img (131328 bytes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/6701_cal.img (131328 bytes)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extracting c1200-k9w7-mx.123-8.JA2/info (274 bytes)
extracting info.ver (274 bytes)!
[OK - 5017600 bytes]

This is just a trick. To upgrade an IOS/image of a Cisco device, you can use the archive download-sw command or use the web GUI (for Cisco Aironet Access Point).