makeself.sh is a small shell script that generates a self-extractable
compressed tar archive from a directory.
The resulting file appears as a shell script (many of those have a
.run suffix), and can be launched as is.
The archive will then uncompress itself to a temporary directory and
an optional arbitrary command will be executed (for example an
installation script). This is pretty similar to archives generated
with WinZip Self-Extractor in the Windows world.
Makeself archives also include checksums for integrity self-validation
(CRC and/or MD5/SHA256 checksums). |