cpio basic extract command, 'tar xzvf' equivalent?

gzip -cd foo.cpio.gz | cpio -idmv

• i : extract (input)
• d : create directories
• m : preserve mtime
• v : verbose

mkdir archive
cd archive
zcat ../archive.cpio.gz | cpio -idmv --no-absolute-filenames

While this is an old question, it shows up high on Google, so I thought I might update it. I agree with the accepted answer in general, but you should add "--no-absolute-filenames" unless you are intending to overwrite important system files on your machine. Also, personally, I prefer "zcat" over "gzip -cd" or "gunzip -c".

Finally, note that you need to run cpio as root (e.g. sudo) if you are extracting a root filesystem that contains device nodes.