diff --git a/util/manifests/init.pp b/util/manifests/init.pp
index 84d7995..aaed088 100644
--- a/util/manifests/init.pp
+++ b/util/manifests/init.pp
@@ -14,6 +14,10 @@
 #   $preserve:
 #       Preserve owner and permissions. Defaults to false.
 #
+#   $pattern:
+#       The pathnames or shell-style globbing patterns indicate which
+#       items in the archive should be processed.
+#
 # === Sample usage
 #
 #util::extract::tar { "/usr/local/src/moin-1.8.8":
@@ -21,7 +25,7 @@
 #    source => "/usr/local/src/moin-1.8.8.tar.gz",
 #}
 #
-define util::extract::tar($source, $ensure=present, $strip=0, $preserve=false) {
+define util::extract::tar($source, $ensure=present, $strip=0, $preserve=false, $pattern="") {
 
     include gnu::tar
 
@@ -59,9 +63,9 @@ define util::extract::tar($source, $ensure=present, $strip=0, $preserve=false) {
     }
 
     if $preserve {
-        $command = "/bin/sh -c 'umask 022; ${cat} ${source} | ${tar} xf - --strip-components=${strip} -C ${name}'"
+        $command = "/bin/sh -c 'umask 022; ${cat} ${source} | ${tar} xf - --strip-components=${strip} -C ${name} ${pattern}'"
     } else {
-        $command = "/bin/sh -c 'umask 022; ${cat} ${source} | ${tar} xf - --strip-components=${strip} -C ${name} --no-same-owner --no-same-permissions'"
+        $command = "/bin/sh -c 'umask 022; ${cat} ${source} | ${tar} xf - --strip-components=${strip} -C ${name} ${pattern} --no-same-owner --no-same-permissions'"
     }
 
     exec { "tar-extract-${name}":