Skip to main content

Use tar command to backup in Linux


tar or tape archive is a basic tool that every Linux user should know.

Its syntax is quite different from the traditional copy or move command.

Since tar works from a 'current working directory' perspective.

Traditional syntax for copy or move is source then the destination.

In tar, the syntax is the filename or the path where the backup will be save and the source or the folder to be backed up or archived.

Typing: man tar (at the terminal shows the following)

tar -cf archive.tar foo bar
# Create archive.tar from files foo and bar.

Basically, it's like the destination where the file will be saved and the source or the files that will be archived.

Here's a simple bash script that will append the time and date the tar file was executed to the filename of the tar file.

If the bash script is automated via cron, the filename of the tar file will include the date and time the cron executes the script.


#script begins

 #!/bin/bash
NOW=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)
echo $NOW
tar -Pczvf   /mnt/offsite/usb/backup_$NOW.tar.gz /usr/b_folder/bkfolder

 #script ends

-P parameter is just to suppress the message "tar: removing leading /' from member names"

To view the contents of the tar file without extracting it type the following:

tar -tf filename.tar.gz to view the contents of the tar file.


To extract the tar file to another directory type:

tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz -C ~/home/xtraction


To use tar to backup to a remote computer see the following link:

http://quickbytesstuff.blogspot.sg/2016/04/linux-copy-or-backup-files-to-remote.html


Cheers! Till next time.


================================
Free Android Apps:

Click on links below to find out more:

Linux Android App cheat sheet:

Catholic Rosary Guide  for Android:


Divine Mercy Chaplet Guide (A Powerful prayer):

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Print error 016-799 - Fuji Film Xerox

016-799 Fuji Xerox or Fuji Film print error code. That shows a description error as “Print instruction Fail detected in decomposer.” The error code and error description are alien languages for users and even system administrators who are not familiar with Fuji Xerox error code. The error code is quite simple and easy to fix, if the job print goes to the printer but print out doesn’t come out. So, basically the print job was received by the printer, but the printer just doesn’t know what type of paper or what size to use or which tray to utilize for the print out. In some instances, this is just a paper mismatch but the error description; if using Windows 10 to print does not exactly points to what is the issue. First thing to check, is the paper size selected by the user to print. Example, if the printer configuration is A3 and A4 sizes only. But then the person printing the file accidentally chooses “A4 Cover” then this error 016-799 will occur. ...
6 comments
Read more

WMIC get computer name

WMIC get computer model, manufacturer, computer name and  username. WMIC is a command-line tool and that can generate information about computer model, its manufacturer, its username and other informations depending on the parameters provided. Why would you need a command line tool if there’s a GUI to check? If you have 20 or 100 computers, or even more. It’s quite a big task just checking the GUI to check the computer model and username. If you have remote computers, you need to delegate someone in the remote office or location to check. Or you can just write a batch file or script to automate the task. Here’s the code below on how get computer model, manufacturer and the username. Open an elevated command prompt and type:     wmic computersystem get "Model","Manufacturer", "Name", "UserName" Just copy and paste the code above, the word “computersystem” does not need to be change to a computer name. A...
Post a Comment
Read more

Delete Directories with Wildcards using rd or rmdir

  Deleting files in command prompt using wildcards is quite straight forward. Command below will delete all text (".txt") files on the specified path.      Del D:\txtlog\*.txt Command above will delete all files with ".txt" extension in d:\txtlog directory. Easy enough to delete all matching files. Using the same method with rmdir or rd command this will not work. For example, if we have a directory on d drive that is auto-generated by an application and the filename is consistent with a pattern plus incrementing number at the end to differentiate the folder from other folders.    D:\baklogs\log1\    D:\baklogs\log2\    D:\baklogs\log3\    Etc..    D:\baklogs\log100\ The folder name has a consistent pattern that is preceded by the word “log” plus incrementing number. If the command below is executed to remove the directories in one go, an error is shown which h...
16 comments
Read more