Linux backup with tar
How to make a backup of directories with tar? You can find out in this tutorial.
Introduction
Individual directory structures can be easily backed up with “tar”. You simply create an archive:
tar -cpvlf meinArchiv.tar /Pfad/zu/meinen/Originalen
An archive is now created with the following buttons:
- -c : create/create
- -p : permissions/get me the rights and owner
- -v : verbose/show what is archived
- -l : link?/do not follow links to other partitions
- -f : file/it is a file, in this case a file is created
The path to the archive can be absolute (/path/… ) or relative (./path/… or path/… ).
Zipping
You could now compress the archive, e.g. with gzip:
gzip meinArchiv.tar
md5sum
Before you download the file from a web server, for example, you should calculate the md5 sum to check it. “md5sum” generates a unique number that changes if the downloaded file differs from the original.
The md5 sum of a file can be calculated as follows:
md5sum meinArchiv.tar.gz
After downloading “myArchive.tar.gz”, run the programme again on the target computer and you can compare the figures.
The output of md5sum can also be redirected to a file and downloaded at the same time. This way you always have the total with the backup:
md5sum meinArchiv.tar > meinArchiv.md5sum.txt
Unpack
You can unpack the archive again after it has been gzipped with :
tar -xzvf meinArchiv.tar.gz
- -x : extract/unzip
- -z : zip/decompress
- -v : verbose/print on the console what will be unpacked
- -f : it is a file
If the archive has not been compressed, simply omit the z:
tar -xvf meinArchiv.tar
If you only want to restore individual files from the archive, enter them after the archive name:
tar -xvf meinArchiv.tar /Pfad/zu/meinen/Originalen/config.conf
You can use MidnightCommander (mc) to look into an archive and unpack parts or all of it.
Further help is available:
man tar