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Linux backup with tar
How to make a backup of directories with tar? You can read about it in this tutorial.
Introduction
Single directory structures can be backed up well 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 owners
- -v : verbose/show what is archived
- -l : link?/do not follow links to other partitions
- -f : file/it is a file, so in this case a file is created
The path to the archive can be absolute (/path/… ) or relative (./path/… or path/… ).
Zipping
You can now compress the archive, e.g. with gzip:
gzip meinArchiv.tar
md5sum
Before downloading the file, e.g. from a web server, you should calculate the md5 sum for verification. “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 numbers.
You can also redirect the output of md5sum to a file and download it at the same time. This way you always have the total with the backup:
md5sum meinArchiv.tar > meinArchiv.md5sum.txt
Unpack
Once the archive has been gzipped, it can be unpacked with:
tar -xzvf meinArchiv.tar.gz
- -x : extract/extract
- -z : zip/decompress
- -v : verbose/display on the console what is being 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 look into an archive and unpack parts or all of it with MidnightCommander (mc).
Further help is available:
man tar