Hi all,

I have my program files(especially awk) in a particular directory. I keep adding new progs to the same directory. I carry these files to my home pc using the command

tar cvf mybackup.tar *

and untar the same in my pc and vice versa.

My problem is:

1. If I untar in my pc it is writing the the current date and time for all the files.

2. Is there any other command to backup my changed program files and extra added files(is it called incremental backup?). so I can avoid each time creating a new tar file.

Gimmi a better backup solution for my problem. Thanks in advance.

What options are you using to tar? If you are using "tar -xvf/-cvf", as far as I'm aware neither m-time or c-time should be modified. Perhaps adding "--atime-preserve" to your create command string "tar --atime-preserve -cvf"?

As far as a better way to accomplish the task. I would recommend using "rsync -av /source-dir /backup-device/backup-dir" to a usb device, and "rsync -av /backup-device/backup-dir /dest-dir". This will accomplish the same task, while increasing reliability + decreasing the amount of data that needs to be copied (only updates blocks which have changed, i.e., delta of changes). Rsync also uses a rolling md4 checksum algorithm which will give you the ability to verify the integrity of you files.

Hope this helps

Thank you for your suggestion. But at the time of backup only i want to zip the backup file also(to save space). Through rsync it will copy each file into destination. I want all to be written as one file. So it is easy to copy the entire file into my usb or something else.

How about zipping (gzip) the directory, and then rsync'ing the *.zip file (only changed blocks will be transferred so you'll save both space and time).