Simple tar command

sachinh · 07-10-2009, 07:58 AM

Hello,

Just a simple question about tar.

We have a filesystem,

/
/boot
/usr/users

In order to take the backup of these filesystems, we connected USB drive and mounted under /usb.

Then to get the root backup , I used

tar -cvf root.tar /

And it showed as after few minutes it was taking the backup of /usb contents as well.

Oooops something not expected. Is it a normal behaviour , or we are missing some option here?
How do we avoid this.
In short how do we take the complete filesystem backup excluding specific filesystems?
Please suggest.

Thanks,

Dudydoo · 07-10-2009, 08:02 AM

From the tar(1) manpage:

Code:

-l, --one-file-system
              stay in local file system when creating an archive

sachinh · 07-10-2009, 08:12 AM

Thanx for reply. Do you mean tar -cvfl root.tar / will only take the backup of / and not any filesystem??
Since /usr /opt also reside under / , will it not backup them?

How do we exclude specific filesystem from tar?

Wim Sturkenboom · 07-10-2009, 08:25 AM

Check the man page for --exclude and --exclude-from.

Dudydoo · 07-10-2009, 08:28 AM

For that you need to use the --exclude option. e.g.:

Code:

tar -cvf root.tar --exclude /usr