Does tar backup hidden files
 

Hello

If I backup my home directory, will my hidden files be included which I want of course or do I need to add an option to tar

Is this OK for a syntax

tar -cvphf /media/disk/myhome.tar /home/roy/

c create file
v verbose
p preserve permissions
h follow symlinks
f archive file

I would use rsync but I gotten error messages about preserving the permissions on the vfat partition via /media/disk

what was the exact error you got? were you backing up to the vfat device or from?

also yes tar should grab your hidden files.

Don't remember the actual messages, this was a few days ago. I was backing it to the vfat external hard drive mounted on /media/disk

questions like these are easy to answer


try it.. what happens?

and ref rsync
it will not preserve the permission, because vfat fs does not support permissions

tar is the correct way to archive such things,, but vfat is not a good choice for backups

Hi lleb

I made a mistake, it wasn't the permissions. It was the symlinks that rsync had issues following to the vfat partition.

Here is a sample error message

rsync: symlink "/media/9C9E-A897/bin/qrencode" -> "../Downloads/build/qrencode-3.2.0/qrencode" failed: Operation not permitted (1)

I have some symlinks in my home directory. If my external drive were a linux filesystem, I wouldn't get those errors

I do need the symlinks to be followed, so I will have to use tar.

Agree.

yes. Any .file (other than . and ..) will be backed up.
It depends on what you want.

Following symlinks can cause all kinds of problems - think about what would happen if you created a symbolic link with "ln -s / testlink". You would then be creating a tar of both the specific sub tree (/home/roy/) but would also include the files in /... which would eventually include the files in "/home/roy/". And you would never finish... Hopefully tar would recognize such an error.

replace the -h with -S, but yes as firerat pointed out the vfat file system does not support proper permissions and can have issues with symlinks as it has no clue what to do with either.

i will typically just use scp vs rsync when moving data to vfat devices that have to be accessed by Linux and other OSs.