10.3.1 tar
Because tar is used so much, and for quite a bit in addition to backups, it is being described here. For more details, see the tar manual page; instructions for viewing manual pages can be found in section 5.1 on page [*].
tar is an archiver. This means that tar can take many files and combine them all into one large file or write them out to a backup device such as a tape drive. Once you have this one large file, you will often want to compress it; the -z option is great for this. Hence, tar offers a great way to distribute programs and data on the Internet, and you’ll find that it is used extensively for this purpose.
Here’s a sample tar command line:
tar -zcvf myfiles.tar.gz /usr/local/bin
Let’s take a look at how this command can be broken down:
tar
Name of the command.—Tells tar that options will follow.
z
Tells tar to use gzip compression automatically; if you use this, it’s good to add a .gz extension as well.