March 2007
Intermediate to advanced
304 pages
11h 12m
English
Content preview from Linux System Administration
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Chapter 11: Backing Up Data
tar Archives
The tar command creates an archive file from one or more specified files or directo-
ries. It can also list the contents of an archive, or extract files and directories from an
archive. A tar archive file is also known as a tarfile or a tarball.
A tar archive file offers several advantages over a directory of separate files. For
example, it makes sending a whole directory by email a lot easier. Directories con-
taining lots of similar files can be compressed more efficiently when the compression
operates on all the data in a single file.
A common use for a tar archive is to aid in the distribution of the source program
files for free or open source software. In most cases, the tar archives are compressed
with the gzip or bzip2 programs. However, if all the files being archived are already
compressed (which is usually true of audio, video, and OpenOffice.org files), com-
pressing the archive itself will not have much benefit.
You can name a tarred file anything you want, but certain file extensions are conven-
tionally used to tell recipients how to unpack the file. The most common extensions
are:
.tar
For uncompressed tar archives
.tar.gz or .tgz
For tar archives that have been compressed with the gzip compression program
.tar.bz2 or .tbz
For tar archives that have been compressed with the bzip2 compression program
The syntax of a tar command is:
tar options ...
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I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.