UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I'm backing up one of my sites, and will be moving to another host. This was an expermintal site, and many of the directories won't be needed.

What tar command is needed to exclude directories from the compressed file? Could you also give an example.

also this might be the same comand, but -
what command is need to only compress FILES in the current directory, but not to include any DIRECTORIES?

I did check the man pages
-exclude
-x

but i'm not sure on how to use.

Thanks in advance,
-Taylor

My advise would be to simply tar and compress some test files and then untar them with your -exclude flag using one or more test files. After a few minutes of experimentation on the test files, you will be a pro with the -exclude switch.

I hope this will help..

1. At your target hosts modify your /.rhosts file and add the source hostname and user.
ex: serverA [tab] root

2. At the source hosts execute this command:
tar cvfp - <directory / file to backup> | rsh <target hosts> " cd <target directory> ; tar xvfp - "

3. That's it, your files / directory will now backed up at other hosts with preserved permission and owner.

Looks like the previous poster's reply got munged because he used angle brackets. That should have read:

Code:

tar cvfp - <directory / file to backup> | rsh <target hosts> " cd <target directory> ; tar xvfp - "

The only modification i would make would be to change it to:

Code:

tar cvfp - <directory / file to backup> | rsh <target hosts> " cd <target directory> && tar xvfp - "

The "&&" after the cd command ensures that the files are not extracted if for some reason the cd command fails. If, for example, you make a typing mistake in the path, the files would be extracted in your home directory instead which is probably not what you wanted.

Thanks,

I knew this was the right place to ask

-Taylor