On Mon, 17 Jun 2002, Abner Gershon wrote: > This is very frustrating. I have 3 Linux books that I have consulted > as well as the man page and I can't figure out how to use tar to back > up my /home directory from where it resides on /dev/hdd to my other > hard drive /dev/hdb7. > > I accidentaly ran fsck today without making the file system read only > which I later read was a no no and I am wondering if this may have > lead to a problem. I never received any message that any of the files > were damaged though.
The past participle of the verb "to lead" is "led", not "lead". Sorry, but that's a peeve of mine. I hope you'll forgive me for being so pedantic, given what comes next :) > Anyway I change to my home directory, "cd /home". Then type "tar -cf > /mnt/abner" (I previously mounted /dev/hdb7 to /mnt) Here's my favorite magic tar command: tar cf - <dir1> | (cd <dir2>; tar xvf - ) It copies <dir1> to <dir2>, preserving everything, including symbolic links. The "-" in the first half sends everything to STDIN; the "-" in the second half accepts input from STDOUT. And, because it uses stdin and stdout, it doesn't require disk space to work. In your case, from the / directory, replace <dir1> with /home, <dir2> with /mnt/abner. You might want to run it with 'tar tvf -' on the right side of the pipe first, just to see what it's going to do. The "v" in the "xvf" on the right side is unnecessary - I just like to see what's going on. This comes, by the way, from _The Underground Guide to Unix_, by John Montgomery (Addison-Wesley 1994). I recommend it. I just checked Amazon, and it's available at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201406535/qid%3D1024368156/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F0%5F1/102-2544833-3769763 Patrick -- Patrick Wiseman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux user #17943 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
