I would like to backup my entire home directory on Linux. Suppose this directory is the only one I have write permissions to.
How would I tar-gzip this directory and put result inside itself?
3 Answers
tar zcf home-backup.tar.gz --exclude ./home-backup.tar.gz .
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1That would exclude any file called
home-backup.tar.gznot only the one you're creating here. With GNUtar(not withbsdtar), you can use--exclude ./home-backup.tar.gzto avoid it.Stéphane Chazelas– Stéphane Chazelas2018-07-30 15:00:12 +00:00Commented Jul 30, 2018 at 15:00 -
good idea (edit: added
./to exlcude just the one file)Jasen– Jasen2018-07-31 08:26:40 +00:00Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 8:26
The already suggested
tar zcf home-backup.tar.gz --exclude home-backup.tar.gz .
would work, but I don't really like that kind of tars which contain lots of files instead of only one directory. If you want to do the same but as one directory:
cd /home
tar -czf yourhome/yourhome.tgz --exclude yourhome.tgz yourhome/
In both case you will get an error message:
tar: yourhome: file changed as we read it
which can be a problem if you want to backup from a script and checking the exit code, and anyway if you ignore this it could hide another problem. You can eliminate this creating an empty tgz before you start the backup:
touch yourhome.tgz
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You mention another reason for avoiding GNU tar.schily– schily2018-07-30 14:43:46 +00:00Commented Jul 30, 2018 at 14:43
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Avoiding a built in well known tool is not always easy. Especially when you don't have root permissions (like in the main question here).redseven– redseven2018-07-30 23:18:38 +00:00Commented Jul 30, 2018 at 23:18
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Even though GNU tar is 5 years younger than star, it had plenty of authors and this is not good. Fixing a reported bug typically takes 20 years and the 1993 announced incremental restore still only works with trivial changes between two incrementals. I am happy if GNU tar unpacks schilytools, so I can compile star ;-) You don't need to be root to do that.schily– schily2018-07-31 09:23:42 +00:00Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 9:23
If you use a working modern tar implementation, this will work the way you like out of the box:
star -cz . > archive.tar.gz
will print the warning:
star: 'archive.tar.gz' is the archive. Not dumped.
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That also seems to work in libarchive bsdtar, but not GNU tar.
tar zcf archive.tar.gz .works with my version of GNUtar, but causes the directory modified warning mentioned by @redseven.Stéphane Chazelas– Stéphane Chazelas2018-07-31 08:30:16 +00:00Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 8:30 -
libarchive is quiet but if you take a closer look, it is better than GNU tar.schily– schily2018-07-31 09:24:35 +00:00Commented Jul 31, 2018 at 9:24
/tmp, too.