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Subject : LUG: tar command ???

From : Greg McGowan <gzmcgowa@ncsu.[redacted]>

Date : Sat, 04 Dec 2004 18:14:24 -0500


All,

I'm trying to write a simple script to backup my home directory, and I've come upon a question with the tar command.

I see now the easiest way to backup the directory is using:

%tar -cf /mnt/externalharddrive/backup.tar /home

and later on when I want to backup again I'd use:

%tar -uf /mnt/externalharddrive/backup.tar /home


The problem is when using the update option with the tar command the file gets larger and larger (because update appends the newer files).  Is there a way to get the tar command to delete the older files in the existing backup.tar file?

I understand that it would probably be easier to just re-tar the entire directory each time rather than update.  However, my /home directory has some pretty large files that don't change very often.  As a result it seems to me that it would be more efficient to just back up the files that have been modified since the last back up.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg

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