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hi i'am usin Ubuntu server 14.04 I want to backup all data in /mnt/backups/(pictures music etc.) i use:

tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz /mnt/backups/

and i want recover into /home/john/recover/ i use:

tar –xvpzf backup.tar.gz –C /home/john/recover/

but then I recover in /home/john/recover it looks like:

/home/john/recover/mnt/backups/(and all my data,pictures music etc.)

Is there a way to make /home/john/recover/(and all my data,pictures music etc.) or I do something wrong or its just what tar does? Thanks. P.S. sorry for any spelling mistakes :))

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1 Answer 1

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tar cares about your present working directory at invocation time.

What you want to do is:

cd /mnt/backups/
tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz *
cd /home/john/recover/
tar –xvpzf backup.tar.gz
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  • still after recover i get mnt, i'am using tar with cron
    – AbsentasLT
    May 22, 2014 at 19:35
  • I'd made a typo on the second line. Instead of specifying the full path, just a shellglob wildcard should be sufficient.
    – James S.
    May 22, 2014 at 19:39
  • it worked with tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz * tar –xvpzf backup.tar.gz -C /home/john/restore
    – AbsentasLT
    May 22, 2014 at 19:44
  • Awesome. I tested it here before posting, but had typed incorrectly. Sorry for the initial confusion.
    – James S.
    May 22, 2014 at 19:48
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    The --file option can specify a file anywhere, so tar -cvpzf /testing/backup.tar.gz /mnt/backups/ will work, but you will get the /mnt/backups/ directory structure, because the files in the directory will always be archived relative to the working directory, and the directory will be re-created along with its contents when the archive is extracted. So if you don't want the /mnt/backups/ part, your script must change into that directory first, like: cd /mnt/backups/ && tar -cvpzf /testing/backup.tar.gz *
    – James S.
    May 22, 2014 at 20:22

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