Backup Home Directories in Linux

Author: Vivek Gite Last updated: November 12, 2008 4 comments

Q. I would like to Backup all directories in /home to /dev/st0 tape drive. How do I use script to automate task and what commands do I need to use?

A. Use tar command to backup /home directory. The GNU version of the tar archiving utility included with all Linux distributions. Following tar command also works with Solaris/HP-UX UNIX and FreeBSD/*BSD oses.

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For example tar command to backup /home should be as follows:
# tar -czf /dev/st0 /home

Where,

/dev/st0 : Linux SCSI Tape device name
/home : Home directory name

This will also backup hidden files and directories. Since this topic is already covered, please refer scripts and previous posts:

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