Simple TAR command

[admin1979]

Just a simple question about tar.

We have a filesystem,

/
/boot
/usr/users


In order to take the backup of these filesystems, we connected USB drive and mounted under /usb.

Then to get the root backup , I used

tar -cvf root.tar /

And it showed as after few minutes it was taking the backup of /usb contents as well.

Oooops something not expected. Is it a normal behaviour , or we are missing some option here?
How do we avoid this.
In short how do we take the complete filesystem backup excluding specific filesystems?

You guys must be running backup scripts for so many years ... then how did you manage to handle this situation.
Please suggest.


Thanx,
admin

[Michal Kapalka (mikap)]

hi,

you should use --exclude=usb,

and don;t forget use -p ( for the file/directory ownership )

mikap

[Michal Kapalka (mikap)]

hi,

if the usb disk is mounted as /usb

and you in the root /

them

tar cvfp /usb/file+of_backup.tar --directory / --exclude=usb

mikap

[admin1979]

Ok thanx. Let me try it out and get back here.

[Goran Koruga]

Hi.

This is expected.

or better yet, use the "--one-file-system" option with tar.

Goran