Linux and data storage?

[Luke Davis]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Karen Lewellen wrote:

> As i said I have no intention of zipping anything, so if i understand this i

and as I said, that seems a strange fobia.  Regardless, however--

> should be able to do the following.
> a, create a directory on the server where my site resides, which too is a 
> Linux based server let's call it backup.

What do you mean, "which too"?  If we are talking about Shellworld, it is 
not Linux, in any way, shape, or form.

> b, from my shellworld home prompt run sftp or tar or one of the other ftp 
> based transfer programs  and copy the contents of my home directory to the so 
> created directory on my website server?

tar is not a transfer program.  It is an archival tool.

Tar takes several files, and copies them into one large file.  It stands 
for "tape archiver", and was originally used for exactly that purpose.
For example, if you did:

cd ~/
tar --exclude ~/mail -cf /tmp/karen_backup.tar ../

Will copy your entire home directory, excepting the mail directory which 
contains your saved messages, into a contiguous archive, in the file 
/tmp/karen_backup.tar.  That file may then be moved to another server or 
the like.

Better, would be to compress it using gzip, or, still better, bzip2, and 
then transfer it, using sftp, rsync, ftp, ncftp, or some transfer program.

> I do not want to have to specify, so if this does mean  i must coy over mail 
> and the like so be it.  frankly it might not be so bad an idea given the 
> folders in that area too.

To copy in the way you suggest, a transfer using rsync, is probably the 
best option.

> What say you, do I understand the process correctly?

Parts of it, yes.  Other parts, not so much.

Luke