How do I Compress a Whole Linux/UNIX Folder

This is task that you will do many times when working with Linux/UNIX. This can be automated or done just as a simple one time task.

Best tool for this job is tar . 

• GNU tar  saves many files together into a single tape or disk archive, and can
  restore individual files from the archive.

GNU tar comes with many options but for my task i will use the following options only:

Shell

tar -zcvf wwww_QTS_bkp.tar.gz www/

• this command will create gziped archive containing the entire content of the www/ folder called www_QTS_bkp.tar.gz.

Options  used and their purpose:

• -z Compress archive using the gzip program
• -c  Create archive
• -v  Verbose i.e display progress while creating archive
• -f  Archive File name

To extract the content of a tar archive use the following command:

• -C Extract location
• -x Extract the content

Shell

tar -zxvf wwww_QTS_bkp.tar.gz

• this will extract to the current working directory.

Shell

tar -zxvf wwww_QTS_bkp.tar.gz -C /folder

• this will extract the content into /folder directory.

GNU tar come very handy to be used on a daily basis by any system admin.

Hops this was helpful