[KLUG Members] a question concerning tar version 1.13.19 (clarification)

[Bryan-TheBS-Smith]

Bryan-TheBS-Smith wrote:
> When you compress a tar archive, you compress the archive
> _after_ the tar operation.
>   <... cut ...>
> Again, the archive itself is not compressed, only the files
> in it, so that compression algorthim is _after_ the archiver,
> instead of before.

Er, this sounds like the same.  My mistake on not clarifying.

The first statement regards when is when backing up (making the
archive).
The second statementt regards when restoring (pulling from the archive).

For maximum "recoverability," you want to compress _before_ when backing
up, _after_ when restoring.  E.g.,:

Backup:
   tar z or cpio | gzip:  create archive, then compress
   afio z:  compress, then create archive

Restore:
   tar z or gzip | cpio:  Uncompress, then restore archive
   afio z:  restore archive, then uncompress

The second in each case is ideal for recovery purposes, because the
first step in restoring is the archive is unbundling the archive itself
-- where the "recoverability" routines in the archiver can handle any
possible "corruption."

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan "TheBS" Smith    mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org    chat:thebs413
Engineer  Absolute Value Systems, Inc.  http://www.linux-wlan.org
President     SmithConcepts, Inc.    http://www.SmithConcepts.com