Hi,

The tar is very popular utility in Linux/UNIX which was first introduced to Linux back in January 1979 for taking the tape backup of the data/software.

Since then it became of the most popular tool in Linux for archiving files and directories. The tar tool is very powerful and comes with many options to work with the archiving and un-archiving of the files/directories.

The tar tool can be used from the command line, so you can even login to your Linux/UNIX system from an ssh terminal and use this powerful tool on your server.

If you have a directory named "mydata" and you want to archive this directory into a tar.gz file you can do it by following tar command:

tar cvzf mydata.tar.gz mydata

The above command will create an archive file called mydata.tar.gz which will have all the data stored in the mydata directory. It will include all the files, directories and files under all sub directories into the tar.gz file. The tar command preserves the directory structure in the tar.gz file and you will get same directory structure as original when extracted.

So, this tool is very powerful for the Linux user and administrators.

Check the following tutorial for detailed instruction on the use of tar utility in Linux:

• Create tar.gz file in Linux command line

Thanks