In our example we were requested to archive a 741 mb directory to CD. The source data resided on a Unix data server.

1. we copied the source data to a newly created directory {project} into an alternate area .
2. do > cd /newly created directory
3. do > tar clf – . |compress > ../project.tar.Z
4. do > cd ..
5. rm –r project
6. we then moved that .Z file via ftp or whatever transfer agent you wish to a local area .
7. then you burn it to CD.

* For example, to archive a directory named “project”, use the commands below:

Note that we are saving the archive in the parent directory (../project.tar.Z) so that `tar’ won’t try to archive its own archive!!. Also,

note that, once archived, the original directory is removed.

Any time you want a list of the files in the archive, use:
tar tvf project.tar | more
or
zcat project.tar.Z | tar tvf – | more
To extract all the files from the archive, type:
mkdir project
cd project

zcat ../project.tar.Z | tar xvf –

* you may wish to add a readme file with your backup denoting the above information.