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Comments and suggestions concerning this book should be mailed to gmourani@videotron.ca © Copyright 1999-2000 Gerhard Mourani and Open Network Architecture ® 455 The above command extracts all files contained in the compressed archive, preserving original file ownership and permissions. The “x” option stands for extract. The “p” option preserve permissions; file protection information will be “remembered”. The “f” option states that the very next argument will be the name of the archive file or device. If you do not need to restore all files contained in the archive, you can specify one or more files that you wish to restore: · To specify one or more files that you wish to restore, use the following command: [root@deep]# cd / [root@deep]# tar xpf /dev/st0/full-backup-Day-Month-Year.tar \ home/wahib/Personal/Contents.doc home/quota.user The above command restores the “/home/wahib/Personal/Contents.doc” and “/home/quota.user” files from the archive. · If you just want to see what files are on a backup volume, Use the  --list (-t) option: [root@deep /]# tar tf /dev/st0 Caution: If you have a files on your system set with the immutable bit, using the “chattr” command, these files will not be remembered with the immutable bit from your restore backup. You must reset it immutable with the command “chattr +i ” after the backup is completed. Test the ability to recover from backups For many system administrators, recovering a file from a backup is an uncommon activity. This step assures that if you need to recover a file, the tools and processes will work. Performing this test periodically will help you to discover problems with the backup procedures so you can correct them before losing data. Some backup restoration software does not accurately recover the correct file protection and file ownership controls. Check these attributes of restored files to ensure they are being set correctly. Periodically test to ensure that you can perform a full system recovery from your backups. Further documentation For more details, there is man page you can read: tar (1)              - The GNU version of the tar archiving utility The dump backup program Description Dump is completely different from tar; it is a program for backing up and restoring file system. It backups up the entire file system - not the files. Dump does not care what file system is on the hard drive, or even if there are files in the file system, it examines files on an ext2 file system, determines which ones need to be backed up, and copies those files to a specified disk, tape, file or other storage medium. It dumps one file system at a time, quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, it does not do individual directories, and so, it eats up a great deal more storage space than tar. It is also written specifically for backups. The restore command performs the inverse function of dump; it can restore a full backup of a file system. Subsequent incremental backups can then be