Fun with tar and gzip

recursively backup files and directories, excluding some:

tar -czvf /home/site/backup.tar.gz /home/site/cgi-bin --exclude=mysubdir

append more files/dirs to an existing archive:

tar -r --file=/home/site/backup.tar /home/site/more_stuff

don't forget to gzip it when you're done!

gzip /home/site/backup.tar

list the contents of a tar.gz


gzip -dc /home/site/backup.tar.gz | tar tvf -