Re: backingup /home/foo/.* files

[Brian Frederick Kimball <bfk@footbag.org>]

Please wrap your text.

q wrote:

> [...] i've become interested in backing up my /home/foo directory (by:
> tar cvzf <backup_file_name>.tar.gz *).
>
> i've noticed that such backup does not include my /home/foo/.*
> (hidden) files, like .muttrc....

$ man bash
[...]
When a pattern is used for pathname expansion, the character ``.'' at
the start of a name or immediately following a slash must be matched
explicitly,
[...]

Try "echo *" to see this in action-- it won't list your . files.

Try this to create a complete archive of your home directory:

$ tar cvzf backup.tar.gz /home/foo

Finally, if you're kernel is panic-ing a lot, try mounting all your
filesystems with the "sync" option to reduce the severity of the fs
corruption.