HACKTUX notes from the trenches

Have you ever seen this error when using tar?

tar -czf etc.tgz /etc
Removing leading `/' from member names

Tar is removing the leading / from the archive file, and warning you about it. Although you can redirect STDERR to /dev/null, doing so can result in missed errors. Instead, use tar with the -P or --absolute-names switch. They do the same thing: leave the leading / in the archived files.

tar -czPf etc.tgz /etc

When you untar the archive without -P, the leading / will still equate to your current working directory. Use the -P when untarring to restore from archive to the absolute path name. For example:

The following creates ./etc (dot, slash, etc)

tar -xzf etc.tgz

This overwrites /etc (slash, etc)!

tar -xzPf etc.tgz