Linux System Administration | Archive-Compression Tools

Introduction

As a passionate Linux system administrator, I specialize in file archiving, compression, and backup strategies using tools like tar, gzip, bzip2, and rsync. I have hands-on experience automating these tasks with cron jobs and scripting, ensuring data integrity and efficient storage management.

Key Skills & Expertise

1. Archiving & Compression Tools

Gzip: Fast compression with moderate efficiency (gzip file & gunzip file.gz).
Bzip2: High compression ratio but slower (bzip2 file & bunzip2 file.bz2).
Tar: Used for archiving (tar -cvf archive.tar *), and with compression (tar -zcvf archive.tar.gz *).
Zip: Combining archiving and compression (zip archive.zip *).

2. Reading & Managing Compressed Files

Read without extraction: zcat file.gz, bzcat file.bz.
Extract specific files: tar -xvf archive.tar file1 file2.
Move and rename compressed files: mv file1.zip /mnt/backup/ & rename file.zip file_backup.zip.

3. Backup Strategies

Full Backup: Complete copy of all files (rsync -av /source/ /backup/full/).
Incremental Backup: Copies only changed files (rsync -av --link-dest=/backup/prev /source/ /backup/incr/).
Differential Backup: Copies files modified since the last full backup (rsync -av --link-dest=/backup/full /source/ /backup/diff/).
Cumulative Backup: Keeps accumulating changes since last full backup (rsync -av /source/ /backup/cumulative/).

4. Automating Backups with Cron

Scheduled backups with crontab -e:
```
0 14 * * * rsync -av --delete /source/ /backup/daily/
```
This runs the backup every day at 2:00 PM.

5. Advanced Zip & Tar Usage

Archiving multiple directories: zip archive.zip /home/user /var/logs/.
Appending files to existing archives: zip -u archive.zip newfile.txt.
Extracting specific files: unzip archive.zip file1 file2.
Extracting to a specific directory: unzip -d /usr/local/ archive.zip.

6. Remote & Local Backup with Rsync

Local backup: rsync -av /opt/data/ /mnt/backup/.
Remote backup: rsync -avz user@remote:/data/ /local/backup/.

Why These Skills Matter?

Efficient disk space management.
Secure and automated data protection.
Fast and reliable backup and recovery solutions.