If disk space is limited on your Linux or Unix server and you wish to backup a folder or file that is larger than
the available free space. Then creating a compressed archive in one step may be the only option, not to mention
that it is also faster.
tar cf – folder_name | gzip -c > ./andrewlin/folder_name.tgz
This will backup the folder isp to standard output which is represented by the – (hyphen).
The ‘|’ (pipe) will redirect the result to the commands following it.
gzip compresses the contents in standard input, represented with – (hyphen).
The result of gzip is redirected to a file folder_name.tgz, located in the folder andrewlin.
You can also capture the contents of the standard output to your workstation across the network. Meaning that your
can ssh to the remote server, create the archive, compress it, then save the file onto the computer you ssh from.
This method helps if you want to store the backup on a different server. Below is the command to do that.
ssh user@remotemachine “cd /path;tar -cf – target | gzip -c” > /path/target.tgz