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How do I Compress a Whole Linux or UNIX Directory?

Q. How can I compress a whole directory under Linux / UNIX using a shell prompt?

A. It is very easy to compress a Whole Linux/UNIX directory. It is useful to backup files, email all files, or even to send software you have created to friends. Technically, it is called as a compressed archive. GNU tar command is best for this work. It can be use on remote Linux or UNIX server. It does two things for you:
=> Create the archive
=> Compress the archive

You need to use tar command as follows (syntax of tar command):
tar -zcvf archive-name.tar.gz directory-name
Where,

• -z: Compress archive using gzip program
• -c: Create archive
• -v: Verbose i.e display progress while creating archive
• -f: Archive File name

For example, you have directory called /home/jerry/prog and you would like to compress this directory then you can type tar command as follows:
$ tar -zcvf prog-1-jan-2005.tar.gz /home/jerry/prog

Above command will create an archive file called prog-1-jan-2005.tar.gz in current directory. If you wish to restore your archive then you need to use following command (it will extract all files in current directory):
$ tar -zxvf prog-1-jan-2005.tar.gz

Where,

• -x: Extract files

If you wish to extract files in particular directory, for example in /tmp then you need to use following command:
$ tar -zxvf prog-1-jan-2005.tar.gz -C /tmp
$ cd /tmp
$ ls -

MySQL Tutorial – Import or Export A Database

This tutorial section deals with mysqldump which is a tool to import and export MySQL databases.

It can be used to back up a database or to move database information from one server to another.

1. Export A MySQL Database

This example shows you how to export a database. It is a good idea to export your data often as a backup.

# mysqldump -u username -ppassword database_name > FILE.sql

Replace username, password and database_name with your MySQL username, password and database name.

File FILE.sql now holds a backup of your database, download it to your computer.

2. Import A MySQL Database

Here, we import a database. Use this to restore data from a backup or to import from another MySQL server.

Start by uploading the FILE.sql file to the server where you will be running this command.

# mysql -u username -ppassword database_name < FILE.sql

Replace the parts in red with your own information.

This powerful, easy to use command has many uses. Let's say you wanted to switch web hosting providers.

Simply export your data on the old provider's server and import it on your account with the new host.