tarnation is a backup and restoration utility that uses tar to create compressed archives of selected directories.
It is designed to simplify routine backups by managing archive creation, incremental backup information and restoration through a small collection of command-line options.
tarnation uses tar’s snapshot files to identify changes between backup runs. This makes it possible to maintain incremental backups without repeatedly storing a complete copy of every file.
The utility organises its backup archives in a directory structure that resembles the original filesystem. This makes it easier to identify which directory a particular backup belongs to without consulting an unrelated naming system.
tarnation is particularly suitable for backing up selected application directories, including configuration files and data belonging to individual services.
Its restoration process works through the recorded archives in sequence, rebuilding the backed-up directory from the available full and incremental data.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Creates compressed tar archives of selected directories.
- Supports incremental backups through GNU tar snapshot files.
- Uses separate directories for backup archives and snapshot definitions.
- Organises backups using a directory structure based on the original filesystem paths.
- Includes timestamps in backup archive filenames.
- Provides command-line options for specifying source and destination directories.
- Supports a dedicated restoration mode.
- Restores backed-up data by processing archives in sequence.
- Allows the location of snapshot configuration files to be specified.
- Supports writing backup information to a designated log file.
- Can be invoked by external scheduling tools for recurring backups.
- Provides a straightforward workflow for backing up individual application directories.
Website: github.com/kennyparsons/tarnation
Support:
Developer: Kenny Parsons
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Archive Managers | |
|---|---|
| DAR | Disk ARchive: Backup directory tree and files |
| tar | A file archiver and archive format developed since the early days of Unix |
| zpaqfranz | Deduplicating archiver with encryption and paranoid-level tests |
| patool | Portable archive file manager |
| 7-Zip | File archiver with a high compression ratio |
| tarlz | Massively parallel combined implementation of tar and lzip |
| TUI Archiver | Terminal application to list / manage archives |
| Simple Archiver | Fairly wide range of features |
| tarnation | Simple, extensible tar backup/restore utility |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Alternatives to tar | |
|---|---|
| TUI Archiver | List / manage archives |
| tarlz | Massively parallel combined implementation of tar and lzip |
| tarnation | Simple, extensible tar backup/restore utility |
| patool | Portable archive file manager that focuses on simplicity |
| zpaqfranz | Deduplicating archiver with encryption and paranoid-level tests |
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