GNU tar 1.34: 5.4.1 General-Purpose Variables

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5.4.1 General-Purpose Variables

Backup variable: ADMINISTRATOR; The user name of the backup administrator. Backup scripts sends a backup report to this address.

Backup variable: BACKUP_HOUR

The hour at which the backups are done. This can be a number from 0 to 23, or the time specification in form hours:minutes, or the string ‘now’.

This variable is used by backup. Its value may be overridden using ‘--time’ option (see section Using the Backup Scripts).

Backup variable: TAPE_FILE; The device tar writes the archive to. If TAPE_FILE is a remote archive (see remote-dev), backup script will suppose that your mt is able to access remote devices. If RSH (see RSH) is set, ‘--rsh-command’ option will be added to invocations of mt.

Backup variable: BLOCKING; The blocking factor tar will use when writing the dump archive. See section The Blocking Factor of an Archive.

Backup variable: BACKUP_DIRS

A list of file systems to be dumped (for backup), or restored (for restore). You can include any directory name in the list — subdirectories on that file system will be included, regardless of how they may look to other networked machines. Subdirectories on other file systems will be ignored.

The host name specifies which host to run tar on, and should normally be the host that actually contains the file system. However, the host machine must have GNU tar installed, and must be able to access the directory containing the backup scripts and their support files using the same file name that is used on the machine where the scripts are run (i.e., what pwd will print when in that directory on that machine). If the host that contains the file system does not have this capability, you can specify another host as long as it can access the file system through NFS.

If the list of file systems is very long you may wish to put it in a separate file. This file is usually named ‘/etc/backup/dirs’, but this name may be overridden in ‘backup-specs’ using DIRLIST variable.

Backup variable: DIRLIST; The name of the file that contains a list of file systems to backup or restore. By default it is ‘/etc/backup/dirs’.

Backup variable: BACKUP_FILES

A list of individual files to be dumped (for backup), or restored (for restore). These should be accessible from the machine on which the backup script is run.

If the list of individual files is very long you may wish to store it in a separate file. This file is usually named ‘/etc/backup/files’, but this name may be overridden in ‘backup-specs’ using FILELIST variable.

Backup variable: FILELIST; The name of the file that contains a list of individual files to backup or restore. By default it is ‘/etc/backup/files’.

Backup variable: MT; Full file name of mt binary.

Backup variable: RSH; Full file name of rsh binary or its equivalent. You may wish to set it to ssh, to improve security. In this case you will have to use public key authentication.

Backup variable: RSH_COMMAND; Full file name of rsh binary on remote machines. This will be passed via ‘--rsh-command’ option to the remote invocation of GNU tar.

Backup variable: VOLNO_FILE; Name of temporary file to hold volume numbers. This needs to be accessible by all the machines which have file systems to be dumped.

Backup variable: XLIST

Name of exclude file list. An exclude file list is a file located on the remote machine and containing the list of files to be excluded from the backup. Exclude file lists are searched in /etc/tar-backup directory. A common use for exclude file lists is to exclude files containing security-sensitive information (e.g., ‘/etc/shadow’ from backups).

This variable affects only backup.

Backup variable: SLEEP_TIME

Time to sleep between dumps of any two successive file systems