cpio

Backing up data is a critical aspect of all computer use. Linux provides many easy methods for backing up data. The user should consider backing up all data that cannot be easily recovered quickly. That includes the /home directory which is the location of user data. You may also want to back up the /etc directory as this is where the majority of configuration files are located.

cpio can be used for system backups. The cpio format will preserve directory, pathname, inode, user, group, permissions and creation, modification times.

Options:

-v verbose mode

-B use large blocks

-Cn use blocks of n bytes

-c use ASCII headers