# 🚀 Day 9 of 100 Days of DevOps - Archiving, Compression & Backup Automation

🧠 Why This Matters in DevOps

As a DevOps engineer, you're responsible for managing backups, logs, configuration snapshots, and transferring data efficiently. On Day 9, I explored:

• Archiving files and folders with tar

• Compressing data with gzip, bzip2, and zip

• Automating backups using shell scripts

• Using rsync for smart incremental backups

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🔧 Tools and Commands Covered

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📂 Section 1: Archiving with tar

🔹 Create a .tar file (archive only)

tar -cvf mybackup.tar /home/ritesh/devops-journal

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This guide covers essential commands for creating, extracting, and managing backups and compressed archives in Linux, along with a mini-project for automating backups using rsync and cron.

Section 1: Archiving with tar

Common tar Flags

• -c: Create a new archive

• -v: Verbose mode (shows files being processed)

• -f: Specify the output file

Extract a .tar File

tar -xvf mybackup.tar

Section 2: Compressing Archives

Gzip Compression (Create .tar.gz)

tar -czvf mybackup.tar.gz /home/ritesh/devops-journal

Extract .tar.gz

tar -xzvf mybackup.tar.gz

Bzip2 Compression (Create .tar.bz2)

tar -cjvf mybackup.tar.bz2 /home/ritesh/devops-journal

Extract .tar.bz2

tar -xjvf mybackup.tar.bz2

Section 3: Using zip and unzip

Create a .zip Archive

zip -r mybackup.zip /home/ritesh/devops-journal

Extract a .zip File

unzip mybackup.zip

List Contents Without Extracting

unzip -l mybackup.zip

Section 4: Syncing with rsync

Local Folder Sync

rsync -av /home/ritesh/devops-journal/ /home/ritesh/backups/

Dry-Run Before Real Copy

rsync -av --dry-run /home/ritesh/Documents/ /home/ritesh/Downloads/

Remote Backup via SSH (Optional)

rsync -av /folder/ user@host:/remote/backup/

Section 5: Mini Project - Automated Backup Script

Backup Script: backup-devops.sh

#!/bin/bash

backup_dir="/home/ritesh/backups/devops-$(date +%F)"
mkdir -p "$backup_dir"

rsync -av /

Make the Script Executable

chmod +x backup-devops.sh

Schedule Backup Using Cron

1. Edit your crontab:

    crontab -e
   

2. Add the following line to run the backup every day at 8 PM:

    0 20 * * * /home/ritesh/cron-job-projects/backup-devops.sh
   

Cheatsheet Summary

Key Learnings

• Understood the differences between .tar, .zip, and rsync

• Practiced using tar, gzip, and rsync with real folders

• Created an automated backup script using rsync and cron

• Learned how to list, extract, and verify compressed archives

What's Next?

On Day 14, I’ll explore Log Management and Rotation, including:

• Viewing and analyzing log files

• Managing /var/log

• Using tools like logrotate

Repository Link

🔗 GitHub – DevOps Journal

Final Thoughts

"Compression and backups are invisible until disaster strikes — now I can confidently automate both!"

#devops #linux #backup #bash #rsync #cron #compression #100DaysOfDevOps #learninginpublic