Experiment No. - 04 :- Making Back-up Copies of Index and Files in Linux System.

1. Aim of the Experiment

To acquire practical hands-on skills in performing backup, archiving, compression, and index file management operations in a Linux OS environment using command-line tools like tar, gzip, rsync, and listing archive contents (indexing).

2. System & Tool Requirements

• Operating System: Any Linux Distribution (Ubuntu / Debian / RHEL / CentOS)
• Terminal: Command Line Interface (CLI) with standard privileges
• Directory Structure: Sample source files, logs, and a designated backup destination folder
• Core Utilities: tar, gzip, rsync, cp, ls

3. Step-by-Step Procedure & Commands

SECTION A: Preparing Sample Source Files & Index

1. Create a workspace directory, generate test files, and build an initial file index (file_index.txt):

# Create sample project workspace
mkdir -p ~/ictsm_data/backup_destination
cd ~/ictsm_data
touch doc1.txt doc2.txt data_log.log

# Generate index file listing all source contents
ls -la doc1.txt doc2.txt data_log.log > file_index.txt
cat file_index.txt

SECTION B: Archiving & Compressing Files using tar & gzip

2. Bundle files and index into a compressed tarball archive:

# Create compressed backup archive (.tar.gz)
tar -czvf system_backup.tar.gz *.txt *.log

# Verify and view indexed contents inside archive without extracting
tar -tzvf system_backup.tar.gz

SECTION C: Performing Synchronization & File Copy Backups

3. Copy archives and perform incremental directory backup using rsync:

# Copy archive to backup destination directory
cp system_backup.tar.gz ~/ictsm_data/backup_destination/

# Perform sync backup preserving permissions & timestamps
rsync -avz ~/ictsm_data/ ~/ictsm_data/backup_destination/

# Verify contents in target directory
ls -lh ~/ictsm_data/backup_destination/

4. Observation & Practical Log

S.No	Task Objective	Command Executed	Status / Output Observation
1	Generate File Index	ls -la > file_index.txt	Index file created listing file names & permissions
2	Create Tar Archive	tar -czvf system_backup.tar.gz ...	Compressed archive created successfully
3	List Archive Contents	tar -tzvf system_backup.tar.gz	Archive file index displayed on terminal
4	Copy Backup File	cp system_backup.tar.gz ~/backup_destination/	Archive moved to secondary folder
5	Directory Sync Backup	rsync -avz ~/ictsm_data/ ~/backup_destination/	Incremental file backup completed cleanly

5. Viva-Voce / Oral Examination Preparation

Q1. What do the flags -czvf stand for in the tar command?

Ans: -c creates a new archive, -z compresses it using gzip, -v enables verbose mode to display process details, and -f specifies the output filename.

Q2. How do you view the indexed list of files inside a .tar.gz file without extracting it?

Ans: By executing tar -tzvf filename.tar.gz, where the -t flag tells tar to list/index the contents of the archive.

Q3. Why is rsync preferred over cp for large file system backups?

Ans: rsync uses a delta-transfer algorithm to copy only modified or new files (incremental backup), saving network bandwidth, time, and computational resources while preserving file metadata.

6. Practical Result & Conclusion

Result: Practical operations for indexing files, generating compressed backup archives using tar/gzip, and performing incremental synchronization backups with rsync in Linux were successfully completed and verified.