[ILUG] Copying directory trees

[P at draigBrady.com]

Brendan Halpin wrote:
> Say I want to move /usr/local to a new partition: what's the least
> error-prone way of doing the copy?
> 
> cp to the new location, delete old, edit fstab, mount new partition?
> tar /usr/local, delete old, edit fstab, mount new partition, untar?
> 
> Brendan

That's one of my tips actually. You should probably do the
following in single user mode.

-- 
Pádraig Brady - http://www.pixelbeat.org
--- Following generated by rotagator ---

Copying a directory preserving ownerships, permissions and
links, to another location:

   cp -a /dir/to/copy /where/to/
or
   ( tar cf - /dir/to/copy ) | ( cd /where/to/; tar xf - )

Note the previous 2 create the copy dir under /where/to/.
If instead you would like just all the contents of copy, do:
   ( cd /dir/to/copy && tar cf - . ) | ( cd /where/to/ && tar xf - )
--