How do I compress the contents of a folder using 'tar' over SSH?

Question

How do I compress the contents of a folder using the tar command on an Unix system over SSH?

Answer 1

From tar --help:

Examples:
  tar -cf archive.tar foo bar  # Create archive.tar from files foo and bar.
  tar -tvf archive.tar         # List all files in archive.tar verbosely.
  tar -xf archive.tar          # Extract all files from archive.tar.

So just use tar -cf archiveName.tar folderName.

Answer 2

If you want to compress it, add the -z or -j arguments to the recommendations above.

ssh user@host 'tar -C direcotry -czf archivename.tar.gz files/directory'

Answer 3

If the content you want to archive is in the home directory of the user - it should be:

ssh login_name@hostname 'tar cvf archive-name *'

If you need to navigate somewhere, try this:

ssh login_name@hostname 'cd some-dir;tar cvf archive-name *'