need to backup system to a directory on my system

yeh
 
tar -cf backup.tar /backup

then gzip -d9 backup.tar

that should work

you can do it in one command

tar -cvzf bkp.tar.gz /backup

or zip with bzip2

tar -cvjf bkp.tar.bz2 /backup

Will

    tar -cvzf bkp.tar.gz /backup

preserve all permissoins and ownership correctly?

By the way, it looks like your suggestions will just backup the contents of /backup/

I want to backup EVERYTHING and place a tar.gz of the backup of everything in /backup/

try doing:
 
tar -cf backup.tar  /

then gzip -d9 backup.tar

then cp backup.tar.gz /boot

zip -R /mydir/backup /*

Is there a one-step process for a gzip tar that will preserve permissions and ownership?

while tarring  you may like to exclude the /backup directory

i mena you really dont want to take a backup of the backup directory ..
you will run out of space very soon

gnu tar has -exclude option to exclude a directiry

for permission

from tar manpage ( GNU)

 -p, --same-permissions, --preserve-permissions
              extract all protection information
 --same-owner
              create extracted files with the same ownership

1. tar/gzip will do fine.
tar --exclude /backup -czf /backup/files-0`date +%w`.tgz  /
this command will give you full backups for every weekday, if you need that.

2. I recommend at least backing up to a different partition (if possible, on a different harddrive) that is mounted just for the time of backup. While not a magic bullet, it might help a bit in case of a crash.

3. In my experience, if the system goes down, one may usually want to reinstall/install a newer version anyway. In that case there is only a handful of system directories you really want to save, not the whole installed application suite.

Here is a tcsh shell script for archiving I use myself:
-----------------------
#!/bin/tcsh
cd /
set EXEDIR=/root/bin  # where the backup script and associated files reside;
set BKDIR=/var/backup # backup directory -- a separate partition mounted for backup time only
set DT=`/bin/date +%w` # variable part of backup filename, currently weekday number
set FS_BKFILE="fsys-${DT}.tgz"  # full filename of backup file
set INCFILES=$EXEDIR/incfiles.bk  # list of directories/files to backup
set EXCFILES=$EXEDIR/excfiles.bk  # list of dirs/files NOT to backup, this will be a subset of $INCFILES
mount $BKDIR
# status 0 - mount OK, status 32 - already mounted
if ($status == 0 || $status == 32) then
        tar -czf $BKDIR/$FS_BKFILE --files-from=$INCFILES -X $EXCFILES
        if ($status != 0) then
                echo "Error in fs backup!"
        endif
        umount $BKDIR
else
        echo "Couldn't mount $BKDIR for archiving!"
endif
--------------
Also you need 2 files incfiles.bk that say which directories you will backup,
and excfiles.bk, which says which directories OF incfiles.bk you will NOT backup.
On my system these are like:
--- infciles.bk----
etc/
root/
var/named/
var/spool/cron/crontabs/
data/sql/*.conf
home/
data/web/
usr/local/roxen/configurations/
----
this will backup most system config dirs, user home dirs and web server root; adapt as needed.
/var/named is where DNS server configuration is commonly stored


--- excfiles.bk ---
data/web/admin/stats
*~
----
this will make backup exclude all backup files (*~) as well as a web directory that holds data, which is regenerated every night anyway.

Will this backup everything except the /backup/ directory and everything in it?

And will copy ALL files (including system files and hidden files) and preserve all ownership and permissions?

    tar -czpsf /backup/aug27.tgz mystuff/ --compress --same-owner --exclude-from /backup/

Thanks!

The above had a typo.  I meant this:

tar -czpsf /backup/aug27.tgz --compress --same-owner --exclude-from /backup/