How directories can be imported and exported in Linux?

Answer 1

The usual way of copying or moving directories is to use the tar command. The resulting tar file (called a tarball) can also be compressed to save time in moving it to another system.

To create a tar file for export, use a command such as:

cd directory

tar cvf export.tar .

This will create a file called export.tar that contains all of the elements of that directory. You could also compress that tar file by:

gzip export.tar

Which creates an export.tar.gz file.

Then, copy or move the file to another place or system. To import it:

gunzip export tar

if the file was compressed, then use tar to extract the contents:

cd directory

tar xvf export tar