I like the flolowing using the -C parameter.  This creates relative directories, so if you untar on a different box, you are not forced to untar to the exact same full directory from root.(Especially if you do not have permissions to access that dir on the new box!  A bit of a neccessity then   )tar cvf $BASE_DIR/mynewtar.tar -C $BASE_DIR online backup 2>dev/null