SMBTAR(1) User Commands SMBTAR(1)
NAME
smbtar - shell script for backing up SMB/CIFS shares directly to UNIX
tape drives
SYNOPSIS
smbtar [-r] [-i] [-a] [-v] {-s server} [-p password] [-x services] [-X]
[-N filename] [-b blocksize] [-d directory] [-l loglevel] [-u user]
[-t tape] {filenames}
DESCRIPTION
This tool is part of the samba(7) suite.
smbtar is a very small shell script on top of smbclient(1) which dumps
SMB shares directly to tape.
OPTIONS
-s server
The SMB/CIFS server that the share resides upon.
-x service
The share name on the server to connect to. The default is "backup".
-X
Exclude mode. Exclude filenames... from tar create or restore.
-d directory
Change to initial directory before restoring / backing up files.
-v
Verbose mode.
-p password
The password to use to access a share. Default: none
-u user
The user id to connect as. Default: UNIX login name.
-a
Reset DOS archive bit mode to indicate file has been archived.
-t tape
Tape device. May be regular file or tape device. Default: $TAPE
environmental variable; if not set, a file called tar.out.
-b blocksize
Blocking factor. Defaults to 20. See tar(1) for a fuller
explanation.
-N filename
Backup only files newer than filename. Could be used (for example)
on a log file to implement incremental backups.
-i
Incremental mode; tar files are only backed up if they have the
archive bit set. The archive bit is reset after each file is read.
-r
Restore. Files are restored to the share from the tar file.
-l log level
Log (debug) level. Corresponds to the -d flag of smbclient(1).
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The $TAPE variable specifies the default tape device to write to. May be
overridden with the -t option.
BUGS
The smbtar script has different options from ordinary tar and from
smbclient's tar command.
CAVEATS
Sites that are more careful about security may not like the way the
script handles PC passwords. Backup and restore work on entire shares;
should work on file lists. smbtar works best with GNU tar and may not
work well with other versions.
DIAGNOSTICS
See the DIAGNOSTICS section for the smbclient(1) command.
VERSION
This man page is part of version 4.22.11-Debian-4.22.11+dfsg-0+deb13u1
of the Samba suite.
SEE ALSO
smbd(8), smbclient(1), smb.conf(5).
AUTHOR
The original Samba software and related utilities were created by Andrew
Tridgell. Samba is now developed by the Samba Team as an Open Source
project similar to the way the Linux kernel is developed.
Ricky Poulten wrote the tar extension and this man page. The smbtar
script was heavily rewritten and improved by Martin Kraemer. Many thanks
to everyone who suggested extensions, improvements, bug fixes, etc. The
man page sources were converted to YODL format (another excellent piece
of Open Source software, available at ftp://ftp.icce.rug.nl/pub/unix/)
and updated for the Samba 2.0 release by Jeremy Allison. The conversion
to DocBook for Samba 2.2 was done by Gerald Carter. The conversion to
DocBook XML 4.2 for Samba 3.0 was done by Alexander Bokovoy.
Samba 4.22.11-Debian-4.22.11+d 07/28/2026 SMBTAR(1)
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