To create an archive, select "Archive->Create" (at bottom of menu). The
“Create archive” dialog will appear.
Then click the button with the folder icon to the right of the
root directory line, and choose the directory that you want to backup.
If you selected a directory to backup, the "Archive name"
line becomes active.
Choose an appropriate name for your archive.
I usually put the root name, and a hyphen, and the date (e.g. "040208").
You only need a basename here, not the entire archive name
(e.g. "test-archive-040208", not "test-archive-040208.1.dar"), so if you are
overwriting an existing archive, remove any of the ".*.dar"
trailing stuff.
If you want to make a differential backup, enable the
differential backup checkbox, and select the reference
archive. Leave the checkbox unchecked if you're making a new archive
(e.g., a full backup).
Now you can select directory filters.
Click on the directory filters tab (bottom of create dialog).
Click "new" to add a filter if you want to backup specific directories,
or exclude specific directories.
For example, if you're backing up
the entire filesystem, you've chosen "/" for the root directory,
and "/opt/backups/system-full-backup-031018" for the basename of
the archive. Notice that KDar will automatically exclude the
backup directory from your archive.
You also want to exclude "/dev/pts"
and "/proc", so add them from the dropdown list.
In the following example, the directory "cvsroot" will be excluded from
the "/home" backup.
Note, you might want to "Include a directory". In that case,
only those directories that are included will be a part of the new archive.
File filters allow you to include or exclude specific files, and you
can use wildcards here as well.
For example, you might want to exclude any files which end in "~",
because these are generally backups of files.
Then you can add a new file filter, and type "*~" into the line edit field.
Add a second new file filter, and type ".*~" to exclude hidden backups.
Remember to select "Exclude" from the dropdown menu.
On to the compression filters. Select the compression filters tab,
and select "new".
You can choose to exclude or include specific types
of files to be compressed. You can also choose to have "all of the above"
file types to be excluded from compression. You can add your own file type,
as the filter value is editable. These compression filters will be saved in
KDar's configuration file so if you add any new ones they will automatically
appear when you start a new session of KDar.
Next, type the name of a command or script to run after each slice is created.
You might type "k3b" here to run the CD-burner. Include the command's
path if it is not in one of the directories of your $PATH environment variable).
You can leave this entry empty if you just want to create slices without
interuption.
When you're satisfied that everything is okay, click OK.
Your archive should be created.