How to use tar to do increamental backup

From: Steven (yuezhan.zhu_at_medicinenet.com)
Date: 11/28/03 

Date: 27 Nov 2003 22:11:26 -0800

I am new in unix/linux. Now I need to know how to use tar to do
increamental backup of my system. specifically I have the following
questions:

1. Looking at the man page, it seems to have options like -d
(difference), -u (update: which append the updated files to archive
file), and -g, and -G. But I am not really sure which one to use for
increamental backup. I tried -u, but it seem to still back up the
whole things (not changed files only).

2. In order not to overwrite the current archive file, do I have to
change archive file name everytime I start to do increamental backup?
e.g if I have a fullback called backupweend, do I have to chagne name
to backupmon, backuptue if I do increamental backup on monday and
tuesday? If yes, that means I have to write a script to do automatic
backup?

3. If I tar the root filesystem "/", will all the filesystem mounted
to it be backup too. If I have a storage system mounted as "/share",
then the backup will include all the contents in "/share"? Is there a
option not to include?

Thanks for your help,

Steven

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