[MacTUG] Helios brings 'tar' unix tool to Mac OS X

[Marlon A. Griffith]

"""
Germany-based HELIOS Software has released the 
Intel-compatible version of its free backup tool 
HELIOS Xtar. HELIOS, which provides 
cross-platform networking, PDF, and image server 
solutions, says it passing along on "its 
accumulated development experience to the Open 
Source community in the form of the free Xtar 
tool, which is basically the UNIX 'tar' program 
extended by HELIOS to include full Mac OS X 
(PPC/Intel) compatibility." HELIOS Xtar for Mac, 
available for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs, 
stores each HFS file as a double file in the 
standard "tar" format. Unicode file names as well 
as all meta data, including creation and 
modification dateÐare preserved. During the 
restore with Xtar to an HFS volume, the Finder 
and resource information are written into a valid 
HFS file--preserving all Mac OS X specific meta 
data are to ensure that all volumes are bootable 
after the restore.

The company says that 'HELIOS Xtar' can be used 
as a tool for cloning Mac OS X system drives. In 
HELIOS server installations, Xtar performs data 
migration from Mac OS X systems to HELIOS volumes 
and vice versa, while the company's HELIOS htar, 
its commercial "tar" tool, preserves Mac meta 
data even on restoring data to HELIOS volumes 
under Windows. The htar tool is part of the 
HELIOS UB server suite for Windows, which has 
been available since the end of the year 2006.
"""
http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/03/12/tar.unix.tool.for.os.x/