What do those tar options mean?

Use the tar command for converting between mounted file-systems and streams. For example, to back up the current root file-system to a CD-Recorder, use the following command:

tar -clvzf - / | bbcapture --tempfile /mnt/bigdisk/tempburn/backup.tmp --device cdr --attended

To later extract this archive back to the same disk, you would use the command:

bbextract --device cdr | tar -zxvf -

The "c" in -clvzf -
Tells tar that we are creating a new archive.
The "l" in -clvzf -
Tells tar to stay on the local file system only (do not follow mounts). I specified this option to keep each archive to a manageable size and to make it a meaningful conceptually. I make separate archives for each of my mounted file systems (one Linux system (/), one Linux user area (/home), and one MSDOS area (/mnt/dosc)).
The "v" in -clvzf -
Verbose. Tells tar to spool out the names of the files being archived. Primarily used for warm fuzzies so that you can have some level of confidence that you actually did what you thought you did. Also used as an entropy detector... see just how many files are on your typical system.
The "z" in -clvzf -
Compress. Uses gnu zip to compress the stream while writing. Achieves a 2 to 1 compression factor on the typical system, so it is definitely worth using. Note that already compressed data cannot be further compressed, so if you are archiving a directory full of tarballs (.tgz files), jpegs (.jpg), zip files (.zip) or similar compressed data, don't expect much out of this option besides wasted CPU cycles.
The "f -" in -clvzf -
Specifies the output file to use for the resulting tar file. The - option tells tar not to create a file at all, but rather to send the output of tar to standard out.
/
Tells tar the root of the directory tree of the data to be archived.
The "x" in -zxvf -
Tells tar to extract the file from the specified archive.
The "f -" in -zxvf -
Tells tar to take the input from standard in.
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