Backing up a complete directory into an MVS data set

To back up the complete directory /u/project, including the subdirectories and their contents, into a compressed archive stored in the MVS™ data set 'PROJECT.ARCHIVE', enter the following commands:

 cd /u/project
 pax -wzvf /tmp/project.pax.Z  ./
 tso "oget '/tmp/project.pax.Z'  'PROJECT.ARCHIVE' binary"

Note:

The pax command can write directly to the MVS data set; you can skip the OGET command by specifying the MVS data set on the pax command:
```
pax -wzvf "//'PROJECT.ARCHIVE'" ./ 
```
The equivalent tar commands are:
```
tar -cUzvf /tmp/project.pax.Z  ./
```
To write directly to MVS (OS/390® Release 8 or later):
```
tar -cUzvf "//'PROJECT.ARCHIVE'" ./
```
You change to the current directory first in order to simplify the pax/tar command, and so that the files are stored in the archive using a path name that is relative to the current directory. This simplifies the task of restoring the archive later to a different directory. The "./" is used rather than an asterisk to collect any component files that begin with "." in the current directory.
The archive is written to a directory that is not in the source path that is being archived, in order to prevent pax/tar from trying to store the archive within itself. Doing so can cause pax/tar to loop infinitely during creation, and can result in corrupted files during restore.
Naming archives with a suffix of "pax.Z" (or "tar.Z") is not required by pax/tar, but is done as a convention to identify them as pax or tar archive files. The ".Z" is used to identify a compressed file.
The -z option is used to turn on compression, and is not required.
The -v option is used to display the names of files as they are being stored, and is not required.