Help extracting tar onto another server

[Mcnally]

I created a tar of the /var/www/html directory from a live web server and I want to extract it onto another server that will eventually become a backup server to the live server.

When I extract the tar file, I see the whole directory structure /var/www/html. How do I extract the file just leaving the contents of the html directory in the directory of the new server?

[lomcevak]

Try to use the '--strip-components 3' option. If your version of tar doesn't support it then you have to create the tarball as follows:

# cd /var/www/html
# tar -cf /path/to/tarball .

That way the directory won't be saved in the tarball.