I've tried TAR and SMB only to create ever increasing volumes. The problem I think is that my attempts are chasing the links instead of simply backing up the links. I simply want to create a backup that I can copy back, untar or the like, if I must re-create the system.
Have you considered dump? It backs up ext2/ext3 filesystems at the inode level, by accessing the raw disk device. The matching restore command will restore the "tape" (backup file) to the current directory, typically root if you're doing a full restore, but it could be an arbitrary directory if you're trying to recover a lost file. The latest stable version, 0.4b37, is in Rawhide (Fedora development directory) awaiting approval to release to updates. I'm using that now and do a nightly backup to a Samba-mounted Windows share.
