To create a backup file named /root/backup.tar.bz2 containing the contents of /usr/local and compressed using bzip2, you should use the following steps: You don't need to change directories. First, use the tar command with the -jcvf options. -j tells it to use bzip2, -c is for create, -v is for verbose which lists the files being processed, and -f specifies the archive file name. The command should be: tar -jcvf /root/backup.tar.bz2 /usr/local. To check the content, you can optionally use tar -jxvf /root/backup.tar.bz2 -C /test after creating a test directory with mkdir /test.