I was recently doing a lab with some 3750 switches were I wanted to back up the ios and to a tftp server and then restore it. I ran into some issues due to the ios file being in a directory but soon was able to accomplish my goal. I was working with the .bin file. I saw a .tar file and backed it up as well just to be cautious. My questions are, What is the purpose of the tar file and did I need to back it up? Is the tar file ever used for restoring the ios to another switch? What about to the same switch?
