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There is a Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) desktop, it stores Time Machine backups on a separate partition. Also there is an Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise) server with NFS daemon running, it exports a /BACKUP disk. This disk is mounted by Mac OS desktop and I'd like to copy Time Machine backups to this network disk. Which tool shell I use to store backups properly with all associated metadata, hfs extended attributes and forks?

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If you're explicitly looking to make a copy of the existing backups (a backup of the backups), you will need to make a disk image with Disk Utility. Time Machine uses hardlinked directories which are only supported by HFS+, so you need HFS+ in a container.

You'd be much better off running netatalk on the Ubuntu server, which will share the disk over AFP, allowing Time Machine to back up directly to it. Here's one guide: http://pwntr.com/2012/03/03/easy-mac-os-x-lion-10-7-time-machine-backup-using-an-ubuntu-linux-server-11-10-12-04-lts-and-up/

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I was thinking about nettalk on Ubuntu as a backup storage, but in this case Ubuntu server should be accessible all the time to have hourly backups from Mac OS desktop. I'd prefer to have less frequent backups of backups, also it is more reliable to have independent desktop and server. It seems nettalk on Ubuntu is able to store all the required metadata, but I do not understand it handles hardlinks for directories, do you? – zeliboba Oct 23 '12 at 12:00
It doesn't - any time you have Time Machine backing up to an AFP mount, it actually uses a sparsebundle, which is an expandable read/write HFS+ disk image. – gabedwrds Oct 23 '12 at 14:29
thanks, the setup in tutorial works fine! There is a relevant topic about rsync superuser.com/questions/66498/hfs-rsync-on-linux – zeliboba Oct 24 '12 at 17:04

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