Used the TarFile object to create a bzip2 compressed tar file (seems to
have worked fine).  Then used the extractall method to restore the
archive in a new location.  All the files appear to have the same
permissions and owner:group as before, but most of the directories
('state' is only exception) have different permissions and the
owner:group are set to the UID that was running the script in this case
root:root.

Partial original location listing
/opt/fallback> ls -l /opt/agilent/ipcore/02.01/config
total 112
drwxrwxrwx 2 agilent agilent  4096 Feb  3 14:07 dist
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent   208 Feb  3 14:07 hostnameCache.xml
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  1000 Feb  3 14:07 hostnamecache.xsd
drwxr-xr-x 4 agilent agilent  4096 Feb  3 14:08 inuse
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  4019 Feb  3 14:07 log4cxx.properties
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  9437 Feb  3 14:07 log4cxx.xml_template
drwxrwxrwx 3 agilent agilent  4096 Feb  3 14:07 mebs
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  4283 Feb  3 14:07 protocol.xml
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  8339 Feb  3 14:07 registry.ini
drwxrwxrwx 2 agilent agilent  4096 Feb  3 14:07 state
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent   886 Feb  3 14:07 trunknamecache.xsd

Partial new location listing
/opt/fallback> ll config
total 120
drwxr-xr-x 6 root    root     4096 Feb  3 16:38 ./
drwxrwxr-x 8 agilent agilent  4096 Feb  3 16:38 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root     4096 Feb  3 16:38 dist/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent   208 Feb  3 14:07 hostnameCache.xml*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  1000 Feb  3 14:07 hostnamecache.xsd*
drwxr-xr-x 4 root    root     4096 Feb  3 16:38 inuse/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  4019 Feb  3 14:07 log4cxx.properties*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  9437 Feb  3 14:07 log4cxx.xml_template*
drwxr-xr-x 3 root    root     4096 Feb  3 16:38 mebs/
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  4283 Feb  3 14:07 protocol.xml*
-rwxrwxrwx 1 agilent agilent  8339 Feb  3 14:07 registry.ini*
drwxrwxrwx 2 agilent agilent  4096 Feb  3 14:07 state/