[leafnode-list] Correct way to copy the news spool and leafnode configuration to another computer?

[Adam Funk]

Sometime soon I need to move leafnode from one computer (Debian) to
another (Ubuntu).  I think the configuration can be copied by simply
copying /etc/news/leafnode/ into place on the second machine, but what
do I need to do to copy /var/spool/news/ (which I understand contains
a lot of files with multiple hard links)?  Can tar handle the hard
links correctly, or do I need to used cpio?