OS/X Leopard Server and rsync backups

[Michal Soltys]

Few remarks:

Greg Shenaut wrote:
> 
> 
> --delete-excluded    : delete files no longer present & any excluded files

Yes.

You can achieve the same with 'H' or 'R' instead of '-', without having 
to specify --delete-excluded. 'H' is sender-only exclude, 'R' is 
receiver-only include.

In your case:

H somefile

will cause the extra file on the receiving side to disappear, unless 
it's matched by some other rule later, that would protect it otherwise.

Similary:

R somefile
- some*

would work as expected as well. Extra file on the receiver would be 
deleted, if it wasn't transferred - sender will not send it, and 'R' 
will match before '-' on the receiving side. But e.g. 'someotherfile' 
would match '-' on both sides, so it wouldn't be deleted, if it wasn't 
transferred.

> --link-dest=$OLD    : copy only files that are different from those in 
> directory $OLD

and hardlink the unchanged ones.

> //    : the base of the source tree is the filesystem root directory

One slash is enough.

> 
> A line of the form ": .rsync-filter" means incorporate filter rules from 
> any .rsync-filter file found and apply them to everything in and beneath 
> its directory.
> 

Yes. Careful about delete modes though - you will need --delete-after, 
if the per-dir rules are being transferred, and they differ from the 
ones already present on the receiving side (and you expect the new ones 
to influence deletions).

> The line "- */.Trash" means don't copy any .Trash file, even the one in 
> the root directory.
> 

* alone will match any non-empty component, so .Trash (dir or file) in 
the root will not be excluded.

- .Trash

would do the thing - the rule is inherited in every subdirectory (unless 
you inhibit that with .n $FLTR ), so it will match anything .Trash it 
encounters.


> The line "- .Spotlight-*/" means copy all directories whose names match 
> ".Spotlight-*" but nothing beneath them.

This one will exclude any directory that matches .Spotlight-* . So 
neither dir, nor its contents will be copied (as rsync won't visit the 
directory in the first place). If you have regular file matching 
.Spotlight-*, it will be copied though.


Btw - try running some test case rsync with -vv / -vvv / -i and/or with 
custom logging options - you will see when and how rsync does things.