exclude hell !!!!!

[Dave Dykstra]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 03:42:06AM +0100, wim delvaux wrote:
...
> > > ALSO when you specify an exclude list on the server in the rsyncd.conf
> > > file and you call rsync with the --delete option WHY DO THE FILES that
> > > SHOULD BE EXCLUDED get deleted ??
> > >
> > > Jeeez, what a bummer
> > > W
> >
> > I assume you're comying from the server to the client?  From "exclude"
> > in rsyncd.conf.5:
> >
> >     This is equivalent to the client specifying these patterns with the
> >     --exclude option except that the exclude list is not passed to the
> >     client and thus only apply on the server.
> >
> > which means that if you do a --delete they are not excluded on the client.
> > It's as if the files don't exist at all on the server.
> 
> Ah! so it means that if the file exist on the client and it is excluded on
> the server,the client assumes the file should be removed (--delete).
> 
> How can I EXCLUDE files from the sync on the server (I want the server
> to define the rules so each client has as little config as possible)

Currently that's not supported.  You could make it two separate commands,
with the first command only copying a file from the server which
contains the exclude patterns and the second command using the file as
an --exclude-from.

Wayne Davison's new --files-from patch proposal has a syntax where the
file name can be "remote:module/..."; I don't know if there's enough
motivation to do something similar for --exclude-from.  Probably not.

- Dave