--exclude-from works but "exclude from" in rsyncd.conf doesn't ?

[Wayne Davison]

On Fri, May 09, 2003 at 08:02:08PM -0700, jw schultz wrote:
> unless it is changed to really have behave like the command-line
> options i have my doubts of the value of the effort.

I see its primary purpose as being a little different than the command-
line options:  there needs to be a way for a sysadmin to setup a server
with restrictions that the client cannot work around; a means of
subsetting the file list to make certain files or areas inaccessible.
The command-line options let the client subset the available data to
suit their needs.  Historically, daemon mode was created to allow
download access, so upload support has not received as much attention
and it is currently a second-class citizen in many ways.  Yes, this
needs to be fixed.

> Having the behaviour of directory entries differ as this patch does
> seems awkward.

Yeah, it's a result of the potential disconnect in how the {ex,in}clude
lines are specified (they're always relative to the root of the module)
and how the user requests files (the recursion can start in any subdir).
This means that certain restrictions that affect a recursion from the
top have no effect if the recursion starts from lower down.  I can see
two potential ways to make this work as the user would expect.  One is
to auto-add a "dir/**" rule when the user specifies a "dir/" rule.
Another, probably better solution, is to run all the dirs in the
command-line args through the {ex,in}clude rules (one dir at a time,
deeper and deeper), and if the starting dir is excluded, discard that
command-line arg.  I'll look into changing this.

> Better is for the server to apply this exclude list independently from
> the client supplied one such that exclusion in either list will apply.

This is what happens on downloads already.  Uploads are currently
unaffected by the server-side {ex,in}clude restrictions.  I'm planning
to look into fixing that as well.

..wayne..