Need help with exclude

daniel djoneill at gmx.net
Tue Nov 25 17:06:50 EST 2003


Hi all,

I am having *massive* problems trying to exclude a single directory from an rsync.

I have serv1 and serv2.  I am trying to rsync /foo/test from serv1 to /foo on serv2   I want to exclude the directory /foo/test/dir1   So I try:

rsync -av --exclude-from=/foo/rsync.excludes /foo/test serv2:/foo

rsync.excludes contains:
/foo/test/dir1/


This is not working.

I also try:

rsync -av --exclude=/foo/test/dir1/ /foo/test serv2:/foo

and the exclude still does not work.

I have also tried other variations like:

rsync -av --exclude=/dir1/ /foo/test serv2:/foo

also to no avail.

I have spent many hours reading the manpage and searching google.  I see many examples on exluding but nothing on how to exclude one simple directory as I am trying to do.  

I am really glad you added the "EXCLUDE PATTERNS" section in the manpage, but it is still not very helpful.  I think that something as basic as excluding one single directory should be straightforward and simple to execute and not require such extensive difficulty.

I have used rsync for a few years now.  My opinion is that it is a great tool but its potential usefulness is limited by some extreme quirkiness as to how paths get specified and its extensive switch options many of which should just be included by default.  For example, maybe having a meta-switch such as --mirror which contains a set of popular switches used in most mirroring situations.  In this regard, I think the --backup option is a bad idea and instead --backup should be a meta-switch that includes options useful for backups.

Most people I think are usually trying to mirror or to backup. 






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