rsync script not excluding dirs

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Parv wrote:

>in message <810a540e0603191355n3e86fe15pa15a24da1a48dce8 at mail.gmail.com>,
>wrote Pat Maddox thusly...
>  
>
>>I have a backup script that runs nightly, and I want it to exclude
>>certain dirs (ports, obj, etc).  However when I run the script it
>>doesn't exclude anything, leaving me with pretty massive backups. 
>>    
>>
>...
>  
>
>>/, /var, /usr, and /backup are all on different partitions.  The key
>>part is at the bottom where it calls rsync and excludes dirs.  Can
>>someone tell me what's wrong with the script?
>>    
>>
>...
>  
>
>>PRE="/usr/local/bin/rsync"
>>${PRE} -bapoguLxSRC --exclude=*.core --exclude=*~* / --exclude=/dev
>>--exclude=/backup /backup/${DAY1}/
>>${PRE} -bapoguLxSRC --exclude=*.core --exclude=*~* /var /backup/${DAY1}/
>>${PRE} -bapoguLxSRC --exclude=*.core --exclude=*~* --exclude=/usr/src
>>--exclude=/usr/ports --exclude=/usr/obj /usr /backup/${DAY1}/
>>    
>>
>
>Your script seems to have wrapped by your mail client.
>
>Anyway, in rsync(1) man page, see "INCLUDE/EXCLUDE PATTERN RULES"
>section, point 2 ...
>
>  o if the pattern ends with a / then it will only  match  a  direc-
>    tory, not a file, link, or device.
>
>
>In other words, none of your exclude patterns for directories end in
>'/' , thus the backup, src, ports, etc. directories are not
>excluded.
>  
>
I'm not sure that's true.  It says a pattern ending in slash only 
matches a directory, it doesn't say that a pattern not ending in slash 
won't match a directory.

However, the patterns are anchored wrongly.  Absolute patterns are still 
relative to to tree being transferred.  So --exclude=/usr/obj when 
transferring /usr would try to match /usr/usr/obj, which is wrong.  Take 
the name of the filesystem being rsynced off those patterns and you 
should find them excluded as you want.

The rsync man page does try to explain this: it is a bit long and can 
take a few reads, but look at the FILTER RULES and ANCHORED PATTERNS... 
sections.

--Alex

PS Your flags are way over the top.  -a already includes -rlptgoD so you 
don't need them again.  Do you really want -R and I think that knocks 
the top-level directory off the files which are unpacked?  And if this 
is a backup, then why -u?  That's for use when you are changing files on 
the destination and don't want those changes overwritten, which doesn't 
sound like what you are doing.  And if it is a backup, then you might 
also want -H to preserve hard links.