tar Syntax Help

[Carl Delsey]

Try leaving off the leading / from each line in your exclude list. I
think what is happening is that, by default, tar drops the leading / from
each file it tars up so that when you untar, it extracts all files
relative to the current directory. I think because of this, when you
specify absolute paths in your exclude file, tar fails to match them.

Alternatively, if you want to keep the absolute paths, try tar with the -P
option. Your exclude list may work as is in that case. I haven't ever
tried that myself though. Just be careful when you untar if you do use that
switch.

Carl

On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 08:20:50PM -0700, Drew Tomlinson wrote:
> I'm trying to copy an entire file system while using an exclude file to 
> avoid copying things such as /dev, /proc, etc.  I've read the man page 
> and found the -X or --exclude-from tar option.  I've create a file 
> called /exclude.list.  It contains lines such as:
> 
> /exclude.list
> /dev
> /proc
> 
> But I can't figure out how to form the correct command line.  I 
> basically want to do this:
> 
> tar -cvf - --exclude-from /exclude.list -C / . | tar xpf - -C .
> 
> I've search the web and found examples that look similar to the above 
> but this does not work for me.  tar attempts to copy /dev and I get all 
> the associated errors.  I've tried other placements of either "-X", "X", 
> and "--exclude from" on the command line various things happen from it 
> just being ignored to tar thinking I want to create and archive named 
> "-X", etc., to tar trying to add a file named "-X", etc. to the current 
> archive.  I'm at a loss.
> 
> I'm using 4.11 and trying to make a good backup before upgrading to 
> 5.4.  Can anyone tell me the secret incantation to make this work?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Drew
> 
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