tar exclude single files/directories, not patterns

Question

I'm using tar to make daily backups of a server and want to avoid backup of /proc and /sys system directories, but without excluding any directories named "proc" or "sys" somewhere else in the file tree.

For, example having the following directory tree ("bla" being normal files):

# find
.
./sys
./sys/bla
./foo
./foo/sys
./foo/sys/bla

I would like to exclude ./sys but not ./foo/sys.

I can't seem to find an --exclude pattern that does that...

# tar cvf /dev/null * --exclude=sys
foo/

or...

# tar cvf /dev/null * --exclude=/sys
foo/
foo/sys/
foo/sys/bla
sys/
sys/bla

Any ideas? (Linux Debian 6)

Are you sure there is no exclude? If you are using MAC OS it is a different story! Look [here](http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_node/exclude.html#SEC108) — drinchev, May 09 '12 at 07:19
Not sure I understand your question. There is a `--exclude` option, but I don't know how to match it for single, absolute file names (not any file by that name) - see my examples above. — Udo G, May 09 '12 at 07:21
Look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/984204/shell-command-to-tar-directory-excluding-certain-files-folders — paulsm4, May 09 '12 at 07:22

score 15 · Accepted Answer · answered May 09 '12 at 07:29

15

You can specify absolute paths to the exclude pattern, this way other sys or proc directories will be archived:

tar --exclude=/sys --exclude=/proc /

answered May 09 '12 at 07:29

CharlesB

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4

True, but the important detail about this is that the excluded file name must match exactly the notation reported by the `tar` listing. For my example that would be `./sys` - as I just found out now. – Udo G May 09 '12 at 07:34

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 09 '13 at 18:14

7

In this case you might want to use:

--anchored --exclude=sys/\*

because in case your tar does not show the leading "/" you have a problem with the filter.

answered Apr 09 '13 at 18:14

pjv

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This did the trick for me, thank you! I wanted to exclude a specific directory, not all directories/subdirectories matching the pattern. bsdtar does not have "--anchored" option though, and with bsdtar we can use full paths to exclude specific folders. – Savvas Radevic May 09 '13 at 10:44
4

ah found it! in bsdtar the anchor is "^": `bsdtar cvjf test.tar.bz2 --exclude myfile.avi --exclude "^myexcludedfolder" *` – Savvas Radevic May 09 '13 at 10:58

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 08 '12 at 19:12

6

Using tar you can exclude directories by placing a tag file in any directory that should be skipped.

Create tag files,

touch /sys/.exclude_from_backup
touch /proc/.exclude_from_backup

Then,

tar -czf backup.tar.gz --exclude-tag-all=.exclude_from_backup *

answered Nov 08 '12 at 19:12

Stephen Donecker

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Good idea in theory but often /sys and /proc cannot be written to. – pjv Apr 09 '13 at 17:58

tar exclude single files/directories, not patterns

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