Exclude dir, symlinks

[jago25]

This is less an issue and more about trying to figure out how to use Cyphertite, sorry about that.

Let's say I want to backup my home directory but exclude some big unnecessary cache directories within it such as ~/.cache and ~/.tmp ...how would I do that?

Can I do it by making a dir full of symlinks (hard or soft) to all the directories I want to backup?

[dajohi]

I am assuming you are not using Windows.

Checkout the -E parameter for cyphertite, which points to a file that contains a list to exclude.

$ cat exclude.txt
home/user/.cache
home/user/.tmp

$ cyphertite -E exclude.txt -cf homedir.ct /home/user

[dajohi]

oops

$ cat exclude.txt
home/user/.cache/*
home/user/.tmp/*

[sysfu]

Backblaze excludes certain 'junk' directories like cache, tmp, operating system files, etc by default.

Assuming the Windows user base is on the whole not technically inclined, this might make for a sane default configuration in the Windows Cyphertite client as well.

[tukoz]

Testing cyphertite 2.0.4 on Linux.
cyphertite -E <path/to/excludes> -cHf <mdname.ct>
cat excludes
.cache/*
*cache/

[tukoz]

Testing cyphertite 2.0.4 on Linux.
Have some trouble left to find Cyphertite's appropriate exclusion syntax (coming from rsync)
$ man cyphertite

-E pattern_file
         ... The patterns, one per line are interpreted as glob patterns unless the -r flag is specified.

Maybe that's a bit too vague. Backing up with: $ cyphertite -E <path/to/excludes> -cHf <mdname.ct>

$ cat excludes

*.cache/*
cache/*
*.opera/*cache/
*.dropbox*
Thumbs.db
agedu.dat

Looks like I'm good for some of the dirs :

dropbox : none :)

cache :

../../.cache/<empty>   # :)
../../.opera/application_cache  # NONE :)
../../.zotero-ft-cache #  :)
../../Torcache.net.xml  # :)
../../..moniques_cachees_de_l_Occident.pdf   # :)

But why

../../libreoffice/4/user/uno_packages/cache/<full_content>  # :(
Thumbs.db
../../Thumbs.db
../../agedu.dat

Also tried with eg:

**/Thumbs.db
- Thumbs.db

"Excluded" files are always backed up (and restored).

So what syntax do you use to exclude files globaly? ie without having to enter full path to each ones ;)