rsync - Jul 2005 - Stop recursive transfer

Hi!

I'm using rsync to do hourly backups ov a number of server.

To let the users on the servers selectively drop parts of their
filesystem for backups, I'm using a method utilizing a "Stop-file"

In a dir that is not going to be backed-up the user pase a file named
".no-more-backups".

Before running rsync I do a find / -name ".no-more-backups" to get a
list of all dirs _not_ to backup.

But now I'm scanning the entire filesystem twice, first time to find
what not to rsync, and afterwards when rsync fetches the file-info.

Would it be possible/an idea to include a "stop-file"-argument in
rsync
to let rsync do it all?
Ofcourse the filename to look for should be user-selectable, but that
should be a minor thing, if the general logic is available.


-- 
Henning Wangerin <post+050629@henning.wangerin.dk>

On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 02:03:17PM +0200, Henning Wangerin
wrote:
> Would it be possible/an idea to include a "stop-file"-argument in
rsync
> to let rsync do it all?
You can use rsync's .rsync-filter files to instruct rsync on localized
filter rules.  So, instead of using a stop-file name, the user would
create a file named .rsync-filter in the directory they don't want to
have backed up, and put this line in it:

- *

That would tell rsync to not backup anything from inside that directory
hierarchy.  The user could even fine-tune the rules to eliminate just
some of the files via other rules (e.g. "- *.gz").

Finally, the invocation of rsync would need to use the -F option to tell
rsync to pay attention to the .rsync-filter files.  If you don't like
the filename, you can choose your own by switching from the -F option to
your own --filter option:

    --filter='dir-merge /.any-name-you-like'

You should be running rsync 2.6.4 or (preferably) 2.6.5 for the --filter
option to be supported.

..wayne..