rsync - Aug 2005 - how to mirror only selected directories?

Hi,

I've tried various combinations of --exclude and --include, but I can't
quite get it.  What I'd like to do is only mirror certain directories in
a tree.  For example, say a directory tree starting at /x contained
under it several directories named "abc".  I want to mirror only the
"abc" directories and what's under them and nothing else.

/x/abcdef/456
/x/y/z
/x/y/abc/123
/x/z/123
/x/z/abc/456

If the above represents the 5 files under /x, then I'd like to rsync to
only mirror the files under "abc" folders, namely /x/y/abc/ and
/x/z/abc/.  I tried to include '*/abc/*' and exclude '*', but
that
didn't work.

Thanks,

- Mark

Hi Aaron,

That's close!  But I can't have that particular side-affect since
I'd
like to have one site be the master for all folders except for "abc"
folders and the 2nd site be the master for only the "abc" folders in
this particular tree.

Since what you mention works like you said, I was thinking something
like this should work too, but it doesn't:

  --include 'abc/**' --include '**/abc/' --exclude '*'

I have a work-around right now using a find/perl command line to build a
rsync commands for each "abc" folder, but I was hoping to have it all
in
one rsync command if possible.

Thanks,

- Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Morris [mailto:aaronwmorris@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 4:24 PM
To: Moe, Mark
Subject: Re: how to mirror only selected directories?

On 8/29/05, Moe, Mark <mark.moe@medtronic.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've tried various combinations of --exclude and --include, but I
can't
> quite get it.  What I'd like to do is only mirror certain directories
in
> a tree.  For example, say a directory tree starting at /x contained
> under it several directories named "abc".  I want to mirror only
the
> "abc" directories and what's under them and nothing else.
> 
> /x/abcdef/456
> /x/y/z
> /x/y/abc/123
> /x/z/123
> /x/z/abc/456
> 
> If the above represents the 5 files under /x, then I'd like to rsync
to
> only mirror the files under "abc" folders, namely /x/y/abc/ and
> /x/z/abc/.  I tried to include '*/abc/*' and exclude '*',
but that
> didn't work.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Mark
The only way I know of to do this is to include all directories, but
only include the contents of the directories you want.  This will have
the side-effect of replicating the full directory structure, but you
may be able to live with that.

--include "abc/*" --include "*/" --exclude "*"
(or --include "abc/**" if you want contents of abc's
sub-directories)

-- 
Aaron W Morris (decep) <aaronwmorris@gmail.com>

Thanks Wayne and Aaron, I'll use a combo of find/rsync as suggested.

- Mark 

-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Davison [mailto:wayned@samba.org] 
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 9:37 PM
To: Moe, Mark
Cc: rsync@lists.samba.org
Subject: Re: how to mirror only selected directories?

On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 04:41:31PM -0500, Moe, Mark
wrote:
> But I can't have that particular side-affect since I'd like to have
> one site be the master for all folders except for "abc" folders
and
> the 2nd site be the master for only the "abc" folders in this
> particular tree.
Your only choices are to tell rsync to include all directories (as Aaron
suggested), or to switch over to using --files-from.  No amount of
include fiddling with work around that limitation (see the man page's
description on how the directory traversal is recursive, and telling
rsync to block a directory blocks rsync from ever even looking at any of
the blocked dir's subdirs).

Switching to --files-from could take the output of a find command and
send it all in one go.  E.g.:

find . -name 'abc*' -type dir | rsync -av --files-from=- . host:/dest

..wayne..