rsync - Feb 2007 - Questions in running rsync example

Hi,

I am trying to run the 'backup to a spare disk' in this example:

http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/examples.html

My question is
Why i need to to this:
mount /backup/$d

If i have an external disk, it will be under /media/disk directory,
why I need to mount?

And what is the meaning of  '-exclude fstab' here?

rsync -ax --exclude fstab --delete /$d/ /backup/$d/

Thank you.

On 2/13/07, ying lcs <yinglcs@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am trying to run the 'backup to a spare disk' in this example:
>
> http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/examples.html
>
> My question is
> Why i need to to this:
> mount /backup/$d
>
> If i have an external disk, it will be under /media/disk directory,
> why I need to mount?
It sounds like your system is being clever and automatically mounting
the disk when you plug it in, so you don't need to mount the disk
yourself.
> And what is the meaning of  '-exclude fstab' here?
>
> rsync -ax --exclude fstab --delete /$d/ /backup/$d/
That option tells rsync not to touch any file named "fstab" anywhere
in the transfer.  I'm not sure why the author of the example used it.

Matt