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Ron Piggott
Asked: 2018-04-04 08:22:16 +0800 CST

Rsync Exclude MP4's Using Wild Cards For Paths

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I am wanting to exclude rendered videos (.mp4) from my rsync backups. However there are some .mp4's I need included in the backup. The difference is the path where the MP4's to be excluded are located. What I've tried (unsuccessfully) is:

/home/rpiggott/Videos/youTube/*/*.mp4
  • I am trying to use the wild card /*/ is to match all sub-directories. Each video has it's own directory.
  • The *.mp4 is an attempt to match the rendered video I want to exclude.

I am adding this to the end of this list.

This is my syntax for the rsync onto my NAS device

sshpass -p PASSWORD rsync -av --del --exclude-from=/var/tmp/ignorelist --numeric-ids /home/rpiggott USER@NAS_IP_ADDRESS:/nfs/rpiggott/
command-line bash backup rsync wildcards

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The answer to this is creating a complete exclude with the list of all files you aren't wanting included in your rsync:

    Step 1: Create a text file listing the file names (including path) you are excluding from the rsync backup 

    command \ls /home/rpiggott/Videos/youTube/*/*.mp4 > /var/tmp/youTube_mp4_exclude
    • The use of command \ls ignores the ls alias used within terminal
    • The use of (1) > overwrites the file created each time the command is run
    • The output path - file names must match exactly what rsync is searching for. To eliminate part of the path use this: command \ls /home/rpiggott/Videos/youTube//.mp4 | sed 's:/home/::' > /var/tmp/youTube_mp4_exclude

    Step 2: cat the files together

    cat /var/tmp/ignorelist /var/tmp/youTube_mp4_exclude > /var/tmp/rsync_ignore.txt
    • Don't forget about file permissions if this is becoming a cron job

    Step 3: Change --exclude-from to the new file created:

    sshpass -p PASSWORD rsync -av --del --exclude-from=/var/tmp/rsync_ignore.txt --numeric-ids /home/rpiggott [email protected]:/nfs/rpiggott/
    • Remember rsync has a --dry-run option to test drive your backup

    If you are setting this up as a cron use a .sh file with file file permission 755

    0 3 * * * /home/rpiggott/Backup/daily_backup.sh
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