[Discuss] How do you backup "/" with rsync?

[John Blomfield]

Mike O'Connor wrote:
> Hi John
>
> The -x will exclude  proc and sys, you will need to copy dev if you want
> a system which will boot.
>
> Yes if any other part of the system is mounted like /home then rsync
> will need to be run for these directory's.
>
> By the way you do not need the *** on the end of the excludes, a
> --exclude=/home will not copy home or its sub directory's where as
> --exclude=/home/ will copy home but not the sub directory's or files in
> home.
>   
Hi Again,
Sorry to disagree but I have tried --exclude=/home and --exclude=/home/ 
and neither has any effect of the coping! This is why Alan in the 
original thread had a problem. The syntax must be --exclude=home/*** 
(note no leading / ) see the rsync man page.

John Blomfield

> All the mounts created at boot time are listed in /etc/fstab, a few like
> the /proc/bus/usb are created by other systems like hotplug.
>
>
> Mike
>
>
> John Blomfield wrote:
>   
>> John Blomfield wrote:
>>     
>>> Hi Mike,
>>> Incidentally, rsync -a --delete --exclude=external_backup/***
>>> --exclude=dev/***  /  /external_backup will work I just run a test
>>> using two separate exclude options.
>>> The -x option will only be useful to Alan if all his subdirectories
>>> below root / are on the same partition which is likely not the case
>>> e.g. perhaps /boot and /home at least are on separate partitions.
>>>
>>> OK, I understand that usbfs or tmpfs are device names that can be
>>> assigned to external physical file systems that might be temporarily
>>> attached to your computer. e.g. inserting a pen drive or cdrom etc. 
>>> But what about /sys and /proc whose device name is "none"?  Also,
>>> only /dev/pts that is mounted not the rest of /dev?  "none" must be
>>> some system construct, i.e. a virtual file system, so how is that
>>> created?
>>>
>>> John Blomfield
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>       
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