tar exclude single files/directories, not patterns

Question

I'm using tar to make daily backups of a server and want to avoid backup of /proc and /sys system directories, but without excluding any directories named "proc" or "sys" somewhere else in the file tree.

For, example having the following directory tree ("bla" being normal files):

# find
.
./sys
./sys/bla
./foo
./foo/sys
./foo/sys/bla

I would like to exclude ./sys but not ./foo/sys.

I can't seem to find an --exclude pattern that does that...

# tar cvf /dev/null * --exclude=sys
foo/

or...

# tar cvf /dev/null * --exclude=/sys
foo/
foo/sys/
foo/sys/bla
sys/
sys/bla

Any ideas? (Linux Debian 6)

Are you sure there is no exclude? If you are using MAC OS it is a different story! Look here — drinchev
Not sure I understand your question. There is a --exclude option, but I don't know how to match it for single, absolute file names (not any file by that name) - see my examples above. — Udo G

CharlesB CharlesB · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-09T07:29:09

You can specify absolute paths to the exclude pattern, this way other sys or proc directories will be archived:

tar --exclude=/sys --exclude=/proc /

tar exclude single files/directories, not patterns

3 Answers