docs: Add documentation for .pxarexclude files

Signed-off-by: Christian Ebner <c.ebner@proxmox.com>
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Christian Ebner 2020-02-19 16:32:39 +01:00 committed by Dietmar Maurer
parent 8ce49a76da
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@ -285,6 +285,89 @@ device:
# proxmox-backup-client backup mydata.img:/dev/mylvm/mydata
Excluding files/folders from a backup
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sometimes it is desired to exclude certain files or folders from a backup archive.
Using the proxmox backup client this is possible via simple text based
``.pxarexclude`` files placed in the filesystem hierarchy.
Whenever such a file is encountered in a directory, the backup client reads its
content and lines are interpreted as glob match patterns for files/directories
to exclude from the archive.
The file must contain a single glob pattern on each line. Empty lines are ignored.
The same is true for lines starting with ``#``, indicating a line containing comments.
Lines starting with ``!`` correspond to glob match patterns for explicit inclusion
of files previously excluded by a match. This allows for example to exclude
all entries in a directory except for a few single files.
Lines ending in ``/`` match directory entries only.
The folder containing the ``.pxarexclude`` file is considered to be the root of
the given patterns. It is only possible to match files in this or below this folder.
``\`` is used to escape glob characters. ``?`` matches any single character,
``*`` matches any character including the empty string.
``**`` is used to match also subdirectories and can be used to exclude for example
all files ending in ``.tmp`` within the directory or a subdirectory by the
following pattern ``**/*.tmp``.
``[...]`` matches a single character from any of the provided characters within
the brackets. ``[!...]`` does the complementary and matches any singe character
not contained within the brackets. It is also possible to specify ranges by two
characters separated by ``-``. For example ``[a-z]`` matches any lowercase
alphabetic character, ``[0-9]`` matches any one single digit.
The order of the glob match patterns defines if the file is finally included or
excluded, later entries win over previous ones.
This is also true for match patterns encountered deeper down the directory tree,
which may then override a previous exclusion.
Note however that folders marked for exclusion are not read by the client,
so ``.pxarexclude`` files contained within have no effect.
``.pxarexclude`` files are treated as regular files and are also included in the
backup archive.
For example, consider the following folder structure:
.. code-block:: console
# ls -aR folder
folder/:
. .. .pxarexclude subfolder0 subfolder1
folder/subfolder0:
. .. file0 file1 file2 file3 .pxarexclude
folder/subfolder1:
. .. file0 file1 file2 file3
The ``.pxarexclude`` files containing the following:
.. code-block:: console
# cat folder/.pxarexclude
/subfolder0/file1
/subfolder1/*
!/subfolder1/file2
.. code-block:: console
# cat folder/subfolder0/.pxarexclude
file3
This would exclude ``file1`` and ``file3`` in ``subfolder0`` and all of
``subfolder1`` except ``file2``.
Restoring this archive form backup results in:
.. code-block:: console
ls -aR restored
restored/:
. .. .pxarexclude subfolder0 subfolder1
restored/subfolder0:
. .. file0 file2 .pxarexclude
restored/subfolder1:
. .. file2
Encryption
^^^^^^^^^^