Simple RSync EXCLUDE option?

Question

I want a simple and working (multiple) exclude option inside my rsync command. Lets say i will exclude a file and a directory:

• /var/www/html/test.txt
• /var/www/html/images/

What i did is:

rsync -avz --exclude="/var/www/html/test.txt" --exclude="/var/www/html/images/" /var/www/html [email protected]:/var/www

or

rsync -avz --exclude=/var/www/html/test.txt --exclude=/var/www/html/images/ /var/www/html [email protected]:/var/www

or

rsync -avz --exclude /var/www/html/test.txt --exclude /var/www/html/images/ /var/www/html [email protected]:/var/www

..

But however, the --exclude is NOT WORKING!
Everything is going out!

• How to do it in this simple format please?

Note: I also don't want to use external exclusion list file. Just want all in one simple command.

Answer 1

i got it solved by myself after i've learned and tested many times. The real problem was the understandable (for me) --exclude option usage format.

I don't know how others are doing but i just found out that:

• "--exclude" path CAN NOT be the full absolute path!

Because i was using the path(s) like: --exclude /var/www/html/text.txt which caused the thing DOES NOT work. So i used like:

--exclude text.txt --exclude images/

.. and it WORKS!

Answer 2

I personnaly like the --exclude={text.txt,images/} format.

• Remember that with rsync, all exclude (or include) paths beginning with / are are anchored to the root of transfer which in your example will be the /var/www/html directory!!, so if you specify /text.txt it will be only the file which is @ the root of your transfer directory not above in the tree. You can find more infos and examples here