Quoting Gerardo Zapata <gerardo.zapata AT USA DOT NET>:

> 1. My intention is to back up only the filesystems marked as included in
> this
> list. Is it valid to put an "exclude /.../*" statement at the end of the
> file
> and then just include the filesystems  I want to backup?

If you really want this behavior, it is easier to get it by putting a
domain statement in dsm.opt.

As W. Curtis Preston points out in his book "Unix Backup & Recovery",
it is safer to exclude file systems you don't want backed up than to
include only file systems you do want backed up. There is always a
risk that someone will add a file system and forget to arrange for an
update of the include/exclude list. If you exclude file systems you
don't want backed up, a missed update to the include/exclude list
could result in some unnecessary data being backed up. If you include
only the file systems you do want backed up, a missed update to the
include/exclude list could result in some necessary data not being
backed up, which is generally regarded as a more serious problem.

Recent versions of the TSM client software provide an exclude.fs
statement that will exclude an entire file system. It is more efficient
than using a plain exclude statement. An exclude.fs suppresses any
examination of the directories within the file system. An exclude
covering an entire file system does not. The TSM client will still read
every file name in every directory within the file system. It will check
each file name against the include and exclude statements. It will then
decide not to back up that file (assuming the exclude for the entire
file system is in the right place in the sequence of include and
exclude statements).