Is there a way to specify a file of patterns to include rather than to
exclude with the GNUTAR type?  Here's the scenario:

I have a whole lot of Debian boxes.  There's no need to back up
everything on the filesystem since a lot of it is easily reconstructed
via apt ... everything in /usr/bin, for example.  But the stuff
I *do* want to backup is basically a large number of small directories
in various places around the filesystem:

/etc
/var/log
/var/spool
/usr/local
... and a few more.

I could do this by defining each as a disk in the disklists file:

server /etc gnutar
server /usr/local gnutar

... but that gets old when you have a lot of servers, each with 10 or
15 directories you want to back up.  So I've been using exclude lists.
I'd like to back up /var/log, but NOT /var/run, so I end up with an
exclude list that looks like this:

./var/log
./var/lock
./var/run
./var/state
./var/cache

and THAT gets to be a pain to maintain, especially if somebody adds a
new directory under /var.  I've started thinking it'd be easier if I
could just pass tar a list of directories to INCLUDE on a per-host
basis.

-- 
                                        thanks,
                
                                        Will