>Is there any "amanda-way" to have exclude lists on the server and update
>them on the client before each backup?  ...

I have not tried this, but if you're running 2.4.3 (server and client)
and don't have an "excessive" number of exclusions, you can set up a
dummy dumptype with the information, then inherit it into each real
dumptype as needed:

  define dumptype exclude-stuff {
    exclude file append "pattern1"
    exclude file append "pattern2"
    exclude file append "pattern3"
    exclude file append "pattern4"
  }

  define dumptype normal {
    program "GNUTAR"
    ... other stuff
    exclude-stuff
  }

  define dumptype always-full {
    program "GNUTAR"
    dumpcycle 0
    strategy noinc
    skip-incr yes
    ... other stuff
    exclude-stuff
  }

And so on.  You can, of course, have more than one fake dumptype with
different sets of exclude patterns.  And, since "append" is used, you
may reference more than one in a real dumptype -- the entries will be
merged into a single large list.

As I said, I haven't even faintly tried this.  It's just an idea based
on how I'm pretty sure this all works.

>  Leonid Mamtchenkov

John R. Jackson, Technical Software Specialist, jrj AT purdue DOT edu