That seems to be a much better solution, as opposed to modifying exclude
files on backup clients.

If I leave my dumptype definition the way it currently stands (still
specifying an exclude file), and add

backupclientname /usr/local/clients {
  comp-tar
  exclude list "/client_archive"
}

to the disklist, will amanda use both the exclude files on each client
AND the specific settings for that modified entry in the disklist?  That
would be great for now.

Thank you!

-----Original Message-----
From: djmitche AT gmail DOT com [mailto:djmitche AT gmail DOT com] On Behalf Of 
Dustin
J. Mitchell
Sent: 05 October 2007 16:28
To: Johan Booysen
Cc: amanda-users AT amanda DOT org
Subject: Re: Amanda exclusions

On 10/5/07, Johan Booysen <johan AT matrix-data.co DOT uk> wrote:
> What confuses me is that it's not really clear to me how amanda 
> appends what you want to exclude to disklist entries.
>
> Like, if I have the following disklist entries:
> backupclientname    /usr/local/clients    comp-tar
> backupclientname    /home    comp-tar
> backupclientname    /data    comp-tar
>
> and the exclude file contains:
>
> ./client1/archive
>
> does amanda just simply ignore /home/client1/archive and 
> /data/client1/archive (because they don't exist in the first place)?

That's correct.  Usually folks specify an exclude in the disklist,
rather than the dumptype:

backupclientname /usr/local/clients {
  comp-tar
  exclude list "/whatever"
}

FWIW, the confusion is actually from GNU Tar, which uses string matching
against the paths it archives.  Since Amanda cd's to the directory to be
backed up and runs tar with '.', those excluded strings have to start
from the directory as '.', e.g., './client1/archive'.

Dustin

-- 

Storage Software Engineer
http://www.zmanda.com