I am new to restic and like it so far. I am trying to understand why some of these patterns work with the --exclude option and some do not. I run restic from a bash script so I do not have to input the repo path:
#!/usr/bin/bash
IFS="$(printf '\n\t')"
repo="/media/steve/Ext4/restic-repo"
# export RESTIC_PASSWORD=""
if [ ! -d $repo ]
then
echo "External drive is not connected."
else
echo "Starting backup to..."
echo "${repo}"
restic -r ${repo} backup $HOME ${1} \
--exclude .cache \
--exclude .local/share/Trash \
--exclude ".mozilla/firefox/*/storage/default/http**" \
--exclude ".var/app/*/cache**" \
--exclude .local/share/flatpak \
--exclude .local/share/docker \
--exclude __pycache__ \
--exclude .config/Slack
fi
exit 0
As you see, some of the patterns are in quotes because I found that necessary to get the exclusions I intended. I started by using patterns that worked in rsync (I realize it’s a different app written in a different language). For example:
--exclude .var/app/*/cache does not work.
I expected this would exclude all the cache directories under .var/app (with ‘*’ being the flatpak app, e.g., com.spotify.Client) and their files and subdirectories (caches for my flatpak installations).
Likewise, these patterns did not work:
.var/app/*/cache**
.var**cache
.var**cache**
Also not working…
.mozilla**default/http** (works in rsync)
.mozilla/firefox/*/storage/default/http**
.mozilla/firefox/*/storage/default/http*
At first, I wondered whether these paths were problematic because they contained some unusual features; e.g., the flatpak app directories all have a pattern of tld.domain.App. And the firefox storage/default directory has subdirectories named as “http[s]+++URL”.
But when I tested this here the multiple “.” or “+” caused no problems.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"path/filepath"
)
func main() {
fmt.Println("On Unix:")
fmt.Println(filepath.Match("/home/*/foo*", "/home/a.b.c/foobar"))
fmt.Println(filepath.Match("/home/*/foo*", "/home/a+++c/foobar"))
}
Output:
On Unix:
true <nil>
true <nil>
However, I see that restic does not use pure filepath.Match from go, based upon its use of “**” wildcard and what I see here.
Does anyone have an idea why quoting these patterns seems to work, but all the other options do not?
