What is correct Mac path format for exclusions?

[jel]

EMC have now finally issued a user manual for Retrospect 8, but it is woefully lacking in detail and examples.

 

I am specifically looking for help defining an exclusion filter rule to exclude a folder and all contained files and any subfolders. The Mac OS X (Unix) style path would be

 

/private/var/db/swupd/

 

While I feel I could as per the only example, successfully define a rule to exclude a path 'containing' say swupd, I want to define a path beginning with the above path, something that according to the software should be possible.

 

Unfortunately, Retrospect is still backing up the above folder so I obviously have not got it right yet.

 

I rang Retrospect support, and they did not know the answer.

 

Does anyone here, know the correct format to define a path beginning with xxx?

 

Many thanks for any help.

[bchern]

I don't have anything positive to tell you, but I believe that my attempt to use a "contains" path, which should be straightforward and has an example in the built-in "except cache files" rules, does not seem to work either.

[Maser]

Maybe I'm not getting what's not working.

 

My exclude rules have all kinds of lines like:

 

Folder Mac Path Contains /library/preferences/4D

 

or

 

 

Folder Mac Path Contains /users//movies/

 

 

And those are excluded just fine.

 

THAT SAID: I think there's a bug in 8.1 if you try to test this by "previewing" using the rules -- the Preview doesn't show this correctly.

 

But the actual *backup* using the rule works properly.

 

[rhwalker]

Yes, preview doesn't work right. Known bug.

 

Also, be careful about case sensitivity of names.

 

it's /Library/Preferences/ and /Users//Movies

 

Depends on whether you have case-sensitive filesystem enabled.

 

I also think that there are issues with pathnames on mounted volumes - e.g.,

 

/Volumes/volumename/pathonvolume/

 

I've given up until the "big bugfix release" that's expected "real soon, now", some time this quarter century.

 

Russ

[jel]

I did say I was specifically trying to define a Mac path using "begins with". I did also say I was confident that I could get a path working using "contains" since the only type of example given is "contains".

 

I am wanting to use the provided and supposedly working ability to define a path 'beginning' with something because I want to ensure only the desired folder gets matched. To use a hypothetical example, if I used a path 'containing' Library it could and would match -

 

/Library

/System/Library

/Users/xxx/Library

etc.

 

Unfortunately a Mac path 'beginning' with /private/var/db/swupd does not work in that Retrospect is still backing it up, so clearly Retrospect is not using simple standard Mac paths.

[Maser]

Try this...

 

Folder Mac Path begins with /Volumes//private/var/db/swupd

 

 

Chatted with an engineer and apparently "begins with" needs the *full* path name...

[rhwalker]

The boot drive (/) is not mounted at a mount point within /Volumes

 

However, your comment about mounted volumes is correct. See my post upthread. Been there, done that.

 

Also, odd things can happen if .../swupd is somewhere else, on another volume (as we have it on our xServe).

 

Russ

[Maser]

The boot drive (/) is not mounted at a mount point within /Volumes

 

Russ

 

Perhaps.

 

 

But

 

Folder Mac Path begins with /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System

 

works

 

And

 

Folder Mac Path begins with /Volumes/System

(or /Macintosh HD/System or /System or any other variation I tried...)

 

does not

 

 

I'm guessing this hard link in /Volumes:

 

Maserhome:~ admin$ cd /volumes

Maserhome:volumes admin$ ls -la

total 8

drwxrwxrwt@ 3 root admin 102 Mar 25 20:36 .

drwxrwxr-t 44 root admin 1564 Mar 24 20:00 ..

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Mar 24 19:59 Macintosh HD -> /

 

 

Is probably how they define what needs to be done for the boot drive...

[rhwalker]

The boot drive (/) is not mounted at a mount point within /Volumes

 

Russ

 

Perhaps.

Yep. It's true. "/" is a special case' date=' and it is not "mounted" in /Volumes . It is truly the root of the filesystem, and is special cased during boot.

 

See:

 

mail:~ admin$ cd /Volumes
mail:/Volumes admin$ ls -al
total 8
drwxrwxrwt    4 root  admin   136 Feb 24 10:54 .
drwxrwxr-t   37 root  admin  1360 Feb  1 19:45 ..
drwxrwxrwx   23 root  wmw     884 Nov 26  2007 WMW RAID
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root  admin     1 Feb  1 19:46 Xserve RAID -> /
mail:/Volumes admin$ 

I am sure that Robin has his hands full, but the php bug for this forum that causes the php garbage, etc., is an annoyance. Seems to me that this was reported about a year ago when the forum updates happened, and the cause is that EMC's PHP installation is out of date, awaiting corporate approval for updating. Sigh. Back to topic...

 

Note that the mounted volume "WMW RAID" appears as a directory, because that's a mount point. Refer to my earlier posts about the confusion that can occur if stuff is put into a directory before something is mounted on that directory (mount point), and then something is mounted on the directory (mount point) - it hides the stuff in the directory until the volume is unmounted.

 

Can cause real confusion if you are working at the command line in single user mode (to repair damage) before multi-user mode comes up, or if, as sometimes happens in these forums, a volume gets mounted at, e.g., /Volumes/volumename-1 and then stuff starts getting dumped into /Volumes/volumename

 

Note that "/", both in your example and mine, is a link, not a directory. That's simply for the benefit of the Finder, and has nothing to do with how Unix works.

 

Perhaps Retrospect 8 uses this "feature" when matching path names, but it shouldn't. Whatever.

 

But

 

Folder Mac Path begins with /Volumes/Macintosh HD/System

 

works

 

And

 

Folder Mac Path begins with /Volumes/System

(or /Macintosh HD/System or /System or any other variation I tried...)

 

does not

/System should work because that's the full path (unless you have it on a separate volume).

 

If it doesn't, then it's a bug. The other examples aren't expected to work. See explanation above.

 

I'm guessing this hard link in /Volumes:

 

Maserhome:~ admin$ cd /volumes

Maserhome:volumes admin$ ls -la

total 8

drwxrwxrwt@ 3 root admin 102 Mar 25 20:36 .

drwxrwxr-t 44 root admin 1564 Mar 24 20:00 ..

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Mar 24 19:59 Macintosh HD -> /

 

Is probably how they define what needs to be done for the boot drive...

Nope. See above. It's for the Finder.

 

Russ

Edited March 27, 2010 by Guest
php garbage comments

[kswisher]

I am not sure what is being said here. Given that /Volumes/MacHD is a link to file system root "/".

 

That the following two should work the same way in a rule?

 

exclude any:

Folder Mac path begins with "/System/Library/Caches/"

 

vs

exclude any:

Folder Mac path begins with "/Volumes/MacHD/System/Library/Caches/"

Edited March 27, 2010 by Guest

[kswisher]

And what happens when you create a favorites folder?

 

If you create a favorites folder for /Users/newbie/ and select "newbie" as the source. Do the rules using full path from root still work, or do you now define rules as if /Users/newbie is the new file system root.

 

i.e. for source favorites folder (subvolume) = newbie

exclude any:

Folder Mac path begins with "/Users/newbie/Music/iTunes/"

 

would fail, but...

exclude any:

Folder Mac path begins with "/Music/iTunes/"

 

would work?

[Maser]

I am not sure what is being said here. Given that /Volumes/MacHD is a link to file system root "/".

 

That the following two should work the same way in a rule?

 

exclude any:

Folder Mac path begins with "/System/Library/Caches/"

 

vs

exclude any:

Folder Mac path begins with "/Volumes/MacHD/System/Library/Caches/"

 

 

 

You'd *think* they are the same, but apparently for "begins with", they are not.

 

Maybe Robin can chime in on this next week?

 

 

(And I'm not exactly sure where you'd use a "begins with" as opposed to just a "contains" -- maybe somebody could offer up an example of why you would?)

[kswisher]

 

(And I'm not exactly sure where you'd use a "begins with" as opposed to just a "contains" -- maybe somebody could offer up an example of why you would?)

 

Because maybe you want to exclude /Library/Caches/ but not /System/Library/Caches/

 

How would you set up the exclusion rule without begins with?

[Maser]

Can you just say "folder Mac Path is /library/caches"?

 

(I'd have to test this, but I think that works...)

[Maser]

So, I chatted further with the engineer.

 

Seems like if you can use "contains" -- you should.

 

Some of the other identifiers (like "is") require explicit paths, like:

 

Folder Mac Path is /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Library/Caches

 

works

 

but

 

Folder Mac Path is /Library/Caches

 

does not.

 

 

They are "working to have this changed", but it's apparently not a trivial fix.

[kswisher]

Thats a bummer, since I don't control what users call their hard drive and RS does not seem to allow wild cards in path criteria.

 

 

[Maser]

Thats a bummer, since I don't control what users call their hard drive and RS does not seem to allow wild cards in path criteria.

 

 

 

Actually, it *does* allow wild card characters.

 

If you use "is like" you can then use a "*" for a wild card -- I've tried that:

 

Folder Mac Path is like *bin

 

brings up /bin and /sbin for example....

 

But I've not played with "is like" long enough to know what it's limitations are -- or if you can use a "*" with other qualifiers.

 

 

[Maser]

So, I tried this and it worked:

 

 

Folder Mac Path is like /Volumes/*/Users/Maser/S*

 

and all it selected were the folders in my home directory beginning with S.

 

However *is* -- did not work -- only "is like"

 

Try it on your end?

[kswisher]

So, I tried this and it worked:

 

Folder Mac Path is like /Volumes/*/Users/Maser/S*

 

and all it selected were the folders in my home directory beginning with S.

 

I tried the following on a client Mac (PPC). Source was favorites folder set to /Users/

 

Include files based on the following rules:

Any of the following are true

Folder Mac Path is like /Volumes/*/Users/*/Music/

 

Result - Selected no files.

[Maser]

Is it a question that the *preview* selected no files (which I think it still a bug), or that the actual *backup* did not select the files?

[kswisher]

No files get backed up! I have not been using preview.

 

Does the "path" change when using a favorite folder as source?

 

While waiting, I also tried "File Mac Path is like /Volumes/*/Users/*/Music/" , but again no files were selected.

 

Did get "Folder Name is Music" to work.

 

Also got "Folder Mac Path is like *Users/*/Musi*" to work.

 

Edited April 4, 2010 by Guest
added "*Users/*/Musi*" test

[kswisher]

Did some testing over the weekend. It seems the path is different depending on if you are selecting files/folders on server host vs client machine.

 

For Client backup, with sources set up as:

 

Clientname

Mac HD

Users

 

Regardless of source selected (Clientname, Mac HD, or Users)

 

Include files based on the following rules:

Any of the following are true

 

Folder Mac Path is like /*/Users/*/Music/, not work

Folder Mac Path is like */Mac HD/Users/*/Music/, not work

Folder Mac Path is like /Mac HD/Users/*/Music/, not work

 

Folder Mac Path is like */Users/*/Music/, works

Folder Mac Path is like *Mac HD/Users/*/Music/, works

Folder Mac Path is like Mac HD/Users/*/Music/, works

 

 

For boot drive on server host, with sources set up as:

 

iDad HD

Users

 

Include files based on the following rules:

Any of the following are true

 

Folder Mac Path is like iDad HD/Users/*/Documents/, not work

 

Folder Mac Path is like */iDad HD/Users/*/Documents/, works

Folder Mac Path is like /Volumes/*/Users/*/Documents/, works