Excluding files from a backup

This guide shows how to exclude files and directories from a backup using ignore patterns.

When backing up a source directory, not all files are worth preserving. Some are large and easily regenerated (build artifacts, dependency directories like node_modules or vendor), some are temporary (cache files, lock files, log files), and some are sensitive and should not be stored in a backup repository (secrets, local environment files).

Excluding these from your backups reduces storage usage, speeds up backup and restore operations, and keeps your snapshots focused on only the important files.

The plakar backup command supports the -ignore and -ignore-file options to exclude files from a backup. These options use patterns with a syntax similar to .gitignore files.

For the examples below, we assume the following directory structure in /var/files/demo:

/var/files/demo
├── .cache
│   └── index.db
├── .config
├── .env
├── .env.local
├── .git
│   ├── config
│   └── hooks
├── build
│   ├── app.bin
│   └── app.o
├── config
│   ├── config.local.yaml
│   └── config.yaml
├── Documents
│   ├── Invoices
│   │   ├── invoice1.pdf
│   │   └── invoice2.pdf
│   └── Reports
│       ├── report1.docx
│       └── report2.docx
├── logs
│   ├── app.log
│   └── error.log
├── node_modules
│   ├── module1.js
│   └── module2.js
├── Pictures
│   ├── Family
│   │   └── photo1.jpg
│   └── Vacation
│       └── photo2.png
├── src
│   ├── main.go
│   ├── secret.key
│   └── utils.go
├── tmp
│   ├── cache.db
│   └── tempfile.tmp
└── vendor
    └── github.com
        ├── lib1.go
        └── lib2.go

And we assume the backup command is:

$ plakar at /var/backups backup -ignore-file ./excludes.txt /var/files

You can use -ignore multiple times with different patterns, or use -ignore-file with a file containing one pattern per line. The result is the same.

/var/files/demo/vendor

node_modules

In this case, both /var/files/demo/node_modules and /var/files/demo/src/node_modules would be ignored.

**/.git/config

Here, the double asterisk ** is required.

When a path pattern contains multiple parts, it is evaluated relative to the root directory /.

**/tmp/*
!**/tmp/cache.db

*
!**/*.pdf
!**/*.docx