Excluding items from a backup

What you can exclude from a backup

You can exclude the following items from a backup:

Data in qtrees
Specified files

About excluding all data in qtrees

You can back up all data in a specified volume that is not in a qtree. The specified volume is the dump path. You use this method if you back up on a qtree basis and want to back up the remaining data in a volume. Usually, the data in qtrees changes frequently, while the remaining data, such as configuration files, changes rarely.

Note
You cannot do incremental backups using this method.

Excluding all data in qtrees

To back up all non-qtree data in a specified volume, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Use the `Q` option in the command line.

Example

The following command backs up all items in /vol/vol0 that are not in a qtree:

About excluding specified files

You can exclude a list of files and all files that match a specified pattern. You specify a pattern to avoid backing up classes of files that you don't want, such as files that end with .core.

Rules for excluding specified files

The rules for constructing a string for excluding files are as follows:

A string can be a file name.
You can use the asterisk (*) as a wildcard character.
The wildcard character must be the first or last character of the string. Each string can contain up to two wildcard characters. For example, you can specify *.core, core.*, or *core.*, but not core*.1.
If you have more than one string, you must separate the strings with a comma.
You cannot have a comma in the file name or pattern.
You can specify up to 32 strings.

Excluding specified files

To exclude files from a backup, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Use the `X` option in the command line.
2	Include a string or comma-separated list of strings as an argument to the `X` option.

Example

The following command backs up all items in /vol/vol0 except for the file dontbackup and all files that end in .core: