Ubuntu – Using rsync with exclude/include

I would recommend you to use rsync instead, it will allow you to do a live system to system real synchronization without the need of temporary files. It also provides the benefit of doing incremental updates when you need to update the clone.

I would exclude only: /proc/ /sys /dev /tmp /mnt On the clone system you will need to make sure /etc/fstab and /boot/grub/grub.cfg are updated with the UUIDs of the clone systems partitions.

If you have a database like mysql you will need to be carefull and stop the DB before performing the copy.

There are several issues with your rsync command (also see manpage for rsync for detailed explanation of filter rules).

• we need an --exclude command each for any given pattern.
• paths given need to be relative to the source path (no absolute paths).
• options need to be given before we state source and destination.

For your example the following syntax will work:

rsync -avAX --exclude=another/ --exclude=temp/ ~/Documents/ ~/Backups/TEST

Note that if an exlude pattern ends with / it refers to a directory. If you omit it both, files and directories with that name will be excluded. Replace it with a wildcard * to exclude all files or directories with that string in their names.