T would like to use the tar command in Linux to back up some files, but i would like to exclude a specific directory from the archive.
How can I do that?
so, lets back up the directory /directory and everything in it, but ignoring any files called IGNORE-ME.
tar -cf backup.tar /directory --exclude "IGNORE-ME"
If it wasn't snowing out, i'd probably point out that man tar
is as good as RTFM (and google 'tar exclude file' is even faster).
You can also put all of the patterns in a file and use:
-X, --exclude-from=FILE
exclude files matching patterns listed in FILE