Excluding Specific Files or File Types From Backup

 

In addition to explicitly specifying excluded paths in the backup job definition, each client system may have a list of parameters that will cause the backup operation to exclude specific files, directories, or file types for any backup.  This file is the ‘bruxpat’ (BRU eXclusions PATtern) file.  It is placed within the actual agent install directory on each client system.

 

    These directories are –

 

    macOS and Unix variants

 

        “/usr/local/bru-server”

 

    On Windows Systems

 

        “C:\Program Files (x86)\TOLIS Group\BRU Server Agent Configuration\“

 

There are sample files included within the directories that may be viewed for further details.  This is a plain text file that contains a list of patterns to match for exclusion.  While the patterns my be defined as either standard shell patterns (xs) or regular expressions (xr), most users will find the shell patterns easier to work with.  A simple exclusion of all MP3, WMA, and AAC files would be:

 

xs */*.mp3

xs */*.MP3

xs */*.wma

xs */*.WMA

xs */*.m4a

xs */*.m4p

 

To accomplish this with a regular expression exclude pattern, you could use:

 

xr */*.[mM][PpMm4][3aAp]

 

This says in any directory, match any file that has an extension with a first character m or M, a second character P, p, M, m, or 4, and a last character of 3, a, A, or p.

 

    Note:  If you receive a message line in your logs that reads:

 

bru: [W140] error - unable to read include/exclude pattern file: "/usr/local/bru-server/bruxpat". Archive may contain unexpected files.

 

You should create the missing “bruxpat” file on the client system being backed up.  The path to where the file is expected to be found is listed in the message.  If you are not actively adding files for exclusion, you may simply “touch” the file to eliminate this message.

 

sudo touch /usr/local/bru-server/bruxpat

sudo chmod 777 /usr/local/bru-server/bruxpat