A Physical - Path policy classification is a set of Included Paths, Exclude Paths and Filters. Paths must be specified following the rules listed below:
General path rules:
- Only directories can be specified by a path; files cannot.
- A path specification is only considered to refer to the leaf node of the path. For example:
/path_element_1/path_element_2
only refers to the path_element_2 leaf node.
- /home/ is the same as /home. The trailing delimiter is ignored.
- An included path must be defined to be a valid classification.
- An excluded path will never implicitly include other paths.
- An excluded path will be ignored if it is not a sub directory of an included path.
- For example, if /home is set as both an included path and an excluded path, it will be included. This is because the excluded path it is not a sub-path of the included path.
- Only local files are backed up. Filesystem walking will not continue beyond a remote mount point.
Windows specific path rules:
- A windows path must start with <drive letter>:\ (<drive letter> can be an actual drive letter or a * or ?).
- Delimiters can be / or \ and can be mixed within a path specification.
Posix specific path rules:
- A Posix path must start with /
- Delimiters can only be /
Wild card rules:
- The following characters that have special meaning in a path specification:
- * matches zero or more characters.
- ? matches only a single character.
- If a path element contains a * it only matches directories at that level.
- Any number of * and ? wildcards can be used in a path.
File filters:
- A file filter will only match files not directories.
- The same wildcard rules apply; directories will not be matched.
Path examples:
| Example | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| /home/** | Selects all directories immediately beneath /home. The second * has no effect. |
| /home/*d | Selects all directories immediately beneath /home ending in d. The directory /home is not selected. |
| /home/? | Selects all directories immediately beneath /home that have a name that is exactly 1 character long. The directory /home is not selected. |
| /home/* | Selects all directories immediately beneath /home. The directory /home is not selected. |
| ?:\ | Selects all Windows drives, as will *:\ |
| /h*/*m* | Selects all directories that contain an m, that are beneath all directories at the root level starting with h. |
| /h*m* | Selects all directories at the root level that start with h and also have m in the name. Note that a directory named /hm would be selected since * matches zero or more characters. |
| /h*me | Selects all directories at the root level that starts with h followed by any number of characters and ending with me. |
| /h?me | Selects all directories at the root level that starts with h followed by any single character and ending with me. |