Excluding Files from Managed Backups

Yes. Because our Managed Backup service relies on the industry-standard rsync protocol, you can use flexible filter rules to exclude specific files or directories from being backed up.

This is useful for skipping temporary files, cache directories, or large non-critical data (like .log.gz archives) to save space and speed up the backup process.

How it works

To create an exclusion rule, you simply place a file named .rsync-filter inside the directory you want to configure. The backup agent checks this file before processing the folder.

Scenario 1: Excluding specific file types

Example: You want to backup the /var/log folder, but you want to skip all compressed (.gz) files to save space.

1. Create the file /var/log/.rsync-filter.
2. Add the following content:

- *.gz

The minus sign (-) tells the system to exclude any file ending in .gz.

Scenario 2: Excluding specific sub-directories (Root Filter)

Example: You want to manage all exclusions centrally from the root of your server.

1. Create the file /.rsync-filter (in the root directory).
2. Add the paths you want to ignore:

- /var/cache/
- /home/user/downloads/
- /tmp/

Scenario 3: Excluding an entire directory content

Example: You have a directory /var/www/temp-data that exists, but its contents should never be backed up.

1. Create the file /var/www/temp-data/.rsync-filter.
2. Add the following content:

# Keep the filter file itself (so the rule persists)
+ .rsync-filter

# Exclude everything else in this folder
- *