rsync back up of entire root system not working using --exclude?

Question

I am trying to do a system back up of my entire OS

I am using these command and both are not excluding the files I want

sudo rsync -avz --exclude="/tmp" --exclude="/sys" --exclude="/lost+found" --exclude="/mnt" --exclude="/proc" --exclude="/tmp" --exclude="/media" /* /home/willc86/backup/sudo rsync 

and the one I am trying that I searched online is

rsync -aAXv --exclude={"/dev/","/proc/","/sys/","/tmp/","/run/","/mnt/","/media/","/lost+found"} / /path/to/backup/folder

both are still copying everything and I am not sure why

Solution 1

I think you need add * after each sub dir such as /dev/* ...

rsync -aAXv --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found"} / /path/to/backup/folder

Solution 2

Try this one. I just removed the '/' from all the excludes.

sudo rsync -avz --exclude="tmp" --exclude="sys" --exclude="lost+found" --exclude="mnt" --exclude="proc" --exclude="dev" --exclude="media" / /home/willc86/backup/

Comments

[rubo77]

What is the commands? both works fine for me. maybe you are wondering, because you have not trailing slashes and it creates the whole folder inside the target again if you run it twice

[Maarten]

This did it for me, thanks!! When I would do OP's command (which I've found on other forums) it would also backup the /mnt folder which is where I was backing up to. When I excluded the way described it would exclude the folders correctly.

[rubo77]

this would ignore all folders, that are called "tmp", "sys", ... in each subdirectory. You have to start each folder with a slash

[rubo77]

Why would you have to add an asterisk and quotes? without asterisk the command already works fine for me, it ommits all those directories