unix

How do I exclude files from a tarball using the tar command?

You can use two different methods to exclude files from a tarball using GNU tar:

1. Use the –exclude option like the example below:

# tar -cvf /tmp/backup.tar –exclude=’tmp’ –exclude=’temp’ /data

2. Use the -X flag and create a file list:

# tar -cvf /tmp/backup.tar -X /tmp/exclude_list /data

# cat /tmp/exclude_list
tmp
temp

Both methods will exclude the files or directories /data/tmp and /data/temp from the tar archive. To confirm, you can run

tar -tf /tmp/backup.tar

and confirm that the excluded files are not in the tarball.

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