Excluding Select Folders From Being Backed Up

There are times when you might be storing a large static dataset in your home directory, but you do not need that data backed up to our nightly tape/disk-based backup system. If this is the case, you may configure your data not to be backed up by that system.

To exclude your data from our backups:

• Move your static data (including its subfolders) into a separate folder in your home directory.

• cd to your new data folder.

• In your new data folder, create a file named .nsr and edit it to include the following:

skip: . 

NOTE: An easy way to create the file without editing it by hand is, first, make sure you're in your new data folder, and then use the following command:

echo 'skip: .' >.nsr

Having the .nsr file in place in your new data directory will exclude from backup that same entire data directory, including non-static (dynamic) files (e.g., code that changes, notes that are appended to, etc.), and its subfolders, so we recommend keeping any code or other data that can change in a different directory from the dataset(s).