Excluding Pathname Patterns in Copy

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Following good configuration management practices, we keep our Cfengine repository in Subversion. A side effect is that our master location contains all these .svn directories with the Subversion meta-data inside them. This results in copy operations pulling the .svn directories and their contents to all the clients.

I had tried using the exclude command to filter out the .svn directories:

copy:
 $(master_cfinput)
   dest=$(workdir)/inputs
   r=inf
   mode=0644
   type=binary
   server=$(policyhost)
   trustkey=true
   exclude=.svn # also tried .svn/* */.svn/*
   purge=true

However, I soon discovered that didn't work, based on this output (snippet):

Checking copy from cfengine.mycompany.net:/var/cfengine-repository/inputs to /var/cfengine/inputs
[snip]
Opening /var/cfengine-repository/inputs/.svn->/var/cfengine/inputs/.svn
Opening /var/cfengine-repository/inputs/.svn/prop-base->/var/cfengine/inputs/.svn/prop-base
cfengine:cftest: /var/cfengine/inputs/.svn/prop-base/cfagent.conf.svn-base wasn't at destination (copy
ing)
cfengine:cftest: Copying from cfengine.pd.qpass.net:/var/cfengine-repository/inputs/.svn/prop-base/cfa
gent.conf.svn-base
cfengine:cftest: Object /var/cfengine/inputs/.svn/prop-base/cfagent.conf.svn-base had permission 600,
changed it to 644
cfengine:cftest: /var/cfengine/inputs/.svn/prop-base/cf.users.svn-base wasn't at destination (copying)
cfengine:cftest: Copying from cfengine.pd.qpass.net:/var/cfengine-repository/inputs/.svn/prop-base/cf.
users.svn-base
cfengine:cftest: Object /var/cfengine/inputs/.svn/prop-base/cf.users.svn-base had permission 600, chan
ged it to 644
[etc.]

...and surmised the exclude command only matches file names, not directories.

So after more experimenting, reading docs and searching around, I came across the filters action, and realized I could use it. After trying different approaches, I finally arrived at the result for which I was searching:

copy:
 $(master_cfinput)
   dest=$(workdir)/inputs
   r=inf
   mode=0644
   type=binary
   server=$(policyhost)
   trustkey=true
   filter=filter_no_svn_dirs
   purge=true

filters:
 { filter_no_svn_dirs
   NameRegex: ".*/\.svn(/.*)?$"
   Result: "!NameRegex"
 }

I can then use this filter in any subsequent copy action. I guess it would be nice to be able to define a global filter so I wouldn't have to do this, but I'm happy I have something that works.

Please post feedback if you enjoyed this article and found it useful.

Xqnstyl 18:08, 13 April 2007 (EDT)

See also ignore.

--Mwr 22:36, 22 April 2007 (EDT)

I found out that with this filter, directories are not copied, but subdirectories at the destination that do not exist at the source are still purged! I consider this a bug.

--Svenxy 07:47, 15 August 2007 (EDT)