Help with rsync excludes not working

Question

I'm trying to setup rsync to keep an image on the my external drive current. I've got 4 partitions to deal with: /, /boot, /home, /usr. I want to mount each one in turn and sync each with the internal drive. One problem I'm having is that excluded files are not being excluded. I've experimented with a few patterns but none do the trick. I'm setting the exclude pattern relative to the source but it's not working.

This log snippet of the /home/ sync shows the excluded files being copied:

    --begin snippet--
    backing up /home/ via rsync to: /media/Ubuntu_Backup...
    sudo rsync -a -x -i -h -v -A -X -H --delete --inplace --numeric-ids --compare-dest=./ -n --exclude='*/lost+found/**' --exclude='*/Downloads/**' --exclude='*/.cache/**' --exclude='*/.thumbnails' --exclude='*/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/Cache' /home/ /media/Ubuntu_Backup
    sending incremental file list
    .d..t...... kmiller/
    >f..t...... kmiller/.vim_mru_files
    >f.st...... kmiller/.viminfo
    >f.st...... kmiller/.zsh_history
    >f.st...... kmiller/backup.log
    >f.st...... kmiller/cron.log
    .d..t...... kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/
    *deleting   kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/f_000806
    >f..t...... kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/data_0
    >f..t...... kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/data_1
    >f..t...... kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/data_2
    >f..t...... kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/data_3
    >f+++++++++ kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/f_00080a
    >f+++++++++ kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/f_00080b
    >f+++++++++ kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/f_00080c
    >f+++++++++ kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/f_00080d
    >f+++++++++ kmiller/.cache/google-chrome-beta/Default/Cache/f_00080e
    --end of snippet--

The other problem I was having is that rsync was creating a duplcate directory structure within the target dir i.e. a /usr/ dir inside the /usr on the target. The --compare-dest=./ seemed to stop that but I don't fully understand why.

This is the script I'm developing to do the job:

#!/usr/bin/zsh
typeset -A FILESYSTEMS
typeset -A NAMES

MOUNTPOINT='/media/Ubuntu_Backup'
LOGFILE='/home/kmiller/backup.log'

OPTIONS=('-a') #archive
OPTIONS+=('-x') #don't cross file system boundaries
OPTIONS+=('-i') #itemize changes
OPTIONS+=('-h') #human readable output
OPTIONS+=('-v') #verbose
OPTIONS+=('-A') #preserve ACLS
OPTIONS+=('-X') #preserve extended attributes
OPTIONS+=('-H') #preserve hard links
OPTIONS+=('--delete') #delete extraneous
OPTIONS+=('--inplace') #update files directly (faster - no building temp copies)
OPTIONS+=('--numeric-ids') #no translation of UID,GID - needed for proper restores
OPTIONS+=('--compare-dest=./') #
OPTIONS+=('-n') #dry run

FILESYSTEMS=('/' '/dev/sdb6')
FILESYSTEMS+=('/boot/' '/dev/sdb1')
FILESYSTEMS+=('/usr/' '/dev/sdb8')
FILESYSTEMS+=('/home/' '/dev/sdb7')

ROOTEXCLUDES=("--exclude='boot/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='usr/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='home/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='dev/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='proc/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='sys/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='tmp/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='run/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='mnt/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='media/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='lost+found/*'")
ROOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='etc/fstab'")

BOOTEXCLUDES=("--exclude='lost+found/*'")
BOOTEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='grub/grub.cfg'")

USREXCLUDES=("--exclude='lost+found/*'")

HOMEEXCLUDES=("--exclude='*/lost+found/*'")
HOMEEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='*/Downloads/*'")
HOMEEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='*/.cache'")
HOMEEXCLUDES+=("--exclude='*/.thumbnails'")

NAMES=('/' 'ROOT' '/boot/' 'BOOT' '/usr/' 'USR' '/home/' 'HOME')

is_mounted () {
    mount | grep "$1" || return 1
    return 0
}

if [[ ! -d $MOUNTPOINT ]];then
    echo "creating $MOUNTPOINT..."
    sudo mkdir $MOUNTPOINT || {echo "$0 failed - Problem creating mount dir: $MOUNTPOINT" && exit;}
fi

rm -rf $LOGFILE

#unmount any target backup partitons if they happen to be mounted
for FS in ${(k)FILESYSTEMS};do
    if is_mounted ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]};then
        sudo umount ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]} || {echo "$0 - Problem unmounting: $MOUNTPOINT" && exit;}
    fi
done

echo -e "\nStarting partition backups..."
for FS in ${(k)FILESYSTEMS};do
    EXCLUDES=$(eval echo \$${NAMES[${FS}]}EXCLUDES)
    echo "-------------------------------------------------------"
    echo "mounting ${FS} partition: ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]}..."
    sudo mount ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]} $MOUNTPOINT || {echo "$0 - Problem mounting: ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]} $MOUNTPOINT" && exit;}
    echo "backing up ${FS} via rsync to: $MOUNTPOINT..." | tee -a $LOGFILE 2>&1
    echo "sudo rsync ${OPTIONS} ${EXCLUDES} ${FS} /media/Ubuntu_Backup" >> ${LOGFILE} 2>&1
    eval sudo rsync ${OPTIONS} ${EXCLUDES} ${FS} /media/Ubuntu_Backup >> ${LOGFILE} 2>&1 || {echo -e "WARNING: rsync returned an error: $rc\nSee backup.out for details!" && exit;}
    df ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]} | tee -a $LOGFILE 2>&1
    echo "unmounting ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]}"
    sleep 2
    sudo umount ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]} || {echo "$0 failed - Problem unmounting partition: ${FILESYSTEMS[$FS]}" && exit;}
done
echo -e "Finished partition backups...\n"

Any advice/insights are welcome...

Answer 1

After doing more testing, I realized that if I executed the rsync command generated in the script at the command line, it works perfectly. Therefore, I could only assume there is some issue with expansion or interpretation within the scripting environment that I don't fully understand. The fix is to eval the rsync command and I edited the original post to reflect that.