Filters allow you to include or exclude files and directories from your backup or restore jobs. For example, you could create a filter to exclude all files that were backed up before a certain date. You could also filter a job to exclude files from a particular directory. Use the filters to help focus on the files you want.
For backup jobs, global filtering is applied to all hosts. Node filtering is applied to the selected host. Volume (disk) filtering is applied to the individual file system. This makes it easy for you to create a job that best suits your needs, one that contains only the data that you want.
One thing you should be aware of is that exclusions will always take precedence over inclusions. For example, if in the File Pattern filter you select to include only files that have a .doc extension, and in the Directory Pattern filter you select to exclude your /work directory, all .doc files in the /work directory will be excluded.
Specifying to "Include" files will result in a backup or restore containing only those files which satisfy the filter specifications. For example, suppose in the source area you selected to back up your entire local hard drive, and you then set up a Directory Pattern filter to include files in the /bin directory. The result would be that ARCserveIT would only back up files from your /bin directory. No other files would be backed up.
ARCserveIT provides the ability to apply filtering on a global level (per job) and/or on a local source level (per host). When applying similar filters on both the global and local level, a union of the two is created. The filter selected for the particular level is performed, although the exclude over include rule still applies.
If you do not specify any filters for a job, ARCserveIT will include all files that are on the selected source.
You have the option of including and excluding files based on the following criteria:
For the basic steps in setting both local (per host) and global (per job) filters, see `Applying filters - the basic steps'. For more detailed information associated with each filter type see: