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I want to back-up all files from my laptop partitions to external HDD.
I ran, for example
cp -a /med*/ravb*/*00 /med*/ravb*/M*L*/7.3GB_CP && echo "7.3GB BACKED UP PROPERLY" || echo "7.3GB FAILED TO BACK UP"
The issue is that dot files are also getting included which I don't want. What should I do so as to ignore all dot files for backing up.
Why not use rsync instead? It's made for the job!
rsync -uan --progress --exclude=".*" <source> <destination>
The above will list all the files to be archived without actually copying anything. Check that the list is correct, then run it again with the n option removed in order to copy the files (you could also remove the --progress for a quieter experience).
To expand, the options above are:-
u - 'update' - only copy newer files.
a - 'archive'
n - 'dry-run` - don't copy, just list what it would do.
--progress - show progress of copy
--exclude=".*" - exclude files that begin with a dot
rsync. It's a superb backup tool. Yes you are right, it's made for the job!!! Till now I've used tar, cpio & cp for backup. But this command rsync is the best. The task that seemed to be a bit complex, rsync made it very very easy & comfortable. Really a great versatile command. Had I used tar, then for viewing any backup file, I would have to open with tar archive application (which doesn't give a good interface to view) or I would have to recover from the archive. But with rsync no such issue.
--include='*/' before the exclusion, to include any directory. Otherwise this would skip hidden directories.