Cut to the bottom for my problem. The rest is background. I have searched and read everything I could find, especially with explicit examples, on rdiff control for the last 2 days. All examples seemed very simple, which is fine to start with. But they have not helped me get started with the most basic tests.
I have little/no familiarity with "regular expressions"; that language looks like very evil gobbledy-gook to me. However, I have been using simple wild card filters with *, ? format forever. rdiff seems to use some kind of hybrid, in fact _two_ hybrids because the "filelist" files format appears to operate differently than the command line format. I use filelists because it is considerably easier to view and understand multiple file selection specs in that format. Clearly I have a very basic misunderstanding, at the lowest level. Here are console printouts which I hope show what I have done and make it easy for somebody experienced to immediately point out problems. == test directory: rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin> dir total 600 -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 67 Feb 16 17:24 aud-link.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 3759 May 3 23:39 bad-world_rant.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 3981 Feb 9 13:00 bernie-rant.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 584635 Feb 3 16:13 bldg_bath_fans_FineHomeBuilding.pdf drwxr-xr-x 3 rufus users 4096 Apr 17 17:01 dir1 drwxr-xr-x 2 rufus users 4096 May 11 08:03 dir2 drwxr-xr-x 6 rufus users 4096 May 12 07:55 dir3 drwxr-xr-x 2 rufus users 4096 May 12 08:16 dir4 rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin> == test directory, 2nd level - #a rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin/dir3> dir total 40 drwxr-xr-x 4 rufus users 4096 May 11 08:07 CL_pics -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 11 09:37 f-test drwxr-xr-x 3 rufus users 4096 May 11 09:16 maps -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test-1.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test-2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 6 May 7 08:43 M_test2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test.next.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 6 May 7 08:44 m_test.txt drwxr-xr-x 2 rufus users 4096 May 12 07:55 Next-Dir drwxr-xr-x 4 rufus users 4096 May 11 09:16 pics rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin/dir3> == test directory, 2nd level - #b rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin/dir4> dir total 24 -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test-2.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test-41.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test-42.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 6 May 7 08:43 M_test42.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 2 May 12 07:48 m_test.4next.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 rufus users 6 May 7 08:44 m_test.txt rufus@Air-PC:~/WK/testin/dir4> There are other dirs, but they don't factor until I can at least get started. == Here is the script I use to run rdiff: rufus@Air-PC:~/bin> cat rdiff_test2.sh #!/bin/bash rdiff-backup -v5 --include-globbing-filelist rdiff_filelist-test_2.txt \ ./testin \ testout2 == Here is the filelist: rufus@Air-PC:~/WK> cat rdiff_filelist-test_2.txt + /home/rufus/WK/testin/** - ** rufus@Air-PC:~/WK> ==Here is my test run: rufus@Air-PC:~/WK> rdiff_test2.sh Using rdiff-backup version 2.0.0 with cpython /usr/bin/python3 version 3.6.10 on Linux-4.12.14-lp151.28.48-default-x86_64-with-glibc2.3.4, fs encoding utf-8 Found interrupted initial backup. Removing... Unable to import module posix1e from pylibacl package. POSIX ACLs not supported on filesystem at testin Unable to import win32security module. Windows ACLs not supported by filesystem at testin ----------------------------------------------------------------- Detected abilities for source (read only) file system: Access control lists Off Extended attributes On Windows access control lists Off Case sensitivity On Escape DOS devices Off Escape trailing spaces Off Mac OS X style resource forks Off Mac OS X Finder information Off ----------------------------------------------------------------- Unable to import module posix1e from pylibacl package. POSIX ACLs not supported on filesystem at testout2/rdiff-backup-data/rdiff-backup.tmp.0 Unable to import win32security module. Windows ACLs not supported by filesystem at testout2/rdiff-backup-data/rdiff-backup.tmp.0 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Detected abilities for destination (read/write) file system: Ownership changing Off Hard linking On fsync() directories On Directory inc permissions On High-bit permissions On Symlink permissions Off Extended filenames On Windows reserved filenames Off Access control lists Off Extended attributes On Windows access control lists Off Case sensitivity On Escape DOS devices Off Escape trailing spaces Off Mac OS X style resource forks Off Mac OS X Finder information Off ----------------------------------------------------------------- Backup: escape_dos_devices = 0 Backup: escape_trailing_spaces = 0 Reading globbing filelist rdiff_filelist-test_2.txt Fatal Error: Fatal Error: The file specification 'b'/home/rufus/WK/testin/**'' cannot match any files in the base directory 'b'testin'' Useful file specifications begin with the base directory or some pattern (such as '**') which matches the base directory. rufus@Air-PC:~/WK> ==Here is the test using "*" instead of "**" (and with -v3) rufus@Air-PC:~/WK> rdiff_test2.sh Fatal Error: Fatal Error: The file specification 'b'/home/rufus/WK/testin/*'' cannot match any files in the base directory 'b'testin'' Useful file specifications begin with the base directory or some pattern (such as '**') which matches the base directory. rufus@Air-PC:~/WK> The above two test results make absolutely no sense to me. And yes, I am including and then excluding the whole tree. This is a test to figure out just how the heck rdiff works, not a production run. Based on the docs, prior lines take precedence and I would expect one or both or those tests to copy the whole tree. It's likely something extremely simple, but I'm going in circles and don't see it. Thanks for thoughts. Regards, Rufus