Shell Programming and Scripting

In a bash script I am writing I am having a problem excluding selected directories from tar.
From the machine $SERVER I issue the command
#start netcat on storage server
gnetcat -l -vv -p 2011 >$FILEPATH/$SHORT_NAME.$today.tar &

The the following command is then sent to the $CLIENT.
#start backup sequence
ssh $CLIENT sudo tar cvvf - / --exclude /{db,dev,lost+found,proc} | gnetcat -w 2 -c $SERVER 2011
This has always worked ok and I am able to successfully pipe the output of tar to gnetcat and on to the storage server $SERVER. The directories db, dev, lost+found and proc are excluded from the tar as desired.


A problem shows up when I use find -mtime to try and limit the tar to only files changed in the last n days.
ssh $CLIENT sudo find / -mtime -3 -type -f | ssh $CLIENT sudo tar cvvf - / --exclude /{db,dev,lost+found,proc} |gnetcat -w 2 $SERVER 2011
Tar ignores the --exclude list and recurses through the excluded directories including files found in them. I am trying to update only files changed in the last 3 days and exclude any files in the db, dev, lost+found and proc directories.

I could use some help understanding what I am doing wrong here.

You are explicitly including the files by using the find command, using find with the prune option to perform the directory exclusions should work for you.

I have been trying to work out the syntax to use prune but so far havent been successful.
What I am trying to accomplish is to list all files with -mtime -3 except for certain directories, (/dev, /proc, db, lost+found). I am sure that I am misunderstanding the man pages, but even the archives here and google havent cleared up what it is that I dont understand.

I have tried dozens of variations with varying degrees of output but no success.

find / -mtime -3 -wholename '/db' -prune -wholename '/dev' -prune -wholename '/proc' -prune

This one produces only two lines of output "/dev", "/proc".
find / \( -type d -regex "/dev" -prune \) -o \( -type d -regex "/proc" -prune \) -o \( -type d -regex "/media" -prune \) -type f -mtime -3

Could someone give me a clue as to how to accomplish this, I really am lost right now.