UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi everyone,
I'm pretty new to rsync and I've been tasked to "fix" an existing .sh to make it work the way I need it to.

I have the following rsync set up on a cron job:

Code:

/usr/local/bin/rsync --stats -qPzrtpl --delete  --password-file=/var/run/.appprodrsync  
--log-file=/export/home/webuser/logs/rsync-extranet-log -FF  /export/home/ appprodrsync@appprod::dprweb_extranet/ >  
/export/home/webuser/logs/rsync-extranet-output 2>&1

and the following .rsync-filter file:

Code:

+ /das 
+ /em 
+ /enf 
+ /internal 
- /* 

+ /*/htdocs 
- /*/* 

+ /*/htdocs/docs 
- /*/htdocs/*

Currently, this setup synchronizes the "docs" folders for each subdirectory (Ex: ../das/htdocs/docs) which is what I need it to do. But it also deletes any other files and folders on the target directory which were migrated manually and ought to be excluded (Ex: ../das/htdocs/images or ../em/localdocs/). I want to continue to have the "docs" subfolders sync'd automatically but I need to be able to migrate files into it's parent directories manually without getting them wiped by rsync.

My question is how do I modify this script to only sync the "docs" subdirectories and leave any others untouched? I've looked at the man page of course but my understanding is that the --delete option should only affect files in the "docs" directories, and won't touch files excluded in the filter file.

Thanks for any help you can give, this is driving me crazy.
- Russell

Try --exclude-from=FILE read exclude patterns from FILE ?

That worked perfectly, thank you!
I guess I was under the impression that -FF worked the same as --exclude-from.