cute, quick hack I did to backup some directories on my server. There's probly a nicer way to do this, but this one works :)

#!/usr/bin/perl
 
  
$CONF_FILE="backup.conf";
$MOUNT_BACKUP_HD=""; # PLEASE set this HD up in your fstab if you use 
+it

if($MOUNT_BACKUP_HD) { system("mount $MOUNT_BACKUP_HD"); }
        
open(CONF, "< $CONF_FILE") || die "no config file found!\n";
$i=0;    
while(<CONF>)
{
 # Parse out comments.
 if(substr($_, 0,1) eq '#') { next; } 
 my @tmp = split(/\#/,$_);            
 $_ = $tmp[0];   
 chomp;
 # Alright, ready to split.  
 @line = split / /;
 $tarfile = shift @line; $array_tar[$i] = $tarfile; $i++;
 $dir = shift @line;
 $lref = \@line;
 
 backup($tarfile,$dir,$lref);
}
$tref = \@array_tar;
gzip($tref);  
        
if($MOUNT_BACKUP_HD) { system("umount $MOUNT_BACKUP_HD"); }
        
        
sub backup {
$tarfile = $_[0];
$dir     = $_[1]; 
$exc     = $_[2];

 print "****: ",$tarfile, " ", $dir;
 foreach $file (@$exc) { print " ",$file; } print "\n";
 
 $checkfile = $dir . '.tar';
 if(-e $tarfile && -e $tarfile) {

  open(LIST, "ls -1 $dir|");
  while(<LIST>){
        chomp;
        split / /;
        $_ = $_[0];
        $skip  = 0;
        foreach $file (@$exc) {
                if($_ eq $file) { $skip = 'yes'; }
        }
        if(!$skip)
        {
         $tarit = "tar -rf $tarfile " . $dir . $_;
         print $tarit . "\n";
         system($tarit);
        }
 
  }
 }
 elsif(-e $checkfile){
  $tarthis = "tar -cf $tarfile $checkfile";
  print $tarthis,"\n";
  system $tarthis;  
  backup($tarfile, $dir, $exc);
 }      
}
        
sub gzip {
$dir    = $_[0];

$i=0;
foreach $tar (@$dir) {
 $skip=0;
 foreach $check (@blah) {
  if( $tar eq $check ) { $skip = 1;}
 }
 if(!$skip) { $blah[$i] = $tar; $i++;}
}
foreach $tarfile (@blah) {
 $gzipit = 'gzip -f ' . $tarfile . '.gz ' . $tarfile;
 print $gzipit,"\n";
 system($gzipit);
 }
        
}

#End backup.pl

Example conf file.
#############################################
# Config file example: backup.conf
#
# /tar/file.tar /directory/path/ excluded_file excluded_directory
#
# You can have as many files/dir excluded as you wish..

/tmp/web.tar /www/htdocs/ spark realms noc doc
/tmp/web.tar /www/htdocs/spark/ noc
/tmp/web.tar /www/htdocs/realms/ 
/tmp/trilex.tar /home/trilex/code/
/tmp/talker.tar /home/trilex/public_html/
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