[vbox-dev] Using xattrs to exclude disk images from time machine under OSX

[Andrew Melo]

Hello,

I am looking to implement enabling a setting for Virtualbox to
automatically set the
"com.apple.metadata:com_apple_backup_excludeItem" xattr for newly
created disk images, most probably hooked into the global/per-VM
extradata somewhere under the VboxInternal tree. This xattr will cause
time machine to ignore the file when backing up, without having to
manually add the directories where Virtualbox is storing the images.

Why don't I just add ~/Virtualbox\ VMs to the exclusion? Because
there's some applications which integrate kicking off a VM for
testing, and the images are stored next to the rest of the application
state.

Looking through the source tree, the change looks to be
straightforward, but I don't want to take the time to make a patch if
this feature wouldn't be considered for inclusion.

Thanks!
Andrew

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Andrew Melo