Tar exclusion list doesn't work anymore after upgrading to Debian stretch
I had the same problem with tar exclusions after upgrading from Debian Jessie to Stretch and I fixed it by just changing the commandline parameters order
from:
tar cvzpf backup.tar.gz /DirToBackup1 /DirToBackup2 --exclude-from=/path/to/backup_exclude.txt
to:
tar cvzpf backup.tar.gz --exclude-from=/path/to/backup_exclude.txt /DirToBackup1 /DirToBackup2
my backup_exclude.txt looks like this
/var/log/*
/cache/*
/.cache/*
(refering to the end of the page of https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/html_section/tar_49.html)