Using duply (and thus duplicity) to backup my Linux server

Aim is to backup selected contents of my Linux server to Amazon S3. This is a work in progress. Linux box is a standard Ubuntu 15.04 desktop install.

1. Install and configure duply as described here: http://old.blog.phusion.nl/2013/11/11/duplicity-s3-easy-cheap-encrypted-automated-full-disk-backups-for-your-servers/ .
   
   I used the version in the default repository rather than adding the PPA
   
   
2. Added the following lines to the ~/.duply/home/conf file ("home" is the name of my duply backup profile) since I'm in Europe:
export S3_USE_SIGV4="True"
export DUPLY_PARAMS="$DUPLY_PARAMS --s3-use-rrs --s3-use-multiprocessing --s3-use-new-style --s3-european-buckets"
3. My boot drive is a small-ish SSD and all my data (music, photos, everything I use) resides on a separate non-SSD drive, with symlinks from the SSD-based home directory to directories on the non-SSD drive. This is so I can install a new OS without wiping all my data. duply/duplicity doesn't like backing up symlinks, so I needed to set the SOURCE variable in the ~/.duply/home/conf file to the location of my data on the non-SSD drive. Setting it to ~/ on the SSD drive results in no backups being taken!
4. I wanted only to backup selected directories. I needed to ensure that duply ignored all fies and directories in the $SOURCE directory that I didn't list explicitly:
- **/dir1/dontbackup
+ **/dir1
- **/*
- **/.*
- **This backs up dir1 but omits the sub-dir dontbackup. It also omits all other files and directories in $SOURCE, including hidden files and directories. In this example, only dir1 (minus the contents of dontbackup) will be backed up.
5. Backup is initiated manually with:
   sudo duply home backup