[Q] Tell Git to follow symlinks?

Hi, list!

Sorry for a rather dumb question.

I'm trying to build a rudimentary GIT-based backup system for my remote host.

I want to put all relevant data (which is scattered throught the system) under single large Git backup-only (i.e. no development) repository.

And then on the remote system set cron to do something like

    git add . && git commit -m "`date`" && git gc

And on local system set cron to do git pull.

I thought to construct my repo of the number of symlinks to other places, but apparently Git does not follow any simlinks.

I have considered using zillion of git submodules, but looks like this solution would demand more work than I'd like to put in there.

Please give me some directions on the building such dumb backup system I want :)

Thanks in advance, Alexander.