When backup up directories ...

Is there a way to have the backup files rename themselves when the backup runs each night so that there can be many existing in a folder? I guess what I'm asking is, is there a way to automate the backups to run nightly for a week and collect in a file where I will retrieve them once a week? Each zipped file for each day of the week would have its own unique name.

I want to have a history of zipped backups for each week, instead of replacing a single backup file nightly with the latest version.

Any way to automate this or will I definitely have to do this manually?

Thanks ...

This is probably similar to what you're looking for:

yes. i usuall create the backup file name from the current date and time using the date command:

Cool, thank you ..

So would the full command be something like this?



date_name=$(date +%y%m%d-%H%M%S)

23 9 * * * tar -cvf $(date_name).tar /backuppath /pathtobackup


Or am I setting it up incorrectly?

date_name=`date +%y%m%d-%H%M%S`

23 9 * * * tar -cvf /backuppath/${date_name}.tar /pathtobackup

Thanks ...

I tried it out and for the resulting backup file, I only get an unidentified-type file simply called "date".

Am I correct to be declaring the data variable in the cron job? Or do I need to declare that somewhere else?

you could put this stuff in a script, and then just call the script from cron...

and in cron:

i think you can do it from cron (without the script) if you want: