backup Shell script help

ali0123 · 08-29-2012, 07:13 AM

Hi guys complete noob here I am trying to write my first shell script that backs up the content of a directory by creating a new directory with the Date and time as the directory name. the requirement is that the date and time must be entered by the user. I can do as much, but It also needs to check if the user input is valid or not as well as when copying stuff into the new directory it needs to check the files that have the creation date and time before the user input date so far I have been able to come up with this

#
#
#Back Up Script
#
#
# To create a direcotry with the name backup and currnet date and time
echo "Please Enter the Date and Time of the backup in DD_MM_YYYYformat"
read backupDate
if[$backupDate == date +%d_%m_%Y ]
mkdir $backupDate
else
echo "Please make sure the date format is corrct and include "_" while putting date and time"
fi

#To Copy all the files from the current directory to the newly created back directory
#with the curent time and date stamp
#cp * Backup`date +%d_%m_%Y_%T`
cp * $backupDate
#gives the details of all the coppied files
##echo -n "Backup copy(ies) made - file count = "
##ls Backup`date +%d_%m_%Y_%T` | wc -l | sed "s/[ \n]*//g"

lot of the code is commented out as things just were not working and i am trying to test them one by one.
any help would be hugely appreciated

schneidz · 08-29-2012, 07:23 AM

the find command has a ctime argument for creation time.

ali0123 · 08-29-2012, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schneidz

the find command has a ctime argument for creation time.

thanks for the reply could you please elaborate a bit further I mean how do i implement it here?

unSpawn · 08-29-2012, 07:42 AM

...also it doesn't make sense to have a user enter the date as backup scripts tend to run as much unattended as possible (more than anything it's a discipline thing IMHO). And using DDMMYYYY looks nice but when you have to sort things "%Y%m%d_${HOSTNAME}" or "${HOSTNAME}_%Y%m%d_${LOGNAME}" or "%Y%m%d_${HOSTNAME}_${DIRECTORIES}" makes much more sense.

If you want to make it easier for a user you could use a simple menu like this:

Code:

select SELECTDATE in today custom ; do 
 case $SELECTDATE in
  today) USEDATE=$(/bin/date +'%Y%m%d');;
  *) echo -en "Set the date: "; read USEDATE;;
 esac; break; 
done; 
# Now "$USEDATE" is the string you can use to populate the tarball name with.

Such simple menus can also be used to query for use of other things like if the tarball name should contain the hostname, name of the current user, which directory or directories to back up, etc, etc.

Code:

function howto() { echo "Bash scripting guides:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html 
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/index.html 
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.html
http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sh.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ 
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls"; }

schneidz · 08-29-2012, 07:51 AM

heres how i would do part of it:

Code:

touch ali -d 2011-11-11
cp `find . -newer ali` /path/to/backup-dir

ali0123 · 08-29-2012, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unSpawn

...also it doesn't make sense to have a user enter the date as backup scripts tend to run as much unattended as possible (more than anything it's a discipline thing IMHO). And using DDMMYYYY looks nice but when you have to sort things "%Y%m%d_${HOSTNAME}" or "${HOSTNAME}_%Y%m%d_${LOGNAME}" or "%Y%m%d_${HOSTNAME}_${DIRECTORIES}" makes much more sense.

If you want to make it easier for a user you could use a simple menu like this:

Code:

select SELECTDATE in today custom ; do 
 case $SELECTDATE in
  today) USEDATE=$(/bin/date +'%Y%m%d');;
  *) echo -en "Set the date: "; read USEDATE;;
 esac; break; 
done; 
# Now "$USEDATE" is the string you can use to populate the tarball name with.

Such simple menus can also be used to query for use of other things like if the tarball name should contain the hostname, name of the current user, which directory or directories to back up, etc, etc.

Code:

function howto() { echo "Bash scripting guides:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html 
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/index.html 
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/index.html
http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sh.html
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ 
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls"; }

thanks for the response. getting the user input for the time and date is the Lecturer's requirement previously I had written it so that when backup script was called from the menu script it automatically created the folder with the current time and date copied every thing in and then just informed the number of copied files and listed them.
I am just trying to make the user input the date and time that can be matched with the current date and time?

unSpawn · 08-29-2012, 08:58 AM

Date yes, time no unless you only use "%H%M".

Code:

# So you can see what it does:
set -vx
echo "Please Enter the Date and Time of the backup in YYYYMMDD format: "; read BACKUPDATE
if [ "${BACKUPDATE}" = "$(/bin/date +"%Y%m%d" ]; then
 # commence
else
 # Epic fail on the users part. Clean up process, chide user, return to "Start".
fi
set +vx