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Old 06-07-2007, 05:09 AM   #1
Joejr4u
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Registered: Nov 2006
Location: Dallas, TX
Distribution: SUSE 11, RHEL 6, Ubuntu
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Need tips on creating scripts for daily backup (tar) a directory to an external drive


Hi,

I need some tips on creating a script for daily backup of a large directory with tar to an external scsi drive.

The problem here is that, i need to have the script find the oldest tar archive and remove it so as to free space on the drive once its full (the size of the directory is between 80 and 100GB) and the size of the external drive is 500GB.

Also need to have a log file to keep track of the backup cuz i'm execute it as a cron job to run at night.

Would really appreciate ur kind suggestions? If possible an example script wuld help me speed things up. Its kinda urgent as i have to have it ready 2morow.

Thanks anyone.

Silverhawk.
 
Old 06-07-2007, 06:52 AM   #2
kees-jan
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Registered: Sep 2004
Distribution: Debian, Ubuntu, BeatrIX, OpenWRT
Posts: 273

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Remove the oldest file
Code:
rm "$(ls -rt | head -1)"
Remove all files, except the three most recent ones
Code:
rm $(ls -t | sed -e '1,3d')
Note that for this last example, filenames cannot have spaces

Groetjes,

Kees-Jan
 
Old 06-07-2007, 07:46 AM   #3
fayez
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Registered: Aug 2004
Location: Amman
Distribution: Red Hat
Posts: 50

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Or you can use the find command:

#find /bigdir -mtime +n -exec rm {}\;

where n is days, for example if you want to remove files created before 2 days replace n by 2. to be sure about the functionality of this command try it first with ls command:
#find /bigdir -mtime +n -exec ls -ltr {}\;
 
  


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