Date in a BASH script...
 

Not sure if this is in the right place, but i'll go ahead....

I run a Red Hat Linux server from home and want to be able to keep weekly backups. I have an extra hard disk used for backups...

I know the command that I need to use to backup the system, the problem is I want to be able to set this up in a cron job so that it is automatically done every week. The other problem I have is that I want the filename of the backup to have the date in...

My conclusion is that I need to write a small bash script that gets the date and then runs the command to backup the system. For reference, the command I was going to use is:

sh -c RSH="/usr/bin/ssh" dump -0 -f '/backup/backup-DD-MM-YY' -u -j9 '/'

I need to get the bash script to run that command except change the DD-MM-YY to the relevant date.

I'm clueless about bash scripts so I haven't a clue.

TIA for any help recieved

Replace DD-MM-YY with:

`date +%e-%m-%y`

Including the `s
They execute what's inside and pass it's output

info date
For the maual for date

Thanks for the speedy reply.

However, it doesn't work. This is my script...

The script runs and starts the backup, however, the file name ends up as

backup-`date +%e-%m-%y'

Odd...

The 's stop it from executing properly.
You can do this instead

date +%e-%m-%y|xargs -ireplacethis dump -0 -f '/backup/backup-replacethis' -u -j9 '/'

That should work

Thanks, that works now.

No problemo
Read the info xargs page and play around with it. It's one of the most powerful programs in my opinion.

I always prefer to set the date up as a variable, such as:


#!/bin/bash
DATE=`date +%e-%m-%y`
dump -0 -f '/backup/backup-$DATE' -u -j9 '/'

Unfortunately I setup the cronjob to run the bash script and I instantly got an email from the Cron Daemon saying that it had failed. So instead I put the entire command "date +%e-%m-%y|xargs -ireplacethis dump -0 -f '/backup/backup-replacethis' -u -j9 '/'" as the command Cron must run.

All works fine now :)