Shell script running via crontab problem.

thetruethugg · 12-18-2003, 03:40 PM

Ok, so I'm doing this via my webhost (oktagone). Through Cpanel's UI to crontab. I'm using this script to create a backup of my MySQL database hourly for the times I can't be there to do it myself, I want it time stamped so files are not overwritten (incase the database get's f'ed up, I don't want the backup to be that of a f'ed database).

I'm running this script:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
date=`date -I`
/usr/bin/mysqldump --user=USER --password=PASS --complete-insert --add-drop-table DATABASE | gzip -cf9 > /home/thugg/ibforums$date.gz

Ok, the problem is, the file name contains an illegal char (at least I assume that). I can't delete it, rename it, nothing. I'm going to email them and ask them to do it for me (since they can by inode) I assume that the date variable has a line break character after it, anyone know for sure? I think I may need to add something to remove the illegal char from the date variable, but I'm not sure what the illegal char is, or how to do that. :/

Anyway, if someone could help me rectify this problem, that would be great. I would email them but they'll probably just say "We can have a technician write/correct your script for $30/hour" like they did last time. It's probably a simple fix to those more familier with linux.

Also, the script is being run with the command "/bin/sh /home/thugg/sqlbackup.sh", and I know it's executing (there's about 8 of these backups I can't do s**t with).

Tinkster · 12-18-2003, 04:30 PM

Fist of all, congratulations to your foul language,
we don't see that very often these places.

Secondly, for a diagnosis of the file-name
problem it would help to see the output of
a
ls -l /home/thugg/ibforums*.gz

Cheers,
Tink

miaviator278 · 12-18-2003, 04:51 PM

man tar
man cpio
and the bash programming how to
and the sh how to
should tell you how to make properly dated backups that u can use.

thetruethugg · 12-18-2003, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tinkster
[B]Fist of all, congratulations to your foul language,
we don't see that very often these places.

Yeah, sorry about that, it's my normal everyday language.

Since I don't have a shell access via telnet or something else, It's not easy for me to do ls, I would have to do it as a cron job that outputs to a file so I can read it. As for the man pages I've read a few. I mainly went off of mysqldump at mysql.com. It's where I originally found the $date thing. I'll read the other ones, though I don't want to tar the output, I just wanted to exactly the same as cpanel does it (and so for the mysqldump command with those options is exactly that, aswell as the gzip). I just wanted it automated and time stamped so It would never overwrite.

thetruethugg · 12-19-2003, 12:26 AM

Ok, I did the ls (cheaply using crontab, lol). I used the long, all and inode options (-lia). Now I can at least delete via the inode, anyway.

Code:

4088551 -rw-r--r--    1 thugg    thugg      485628 Dec 18 15:20 /home/thugg/ibforums-2003-12-18
.gz

NOTE: The reason for the line break is because the output has the line break char in the file name, so it is infact the line break character. Also I cropped the output to this single line, 'tis all that's needed.

Now I hope all I need is a line to remove the line break from the $date variable, can anyone help me with that? (I've searched quite a bit today, I only found, err 'stuff' for perl and html).

Tinkster · 12-19-2003, 11:52 AM

Code:

date=`date -I|tr -d \\012`

Cheers,
Tink

thetruethugg · 12-19-2003, 12:01 PM

I will test, but I assume it shall work. I've been messing with tr too, doesn't want to work for me, but I think my syntax was off, and I didn't try it using a pipe.

thetruethugg · 12-19-2003, 12:06 PM

Well, unfortunatly that did not work. It resaulted in this file:

Code:

4088873 -rw-r--r--    1 thugg    thugg      491859 Dec 19 13:02 ibforums3--9
.gz

With a linebreak after the 9..

Tinkster · 12-19-2003, 12:16 PM

Sorry, I had only tried it from a command-line...

Try this

Code:

date="`date -I | tr -d '\\012'`"

Cheers,
Tink

thetruethugg · 12-19-2003, 01:10 PM

Hmm, well this time the date is there, but the linebreak is still after it, followed by the extension (which I can't see via FTP because the I can't see anything after the line break. I tried replacing the \\012 with \n, but neither worked.

I'm begining to think maybe this is hopeless, but then again I'm by no means optimistic. Or at least that the $30/hour isn't such a rip-off.

Thanks for your help though, and if you have any more ideas, just let me know.

Tinkster · 12-19-2003, 02:13 PM

Just out of curiosity: what OS is the site hosted on? ;)

Cheers,
Tink

thetruethugg · 12-19-2003, 02:18 PM

Red Hat 9.0

Tinkster · 12-19-2003, 07:23 PM

Still don't understand WHY it does that, but try
this one:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
file=/home/thugg/ibforums-`date -I`.gz
/usr/bin/mysqldump --user=USER --password=PASS --complete-insert --add-drop-table DATABASE | gzip -cf9 > $file

Cheers,
Tink

thetruethugg · 12-19-2003, 08:56 PM

Ok, now there's no more return characters or anything wierd like that in the name, but FTP says can't find file (no such file or directory), and cpanel's filemanager says can't stat file, because it doesn't exist. Lol.

ls -lia /home/thugg/* output:

Code:

4088877 -rw-r--r--    1 thugg    thugg      495552 Dec 19 21:43 /home/thugg/ibforums-2003-12-19.gz

I also tried `date +%d%m%y%k%M` incase for some odd reason it was the hyphens, still no luck. File is right there, but it says it can't find it when I try to do anything with it via FTP or cpanel's file manager.