Loading ...SSH: Rotate backup shell script to remove directories (old backup files)
Most time you have a limited space on the remote SFTP/ SSH backup server. Here is the script that periodically cleanup old backup files from the server i.e it will remove old directories.
Requirements
Script will automatically calculate date from today's date. By default it will keep only last 7 days backup on server. You can easily increase / decrease this limit. In order to run script you must meet the following criteria:
- Remote SSH server with rm command execution permission
- SSH Keys for password less login (see how to setup RSA / DSA keys for password less login)
- Accurate date and time on local system (see how to synchronize clock using ntpdate ntp client)
- Remote backup directory must be in dd-mm-yyyy or mm-dd-yyyy format. For example daily mysql backup should be stored in /mysql/mm-dd-yyyy format.
Sample Script Usage
Run the script as follows:
./rot.backup.sh 7 /mysql "rm -rf"
Where,
- 7 : Remove last 7 days files
- /mysql : Base directory to clean up. If todays date is 9/Oct/2007, it will remove last 7 days directory /mysql/02-10-2007, /mysql/01-10-2007, .... /mysql/26-09-2007, /mysql/25-09-2007. It means script will only keep last 7 days backup on remote sftp / ssh server.
- rm -rf : Command to run on directory structure
Sample Shell Script
Install following script (download link):
#!/bin/bash
if [ "$#" == "0" ];then
echo "$0 upper-limit path {command}"
exit 1
fi
### SSH Server setup ###
SSH_USER="vivek"
SSH_SERVER="nas.nixcraft.in"
START=7
DIR_FORMAT="%d-%m-%Y" # DD-MM-YYYY format
#DIR_FORMAT="%m-%d-%Y" #MM-DD-YYYY format
## do not edit below ##
LIMIT=$( expr $START + $1 )
## default CMD ##
CMD="ls"
SSH_PATH="."
[ "$3" != "" ] && CMD="$3" || :
[ "$2" != "" ] && SSH_PATH="$2" || :
DAYS=$(for d in $(seq $START $LIMIT);do date --date="$d days ago" +"${DIR_FORMAT}"; done)
for d in $DAYS
do
ssh ${SSH_USER}@${SSH_SERVER} ${CMD} ${SSH_PATH}/$d
done
Run above script via cron tab (cronjob):
@daily /path/to/rot.ssh.script 7 "/html" "rm -rf"
@daily /path/to/rot.ssh.script 7 "/mysql" "rm -rf"
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You may also be interested in other helpful articles:
- Rotate FTP Backup Using a Shell Script
- Bash shell script tip: Run commands from a variable
- Take action or execute a command based upon shell script name
- MySql backup script
- Howto: Make consistent MySQL database backups using Solaris ZFS snapshots
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Tags: backup_directory, backup_server, dsa_keys, mysql_backup, ntp_client, remote_backup, rm_command, rotate_remote_backup, shell_script
I usualy use someting like this:
find /var/backup/ -name ‘backup*’ -mtime +7 | xargs rm -f
Yannick,
Thanks for quick one liner
Just a quick note many backup services only allows limited set of commands in chrooted ssh jail. Many time find and other advanced commands are not available so you need to craft something like this
Ohhhh..yes..’find’ will probably don’t work in most of ssh jails..
BTW… Thank you very much Vivek for all your very useful tips..
Hi
Pls suggest any one liner or script for my probelm.
I need to tremove the files which are 14 days old but need to skip those folder which are having any single file with latest date.
Need to skip whole folder which contain any single latest file with all the old files also which that particular folder contain.
my script is like this
find . -mtime +14 -exec rm -f {} \;
find . -type d -mtime +14 -exec rmdir {} \;
perl -MFile::Find -e”finddepth(sub{rmdir},’.')”
#find . -depth -type d -empty -exec rmdir {} \;
Thanks
Reetika Gupta
Watch out of that pipe comes back empty - rm -f will then act on whatever the contents of the current directory are!