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:
#!/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"
🐧 6 comments so far... add one ↓
Category | List of Unix and Linux commands |
---|---|
File Management | cat |
Firewall | Alpine Awall • CentOS 8 • OpenSUSE • RHEL 8 • Ubuntu 16.04 • Ubuntu 18.04 • Ubuntu 20.04 |
Network Utilities | dig • host • ip • nmap |
OpenVPN | CentOS 7 • CentOS 8 • Debian 10 • Debian 8/9 • Ubuntu 18.04 • Ubuntu 20.04 |
Package Manager | apk • apt |
Processes Management | bg • chroot • cron • disown • fg • jobs • killall • kill • pidof • pstree • pwdx • time |
Searching | grep • whereis • which |
User Information | groups • id • lastcomm • last • lid/libuser-lid • logname • members • users • whoami • who • w |
WireGuard VPN | Alpine • CentOS 8 • Debian 10 • Firewall • Ubuntu 20.04 |
I need to remove 1 month older files from a sftp server username@servername, where
i don’t have access for ssh in the sftp server.
Please advise
Watch out of that pipe comes back empty – rm -f will then act on whatever the contents of the current directory are!
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
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.. 🙂
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
I usualy use someting like this:
find /var/backup/ -name ‘backup*’ -mtime +7 | xargs rm -f