topic Re: find command in crontab in Operating System - HP-UX

find command in crontab

Ratzie — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:35:14 GMT

I need to run a find command inside the crontab.
For some reason this does not work...

00 11 * * * find /home/oracle/scripts/logs/*acdb_online_backup_level* -mtime -14 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null

Re: find command in crontab

Dennis Handly — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:44:42 GMT

Doesn't work how? find(1) should be in your limited cron path.

I don't see any special "%" chars.
What HP-UX version are you using?

Re: find command in crontab

James R. Ferguson — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:44:47 GMT

Hi:

Whenever you use shell wildcards (metacharacters) with a 'find' command, you should quote the argument to avoid interpretation by the shell. Too, your 'cron' environment is very likely to differ from your normal login one. Try:

# 00 11 * * * find "/home/oracle/scripts /logs/*acdb_online_backup_level*" -mtime -14 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null

That said, I really think you want to do:

# 00 11 * * * find /home/oracle/scripts/logs -name "*acdb_online_backup_level*" -mtime -14 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: find command in crontab

Ratzie — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:19:21 GMT

Nope still does not not.
I see it run in the cron log. So cron does run, but have tried multiple ways.

05 10 * * * find /home/oracle/scripts/logs -name "*acdb_online_backup_level*" -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null

05 10 * * * find /home/oracle/scripts/logs -name "*acdb_archivelog_backup*" -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null

15 10 * * * find "/home/oracle/scripts/logs/*acdb_archivelog_backup*" -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null

Re: find command in crontab

Patrick Wallek — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:32:32 GMT

Does this work from the command line?

I would modify the script so that it e-mails you error rather than just sending them to /dev/null.

find "/home/oracle/scripts/logs/*acdb_archivelog_backup*" -mtime -1 -exec rm -rf {} + 2>&1 | mailx -s "find output" you@someaddress.com

Re: find command in crontab

Michael Steele_2 — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:53:08 GMT

Shouldn't...
-rf {} + 2>&1 |
be...
-rf {} \;

Re: find command in crontab

James R. Ferguson — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:01:53 GMT

Hi (again):

> Michael: Shouldn't... -rf {} + 2>&1 | be...
-rf {} \;

No. Using the '+' terminator with '-exec' greatly improves performance. Multiple arguments are collected and passed to each process spawned. This acts much like a pipeline to 'xargs' would and has been available since 11.0.

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: find command in crontab

Ratzie — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:42:24 GMT

I can run:
find /home/oracle/scripts/logs/*acdb_online_backup_level*.log

But once I add the -mtime -1 or any number, I get nothing.

Exactly the same thing if I run it like:
find /home/oracle/scripts/logs -name "*acdb_online_backup_level*.log"
-get results

find /home/oracle/scripts/logs -name "*acdb_online_backup_level*.log" -mtime -5
-No results

Re: find command in crontab

Ratzie — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:45:30 GMT

I am the dummy here...
mtime +5! Not -5

Arggg!

Re: find command in crontab

Michael Steele_2 — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:59:04 GMT

Thank you James.

Re: find command in crontab

Dennis Handly — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:30:33 GMT

>JRF: Whenever you use shell wildcards (metacharacters) with a 'find' command, you should quote the argument to avoid interpretation by the shell.

That's only if they are in -name or -path. Where they were was fine and needed to be expanded.
(That's why I asked "Doesn't work how?".)