Linux script for purging old files

[Jorge Cocomess]

Greetings,

I am looking for help on writing a script to purge files that are older than 14 days. I am currently running RHAS 4.0

Please help.

Thanks,
Jorge

[Dennis Handly]

You can use find:
find some-path... -mtime +14 -exec rm -rf \;

Make sure you test it first by inserting the echo command before "rm".

[Jorge Cocomess]

How would I or how I should retain a list of purged files?

Thanks!

[Ivan Ferreira]

Use rm -fvr, adding the "-v" will display the name. Redirect the ouput to a file with "> filename".

[Jorge Cocomess]

Okay...

So, the codes should look like this?

cd /tmp/log_files
find . -type -f -mtime 2 -name "*.log*" -exec rm -fvr > /tmp/purged.log {} \;

Thanks much!!

Jorge

[Jorge Cocomess]

I need help with my script. I am very novice and still learning on how to write Linux scripts at this time. There are two (2) issues with what I am trying to do.

1. The script execute but does nothing. No errors.

2. I have results if I execute the command from the script manually. However, it showed that the log captured the removed files, but leaves the supposely removed files back in the original directory.


Here's the sample of my script.

#! /bin/sh
#
# Delete files that are older than 7 days
cd /tmp/datalog/tdump
find . -type f -mtime 7 -name "*.dlog*" -exec rm -fvr > \tmp\purge.log {} \;



feedback would greatly appreciate it.

Jorge

[Court Campbell · Accepted solution]

#! /bin/sh
#
# Delete files that are older than 7 days
cd /tmp/datalog/tdump
find . -type f -mtime 7 -name "*.dlog*" -exec rm -fvr {} \; > \tmp\purge.log

[Jorge Cocomess]

I think I also got the back-slash backward as well.
find . -type f -mtime 7 -name "*.dlog*" -exec rm -fvr > \tmp\purge.log {} \;

It should be
find . -type f -mtime 7 -name "*.dlog*" -exec rm -fvr {} \; > /tmp/purge.log

I will test it out and let you all know.

Thanks!!

[Dennis Handly]

>Delete files that are older than 7 days

Older requires: -mtime +7

[Jorge Cocomess]

"Older requires: -mtime +7" - It doesn't work for me. It will work just fine with -mtime 7. Beats the heck out of me.

Any ideas??

J

[Matti_Kurkela]

The -ctime, -mtime and -atime options of the find command calculate the file's age by 24-hour periods, ignoring any fractional part.

"-mtime 7" finds files which are _exactly_ 7 days old, i.e. files with ages between [exactly 7 days] and [7 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds].

"-mtime +7" finds files which are more than 7 full 24-hour periods old, i.e. 8 days old or older. A file that is 7 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds old is counted as 7 days old, and "more than 7" means 8 days or more.

MK

[Jorge Cocomess]

Much better explainations...Thank you!

[Jorge Cocomess]

Thanks!