bash script to delete backups older than 7 days by retaining 1 backup each day

Question

We have a backup strategy where every day 6 db dumps are taken. We want to delete backups which are older than 7 days, but we also want to retain single backup of every day. The backup files are in the format 2015_08_09_01_00_01.sql.gz

Any help would be appreciated

Last time I checked SO was not a code writing service. http://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask — tumultous_rooster, Sep 01 '15 at 15:05
This link can help you get started on this site: http://stackoverflow.com/help/mcve — anishsane, Sep 01 '15 at 15:23
@Matt O'Brien, I have not explicitly asked to write code. Any Idea as to how to resolve the issue would have been good. Anyway, thanks for your comment. — Karthik K, Sep 04 '15 at 06:55

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 04 '15 at 06:49

Tried below commands which worked just fine.

find . -mtime +7 -mtime -24 | sort -n > testbackups.txt
sort -u -t_ -k5,5 testbackups.txt > testbackups2.txt
grep -v -x -f testbackups2.txt testbackups.txt > delbackups7.txt
cat delbackups7.txt | while read file ; do rm ~/"$file" ; done

I am listing files between 7 days and 24 days, retaining one of the backup out of 6 backups, then deleting the remaining files.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 01 '15 at 15:14

0

In Linux Bash, you'll want something like /usr/bin/find /PATH/TO/BACKUPS/ -type d -mtime +6 -exec rm -r {} \. That will use the find command to find files in the /PATH/TO/BACKUPS/ that are older than 6 days and remove them. -type d is for directories

answered Sep 01 '15 at 15:14

Coder-guy

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This will remove all the files older than 6 days, but I want to retain a backup from each day. – Karthik K Sep 04 '15 at 06:56

bash script to delete backups older than 7 days by retaining 1 backup each day

2 Answers2