11

Do anyone know some good way to delete files on remote server that are older than X days using just SCP/SFTP? Sure I can write some script on perl etc but I feel it's overkill.
Any UNIX way?
Oneliner?
Separate utility?

Thanks

P.S. The task is to delete some outdated backup files.

Mike
  • 384

4 Answers4

9

Sure I can write some script on perl etc but it's overkill.

You don't need a script to achieve the intended effect - a one-liner will do if you have shell access to send a command:

ssh user@host 'find /path/to/old_backups/* -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \;'

-mtime +7 matches files created one week ago from midnight of the present day.

danlefree
  • 2,973
5

This question is very old but I still wanted to add my bash only solution as I was just searching for one when I came here. The grep tar in the listing command is just for my own purpose to list only tar files, can be adapted of course.

RESULT=`echo "ls -t path/to/old_backups/" | sftp -i ~/.ssh/your_ssh_key user@server.de | grep tar`

i=0
max=7
while read -r line; do
    (( i++ ))
    if (( i > max )); then
        echo "DELETE $i...$line"
        echo "rm $line" | sftp -i ~/.ssh/your_ssh_key user@server.de
    fi
done <<< "$RESULT"

This deletes all tar files in the given directory except the last 7 ones. It is not considering the date though but if you only have one backup per day it is good enough.

dirkaholic
  • 176
2

If you insist on SCP/SFTP you can list files, parse them using a simple script and delete old backup files.

Batch mode "-b" switch should help you out. It reads sftp commands from file. http://linux.die.net/man/1/sftp

M_1
  • 373
0

Nothing worked for me from above answers.
Especially when you limited by password and cannot use private key for sftp utility.
I have found good script using lftp (gist).

You need to uncomment # STORE_DAYS=6 to specify count manually.

#!/bin/bash
# Simple script to delete files older than specific number of days from FTP. Provided AS IS without any warranty.
# This script use 'lftp'. And 'date' with '-d' option which is not POSIX compatible.

FTP credentials and path


FTP_HOST="ftp.host.tld"
FTP_USER="usename"
FTP_PASS="password"
FTP_PATH="/ftp/path"


Full path to lftp executable


LFTP=which lftp


Enquery days to store from 1-st passed argument or strictly hardcode it, uncomment one to use


STORE_DAYS=${1:? "Usage ${0##*/} X, where X - count of daily archives to store"}


STORE_DAYS=6


function removeOlderThanDays() {


Make some temp files to store intermediate data


LIST=mktemp
DELLIST=mktemp


Connect to ftp get file list and store it into temp file


${LFTP} << EOF
open ${FTP_USER}:${FTP_PASS}@${FTP_HOST}
cd ${FTP_PATH}
cache flush
cls -q -1 --date --time-style="+%Y%m%d" > ${LIST}
quit
EOF


Print obtained list, uncomment for debug


echo "File list"


cat ${LIST}


Delete list header, uncomment for debug


echo "Delete list"


# Let's find date to compare
STORE_DATE=$(date -d &quot;now - ${STORE_DAYS} days&quot; '+%Y%m%d')
while read LINE; do
    if [[ ${STORE_DATE} -ge ${LINE:0:8} &amp;&amp; &quot;${LINE}&quot; != *\/ ]]; then
        echo &quot;rm -f \&quot;${LINE:9}\&quot;&quot; &gt;&gt; ${DELLIST}
        # Print files wich is subject to delete, uncomment for debug
        #echo &quot;${LINE:9}&quot;
    fi
done &lt; ${LIST}
# More debug strings
# echo &quot;Delete list complete&quot;
# Print notify if list is empty and exit.
if [ ! -f ${DELLIST}  ] || [ -z &quot;$(cat ${DELLIST})&quot; ]; then
    echo &quot;Delete list doesn't exist or empty, nothing to delete. Exiting&quot;
    exit 0;
fi



Connect to ftp and delete files by previously formed list


${LFTP} << EOF
open ${FTP_USER}:${FTP_PASS}@${FTP_HOST}
cd ${FTP_PATH}
$(cat ${DELLIST})
quit
EOF


Remove temp files


rm ${LIST} ${DELLIST}


}


removeOlderThanDays
Maxim
  • 105