{"id":193,"date":"2011-10-05T03:41:02","date_gmt":"2011-10-05T01:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.npcglib.org\/~stathis\/blog\/?p=193"},"modified":"2012-05-12T07:26:38","modified_gmt":"2012-05-12T05:26:38","slug":"193","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.npcglib.org\/~stathis\/blog\/2011\/10\/05\/193\/","title":{"rendered":"linux task: Copy files modified between two dates"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to keep logs and since space is cheap, why not just keep 2 or 3, or maybe 10 years of logs? That’s all fine, but soon the logging directories will become cluttered. Well, there are plenty of ways to keep everything tidy and clean, but even a separate backup isn’t very suitable for me, as backups tend to cycle quicker, and I do want to keep my logs a lot longer. So, how can we go about moving anything older than a certain date into a subdirectory of our logs and let it sit there?<\/p>\n

One way I like is a combination of find<\/code> and rsync<\/code>.<\/p>\n

\r\ncd \/var\/logs\/\r\nfind .                                                 \\ \r\n     -name BACKUP -prune                               \\ \r\n     -o                                                \\ \r\n     -newermt 20080101 ! -newermt 20101231             \\ \r\n     -type f                                           \\ \r\n     -exec                                             \\ \r\n     rsync -avR --remove-source-files {} .\/BACKUP\/ \\;\r\n<\/pre>\n
It’s quite simple really, ahem… once you know it, but lets decompose the command and try to understand what each part of the command does:<\/p>\n
    \n
  1.  find .<\/code><\/b><\/span> — Search into the current directory<\/li>\n
  2.  -name BACKUP -prune<\/code><\/span> — exclude files\/directories matching the pattern BACKUP<\/code><\/li>\n
  3.  -o<\/code><\/span> — expr1 -o expr2<\/code> means if expr1<\/code> is true do not evaluate expr2<\/code>, hence whichever file\/dir does not match BACKUP<\/code> will be subjected to the actions of the options next<\/li>\n
  4.  -newermt 20080101 ! -newermt 20101231<\/code><\/span> — the modification of the files is between 20080101 and 20101231<\/li>\n
  5.  -type f<\/code><\/span> — process files only<\/li>\n
  6.  -exec rsync<\/code><\/span> — execute the following command, in our case rsync<\/code>. {} is the matched file<\/li>\n
  7.  -avR --remove-source-files<\/code><\/span> — These are options to rsync!!\n
      \n
    •  -a<\/code><\/span> — archive<\/li>\n
    •  -v<\/code><\/span> — verbose<\/li>\n
    •  -R<\/code><\/span> — recursive<\/li>\n
    •  --remove-source-files<\/code><\/span> — delete files once copied<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    •  {} .\/BACKUP\/<\/code><\/span> — since {} is the filename matched, this is the file that will be copied to the destination .\/BACKUP\/<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      If you want to exclude more subdirectories\/files, except BACKUP<\/code>, then you could change step 2 above with:<\/p>\n
        \n
      1.  \\( -name BACKUP -o -name mysql \\) -prune<\/code><\/span> — this will exclude both BACKUP<\/code> and<\/i> mysql<\/code><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
        I like to keep logs and since space is cheap, why not just keep 2 or 3, or maybe 10 years of logs? That’s all fine, but soon the logging directories will become cluttered. Well, there are plenty of ways to keep everything tidy and clean, but even a separate backup isn’t very suitable for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[6,13],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n