Linux – Script to delete FTP data older than 7 days

bashftplinuxscriptingshell-scripting

Currently I am using following simple line script to take backup of server directory to remote FTP location

# Take backup to remote location
ncftpput -z -R -uusername -ppassword ftp.example.org /destination/directory /source/directory

Now, I just need to delete the backup from remote FTP which is older than 7 days. On normal directory location within the server I simply do it with following simple script

# Delete backups older than 7 days
find /backup -name '*' -type d -mtime +6 -exec rm -rfv "{}" \;

But, running the same is not working on FTP, is there any way I can delete FTP remote location data older than 7 days? may be via lftp or any other command

Best Answer

There is a FUSE filesystem called curlftpfs which will allow you to mount the remote FTP site as if it were a normal filesystem, thus allowing you to run your find command to delete files older than 7 days. First install the package by running apt-get install curlftpfs, yum install curlftpfs, or the equivalent for your distribution.

Once installed, you can mount the remote ftp site like this:

mkdir /tmp/ftp_mount
curlftpfs -o user=username:password ftp.example.org /tmp/ftp_mount

where username and password get replaced by your actual username and password. Now just cd into /tmp/ftp_mount and run your find command to delete the older files. When you're done, cd out of the filesystem and unmount it with:

fusermount -u /tmp/ftp_mount

Since curlftpfs is a FUSE filesystem, you can do this as any user (you don't need root for it to work).

Related Solutions

Linux Bash – Delete Files from Remote FTP Server Older Than X Days

You could send a series of commands to lftp and wrap it in a shell script which calculates the filename of the too old files (see the script below).

TODAY=$(date --iso)                   # Today's date like YYYY-MM-DD
RMDATE=$(date --iso -d '6 days ago')  # TODAY minus X days - too old files
FTPUSER=username
FTPPW=password                        # Better load this from an encrypted file
FTPSERVER=FQDN_or_IP
LFTP=/usr/bin/lftp                    # Path to binary
TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)                   # Your archives are here

# CAUTION: mput -E deletes local files after upload
echo -n "Uploading files via FTP... "
$LFTP << EOF
open ${FTPUSER}:${FTPPW}@${FTPSERVER}
cd backups/${HOSTNAME}
mkdir ${TODAY}
cd ${TODAY}
mput -E ${TMPDIR}/*
cd ..
rm -rf ${RMDATE}
bye
EOF
echo "Done."

Make sure nobody execpt root can read this script or put the credentials somewhere else. TMPDIR is the directory where the backups reside locally. Of course you need to edit the obivous parts.

HTH,
PEra

Linux – Help on writing Linux script to backup and ftp files to another server

I would not recommend using FTP for any files you care about (particularly database backups if that database contains customer information), but that is ultimately up to you.

To start with, script the creation of your backups on the Linux server with something like the following:

#!/bin/bash
# 
# Call script with:
# /cron-mysql_bkup.sh mysql_hostname mysql_username mysql_password /backup/directory
# 
if [ -n "$1" ]; then
 MYSQL_HOST="$1"
else
 echo "MYSQL_HOST not specified."
 exit 1
fi
if [ -n "$2" ]; then
 MYSQL_USER="$2"
else
 echo "MYSQL_USER not specified."
 exit 1
fi
if [ -n "$3" ]; then
 MYSQL_PASS="$3"
else
 echo "MYSQL_PASS not specified."
 exit 1
fi
if [ -n "$4" ]; then
 DIR_BKUP="$4"
 mkdir -p ${DIR_BKUP}
else
 echo "DIR_BKUP not specified."
 exit 1
fi
# 
# Generate filename
# 
BACKUP_FILENAME=`date "+%Y-%m-%d"`".sql"
# 
# Dump all databases
# 
mysqldump -h${MYSQL_HOST} -u${MYSQL_USER} -p${MYSQL_PASS} --all-databases > ${DIR_BKUP}/${MYSQL_HOST}/${BACKUP_FILENAME}
# 
# Write status of the operation to the mysql.log file in the backup directory
# 
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
 echo `date`" - ERROR creating backups of host "${MYSQL_HOST} >> ${DIR_BKUP}/mysql.log
else
 echo `date`" - MySQL Backup complete for "${MYSQL_HOST} >> ${DIR_BKUP}/mysql.log
 BACKUP_TAR_NAME=${BACKUP_FILENAME}".tar.gz"
 tar czf ${DIR_BKUP}/${MYSQL_HOST}/${BACKUP_TAR_NAME} ${DIR_BKUP}/${MYSQL_HOST}/${BACKUP_FILENAME} && rm ${DIR_BKUP}/${MYSQL_HOST}/${BACKUP_FILENAME}
fi

This script will:

Check to see whether all the required parameters were set
Dump all MySQL databases to a file named YYYY-mm-dd.sql under the backup directory specified (this directory will be created if it does not exist)
GZIP the file and, if the GZIP operation succeeds, delete the original SQL file

This script should be fairly straightforward for you to customize if you wish to - see the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide to learn more about doing so.

... once your databases are backed up and can be found in a specific location, why not automate backup retrieval with WinSCP instead of transferring your files over FTP?

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux Bash – Delete Files from Remote FTP Server Older Than X Days

Linux – Help on writing Linux script to backup and ftp files to another server

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