[SOLVED] mv files older than XY with directory structure

[fabtk]

Hi All,

Ok here's my little problem ...

Our SAMBA Server needs a clean up asap - so we decided to move all files that are older than january '09 (accessdate or modify date) to an archive directory.

All networkshares and userfolders are located in the homedir - so I have created a file called date with access & modified date 01.01.2009 00:00:00 for checking whether a file is older or younger than that...

touch -t 0901010000 /home/date
find /home/ -not -newer /home/date -exec ls -lt {} \;

I recieved some output - checked some files whether the command is looking for access or modify date --> modify date!

If I just move a file that would be listed with my commands above, I lose the whole path, e.g:

/home/this/is/a/test/dir/file/older/than/2009/helloworld.txt

my archive would look like this:

./helloworld.dat, but I need the whole directorystructure too, needs to look like this:

./home/this/is/a/test/dir/file/older/than/2009/helloworld.txt

Is there an easy way to do that?

Thanks for your hints!

Greetings from Switzerland

[Irithori]

Try something like this:
But please:
- do some dry runs before
- take care of circles (both source and destination seem to be in /home?)
- replace <DESTINATION_DIR> with an appropiate path

find /home/ -not -newer /home/date -print0 | rsync --from0 -a --files-from=- / <DESTINATION_DIR>

[fabtk]

Try something like this:
But please:
- do some dry runs before
- take care of circles (both source and destination seem to be in /home?)
- replace <DESTINATION_DIR> with an appropiate path

find /home/ -not -newer /home/date -print0 | rsync --from0 -a --files-from=- / <DESTINATION_DIR>

Hi Irithori

Tried it but recieved a syntax error so I checked the mistake and changed the find command order.

find /home/testdir/ -print0 -not -newer /home/date | rsync --from0 -a --files-from=- / /path/to/nas/

with this commandline I get an almost 1:1 copy of the files from /home/testdir

- checked date stats, setup is correct

Why is it ignoring my date file?

Greetings and thanks a lot for your help

FabTK

[Irithori]

The -newer switch should work.
Are you sure, the files havent been modified/copied in the meantime?

Because I understood from your first post, that you *did* get a good list of files already?

[fabtk]

Good Morning,

Yep I got already a "good" list but this list looks like this

[...]
/a/file/with/modified/flag/older/than/2009.xls
/another/file/with/modified/flag/older/than/2009.pdf
/yet/another/file.txt
[...]

If I would copy / mv these files, I would get a huge filecrowd in one folder - and that's the jumping point.

Will test it a few more times but in my first 2 or 3 runs I did get an almost 1:1 copy of the sourcefolder. Checked some dateflags of the files that have been moved - ofc the "old" files were there, but the "newer" files with access/modified/change > 2009 were there too ...

Greetings

FabTK

[Irithori]

I just re-tested that oneliner and it works as expected.
Newer files/dirs than /home/date are *not* copied/created.

What I can think of:
a) if you are sure, that the filelist provided by find is ok, then you might have a rsync with a slightly different behaviour.
Maybe try to find only files? find -type f
b) the filelist is not ok, and just matches almost all files. Wrong mtime on the source files?

[fabtk]

You were to fast, just wanted to edit my reply

I'm just too stupid, I set the print0 parameter before the newer statement...

Just find old files (needed to exclude dirs and hidden dirs/files)
find /home/ \( ! -regex '.*/\..*' \) -type f -not -newer /home/date -print0

combination of your input and my decent knowledge
find /home/ \( ! -regex '.*/\..*' \) -type f -not -newer /home/date -print0 | rsync --from0 -a --files-from=- / /path/to/nas

works great ofc!

Atm, the script is just copying "old" files into a new directory - if there would be a possibilty to move I would be very happy (or I just delete all the "old" files after successfull copy-job)

Thanks a lot for your help

Greetings FabTK

[Irithori]

Good to hear.

If you are really, really, *really* sure, that all old files have been copied,
then you could run the same find again, with -type f -delete (and without -print0)

Btw, your backup does work, right?

[fabtk]

yep, our backup is working correctly^^

after re-reading some manpages - this command looks pretty simple and logic now... NOW ...

thanks a lot for your help, really appreciate it!

Greetings FabTK