On Sun, 2008-11-09 at 03:18 -0500, Matthew Monaco wrote: > Thomas von Eyben wrote: > > I wish to use rsync to create a backup BUT only keep the files for a > > limited period of time, EG two weeks. > > I have not yet been able to figure out how to do this inside rsync > > (while the backup is being performed) and my understanding of the > > "--delete" flag is not for this wish. > > > > My plan is - unless I find out that it indeed is possible with rsync - > > to make a cronjob removing files older than X in the folder containing > > the backups… > > You can do something like > > "rsync OPTIONS --rsync-path="find /root-dir/ -mtime +14 -delete ; rsync" > SRC DEST"
If you count the two-week period from the mtime of the file, then backups of really old files will be deleted as soon as they are saved. I think it would make more sense to count from the time the backup file is saved. To do that, use a separate --backup-dir each day (e.g., --backup-dir=../backups/$(date +%Y-%m-%d) ) and simply delete each backup dir as a whole when it becomes two weeks old. The only disadvantage is that with multiple backup dirs, it becomes less trivial to find backups of a particular path, but it would be easy to write a script to help with this. Matt -- Please use reply-all for most replies to avoid omitting the mailing list. To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
