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Searching By File Timestamp

Unix/Linux filesystems have three types of timestamp on each file. They are as follows:

1. Access time (-atime): The timestamp when the file was last accessed.
2. Modification time (-mtime): The timestamp when the file was last modified.
3. Change time (-ctime): The timestamp when the metadata for a file (such as permissions or ownership) was last modified.

Search and delete file older than 7 days

Lets take an example, wherein we will find and delete file older than 7 days. We will be using the option “-mtime” of the find command for this.

1. Get a list of files using find command as follows:

2. If the filenames start with any particular pattern, filter using that as follows:

# find /path_to_directory -name 'filenamepattern*' -mtime +7 -type f -exec ls {}\;

3. After checking and confirming the output, go for removal script(It is very IMPORTANT), otherwise there will be irrecoverable data loss.

# find /path_to_directory -name 'filenamepattern*' -mtime +7 -type f -exec rm -fv {}\;

# find . -name “*.pdf” -atime +7 -exec rm {} \;

4. If this needs to be done on a remote server through cron job and log the filenames of deleted files, use the following command

# ssh user@remote_ip "find /path_to_directory -name 'filenamepattern*' -mtime +7 -type f -exec rm -fv {} \; >> /tmp/backup_deletion`date +%Y%m%d`.log 2>&1"

Conclusion

The -mtime parameter will search for files based on the modification time; -ctime searches based on the change time. The -atime, -mtime, and -ctime use time measured in days. The find command also supports options that measure in minutes. These are as follows:

1. -amin (access time)
2. -mmin (modification time)
3. -cmin (change time)

For example, to print all the files that have an access time older than seven minutes, use the following command:

# find . -type f -amin +7 -print

-newer option

The -newer option specifies a reference file with a modification time that will be used to select files modified more recently than the reference file.

Find all the files that were modified more recently than file.txt file:

# find . -type f -newer file.txt -print

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Tags: Find And Delete Files, Find And Delete Files Older Than Some Particular Time Period In Linux, solaris, Time Period In Linux, Time Period In Solairs

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 9th, 2022 at 12:01 am and is filed under Solaris. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.