Bash script for automatic tar backup of chosen files and directories

Question

Within a given directory in linux environment, I need to pick all files modified after a certain date (let's say 7 days) as well as all directories (only in root directory, hence non recursively) created after the same date.

After that, I have to take care of 3 directories which except the last given rule. For these, the process has to be recursive within each of them. In one of these directories, there's a file to be excluded no matter what.

Finally, I have to add all the objects matching these patterns to a single .tar archive. Every file/directory must of course keep full relative path within the .tar file (starting from base directory).

So let's assume we have:

myHome
|-- normalDir1                  //  older than 7 days
|   |-- blah.txt
|   |-- to_be_excluded_nmw.txt  //  should never be included anyways
|   `-- poems.txt
|-- normalDir2                  //  created yesterday
|   |-- blah2.txt               /*
|   |-- whatever2.txt            *  Since it's a normal directory,
|   |-- whatever3.txt            *  I want to exclude these files from .tar
|   `-- poems2.txt               */  
|-- exceptionDirectory1         //  older than 7 days
|   |-- actions                 //  older than 7 days
|   |   `-- power.sh            //  older than 7 days
|   `-- events                  //  older than 7 days
|       |-- deploy.php          //  older than 7 days
|       `-- set.php             //  older than 7 days
|-- exceptionDirectory2         //  older than 7 days
|   |-- actions2
|   |   `-- power2.sh           //  created yesterday
|   `-- events2                 //  older than 7 days
|       |-- deploy2.php         //  created yesterday
|       `-- set2.php            //  older than 7 days
|-- file_to_be_updated.php      //  created yesterday
`-- file_NOT_to_be_updated.php  //  older than 7 days

the resulting .tar should contain:

./normalDir2/
./exceptionDirectory2/actions2/power2.sh
./exceptionDirectory2/events2/deploy2.php
./file_to_be_updated.php

I've created this script:

#!/bin/bash
TODAY=`date --rfc-3339=date`
FILENAME=$TODAY-package.tar
find ./require ! -name db_connection.php         ! -path ./require -mtime -7 -print | xargs tar cvf `date --rfc-3339=date`-package.tar
find ./img                                       ! -path ./img     -mtime -7 -print | xargs tar uvf `date --rfc-3339=date`-package.tar
find ./plugin                                    ! -path ./plugin  -mtime -7 -print | xargs tar uvf `date --rfc-3339=date`-package.tar
find . -maxdepth 1 ! -name $TODAY-package.tar.gz ! -path .         -mtime -7 -print | xargs tar uvf `date --rfc-3339=date`-package.tar

but it doesn't seem to work properly as it quits almost immediately with this error:

tar: ./img: Impossibile open: Is a directory

Notice "require", "img" and "plugin" being the three special directories to be treated recursively. What's wrong with the script? Thank you for your assistance.

Answer 1

What is causing the error is that you have spaces or other special characters in the filenames under ./img.

Instead of using the -print option to find, use -print0 and the corresponding -0 option to `xargs':

 find ./img ! -path ./img -mtime -7 -print0 | xargs -0 tar uvf `date --rfc-3339=date`-package.tar

Answer 2

• Rather than find ./foo ! -path ./foo you can use find -mindepth 1 ./foo. This ensures that only files inside the specified paths are printed.

• If you have GNU tar you can use --exclude=PATTERN. That way you should be able to write something like this:

  today="$(date --rfc-3339="date")"
  last_week="$(date --rfc-3339="date" --date="-7 days")"
  tar --no-recursion --exclude=db_connection.php --after-date="$last_week" cvf "${today}-package.tar" .
  tar --after-date="$last_week" uvf "${today}-package.tar" ./require ./img ./plugin
  

Answer 3

I write it on the fly, try if it functions something around

tar cvf   --no-recursion --after-date $yourdate $TarFile * */* 
tar uvrf  --after-date $yourdate $TarFile ./require ./plugin ./img