Tag Archives: delete

Aix, General, HP-UX, Linux, Shell Script, Solaris, Tru64 UNIX

Delete Files Older Than x Days on Linux / Unix

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The find utility on linux allows you to pass in a bunch of interesting arguments, including one to execute another command on each file. We’ll use this in order to figure out what files are older than a certain number of days, and then use the rm command to delete them.

Command Syntax

find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} ;

Note that there are spaces between rm, {}, and ;

Explanation

  • The first argument is the path to the files. This can be a path, a directory, or a wildcard as in the example above. I would recommend using the full path, and make sure that you run the command without the exec rm to make sure you are getting the right results.
  • The second argument, -mtime, is used to specify the number of days old that the file is. If you enter +5, it will find files older than 5 days.
  • The third argument, -exec, allows you to pass in a command such as rm. The {} ; at the end is required to end the command.
Aix

AIX Delete problem

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Today one user complained, that he is not able to delete files.

Most probably this was due to non printable charter in the file name.

# cd /oracle
# ls -ltr
total 7151632
drwxr-xr-x    2 oracle   oinstall        256 May 27 2008  lost+found
drwxr-xr-x    3 oracle   oinstall        256 May 28 2008  app
drwxr-xr-x    2 oracle   oinstall       4096 May 28 2008  TT_DB
-rwxrwxrwx    1 oracle   oinstall       3970 May 28 2008  .dtprofile
-rwxrwxrwx    1 oracle   oinstall         98 May 28 2008  .Xauthority
-rwxrwxrwx    1 oracle   oinstall        219 May 28 2008  .TTauthority
drwxrwxrwx   10 oracle   oinstall       4096 May 28 2008  .dt
-rwxrwxrwx    1 oracle   oinstall          3 May 30 2008  .wmrc
drwxr-xr-x    3 oracle   oinstall        256 May 31 2008  .java
-rw-------    1 oracle   oinstall          3 Nov 28 2008  dead.letter
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall          0 Dec 05 2008  VALID
drwx--x--x    2 oracle   oinstall        256 Dec 05 2008  Mail
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall         11 Dec 05 2008  .mh_profile
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall          0 Feb 28 2009  smit.transaction
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall          0 Feb 28 2009  smit.script
drwxr-xr-x    3 oracle   oinstall        256 May 26 2009  oradiag_oracle
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall       2409 Feb 02 2011  back.sh
drwxr-----    3 ofm11g   dba             256 Jun 14 2011  application
drwx------    2 oracle   oinstall        256 Jun 17 2011  .ssh
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall         54 Aug 02 2011  afiedt.buf
drwxrwxrwx    3 cash     staff           256 Nov 01 2011  dbdirectory
-rwxrwxr-x    1 oracle   oinstall        630 Nov 30 2011  .profile
drwxrwxrwx    2 bbk      staff           256 Jan 09 2012  CMS_FILE_LOCATION
-rw-r-----    1 oracle   oinstall       4817 Jun 14 13:04 sqlnet.log
-rw-------    1 oracle   oinstall     127931 Jul 31 19:19 nohup.out
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall     127543 Jul 31 19:19 cmsdb12_27jul12_exp.lo                                                                             g
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall 3661254656 Jul 31 19:19 cmsdb12_27jul12.dmp
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall        231 Aug 01 10:19 cmsdb6.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall        231 Aug 01 13:45 cmsdb6-1.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall      11199 Aug 01 16:45 kill_inactive.sql
-rwxrwxrwx    1 oracle   oinstall        356 Aug 01 17:28 .vi_history
-rwxrwxrwx    1 oracle   oinstall       1462 Aug 01 17:36 .bash_history
-rw-------    1 oracle   oinstall      13300 Aug 03 10:51 .sh_history
# file cmsdb6-1.txt
file: cannot open cmsdb6-1.txt
# ls -li cmsdb6-1.txt
ls: 0653-341 The file cmsdb6-1.txt does not exist.
# rm cmsdb6-1.txt
rm: cmsdb6-1.txt: A file or directory in the path name does not exist.
# ls -lbi *cmsdb6*
   39 -rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall        231 Aug 01 10:19 cmsdb6.txt
   42 -rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall        231 Aug 01 13:45 cmsdb6.txt?33[D?33[D?33[D?33[D-1.txt
# rm -i cmsdb6.txt*
rm: Remove cmsdb6.txt? n
rm: Remove cmsdb6-1.txt? y
# ls -lbi *cmsdb6*
   39 -rw-r--r--    1 oracle   oinstall        231 Aug 01 10:19 cmsdb6.txt
# rxit
ksh: rxit:  not found.
You have mail in /usr/spool/mail/root
#

So if you face same kind of issue, Please try “ls -lbi” to display nonprintable characters and the inode (first column of the output) of the file(s).

Then you have different options to delete the file.

E.g. “rm -i p*” and reply only “y” for the file you want to delete.

Or use something like

“find . -inum <inum-of-your-file-in-question> -exec rm {} ;”

to identify the file by the inode number you got with the ls -b.