Hi

i need a short script to copy files from one drive to an archive drive.
Have been using cmds like cp -pfR from one drive to another, but it
would be more efficient if the copy were conditional on the date / time
difference between source / destination file.

Have been looknig for a way to do this, but am no script expert and any
pointers to relevant commands or examples would be appreciated...

Chris



----------------------
Greenfield Designs Ltd
Electronic and Embedded System Design
Oxford, England
(44) 1865 750 681

On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:08 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
> i need a short script to copy files from one drive to an archive
> drive. Have been using cmds like cp -pfR from one drive to another,
> but it would be more efficient if the copy were conditional on the
> date / time difference between source / destination file.
>
> Have been looknig for a way to do this, but am no script expert and
> any pointers to relevant commands or examples would be appreciated...

rsync

Frank Cusack wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:08 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>i need a short script to copy files from one drive to an archive
>>drive. Have been using cmds like cp -pfR from one drive to another,
>>but it would be more efficient if the copy were conditional on the
>>date / time difference between source / destination file.
>>
>>Have been looknig for a way to do this, but am no script expert and
>>any pointers to relevant commands or examples would be appreciated...
>
>
> rsync

Thanks. Just looked at that and will probably build and have a look, but
really only need to mirror files on the same machine. A cron driven
script would be more appropriate in this case...

Chris


--

----------------------
Greenfield Designs Ltd
Electronic and Embedded System Design
Oxford, England
(44) 1865 750 681

On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:15:39 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
> Frank Cusack wrote:
>> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:08 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>i need a short script to copy files from one drive to an archive
>>>drive. Have been using cmds like cp -pfR from one drive to another,
>>>but it would be more efficient if the copy were conditional on the
>>>date / time difference between source / destination file.
>>>
>>>Have been looknig for a way to do this, but am no script expert and
>>>any pointers to relevant commands or examples would be appreciated...
>>
>>
>> rsync
>
> Thanks. Just looked at that and will probably build and have a look,
> but really only need to mirror files on the same machine. A cron
> driven script would be more appropriate in this case...

0 0 * * * rsync src dst

-frank

Frank Cusack wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:15:39 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Frank Cusack wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:08 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>i need a short script to copy files from one drive to an archive
>>>>drive. Have been using cmds like cp -pfR from one drive to another,
>>>>but it would be more efficient if the copy were conditional on the
>>>>date / time difference between source / destination file.
>>>>
>>>>Have been looknig for a way to do this, but am no script expert and
>>>>any pointers to relevant commands or examples would be appreciated...
>>>
>>>
>>>rsync
>>
>>Thanks. Just looked at that and will probably build and have a look,
>>but really only need to mirror files on the same machine. A cron
>>driven script would be more appropriate in this case...
>
>
> 0 0 * * * rsync src dst
>
> -frank

Thanks, but it's still overkill, when a one or two line script would
probably get the job done just as well :-).

What happened to all the arcane skills of unix, a single tool to do a
single job well, specialisation over generalisation etc, or has it all
morphed into the bloatware that is modern Linux ?...

Chris

--

----------------------
Greenfield Designs Ltd
Electronic and Embedded System Design
Oxford, England
(44) 1865 750 681

On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 18:14:56 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
> Frank Cusack wrote:
>> On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 17:15:39 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>>Frank Cusack wrote:
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:21:08 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>i need a short script to copy files from one drive to an archive
>>>>>drive. Have been using cmds like cp -pfR from one drive to another,
>>>>>but it would be more efficient if the copy were conditional on the
>>>>>date / time difference between source / destination file.
>>>>>
>>>>>Have been looknig for a way to do this, but am no script expert and
>>>>>any pointers to relevant commands or examples would be appreciated...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>rsync
>>>
>>>Thanks. Just looked at that and will probably build and have a look,
>>>but really only need to mirror files on the same machine. A cron
>>>driven script would be more appropriate in this case...
>>
>>
>> 0 0 * * * rsync src dst
>>
>> -frank
>
> Thanks, but it's still overkill, when a one or two line script would
> probably get the job done just as well :-).

You may have lost me here.

How is a 1 or 2 line script LESS work or LESS overkill than a single
line cron entry. Here's your one line script:

--8<---
#!/bin/sh
rsync $1 $2
--8<---

Or does the smiley indicate you are joking?

> What happened to all the arcane skills of unix, a single tool to do a
> single job well, specialisation over generalisation etc, or has it all
> morphed into the bloatware that is modern Linux ?...

You've really lost me there. rsync is a single tool that does its
single highly specialized job quite well.

-frank

Frank Cusack wrote:

>
> You've really lost me there. rsync is a single tool that does its
> single highly specialized job quite well.
>
> -frank

Not a windup, just the gut feeling that Solaris probably already has
scriptable commands that would do such a simple job. Just looking for a
solution that doesn't involve installing yet more software with
attendant demons etc.

If there isn't such a solution, then rsync does look like the way forward...

Chris



----------------------
Greenfield Designs Ltd
Electronic and Embedded System Design
Oxford, England
(44) 1865 750 681

On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:41:41 GMT ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> wrote:
> Frank Cusack wrote:
>
>>
>> You've really lost me there. rsync is a single tool that does its
>> single highly specialized job quite well.
>>
>> -frank
>
> Not a windup, just the gut feeling that Solaris probably already has
> scriptable commands that would do such a simple job.

It does. I was just giving you the easiest possible method.

> Just looking for a solution that doesn't involve installing yet more
> software with attendant demons etc.

rsync doesn't need any daemon, etc., but I agree installing ever more
and more software is a PITA for smaller shops. rsync is a standard
tool, Solaris is deficient for not having it by default.

> If there isn't such a solution, then rsync does look like the way forward...

rsync is much easier, and much more efficient than any other method.

One example of how to do it with the built-in tools:

(cd src && find . -depth) | cpio -pdm dst

but then you have to do some moderate post-processing (on the output from
cpio) to exclude error messages about not copying files that are already
newer (while still reporting other errors).

If you have GNU tar (same problem with rsync though, you need addt'l
software), you can use the --newer option to get pretty close to what
rsync would do.

-frank

On 2007-04-04 22:41:41 +0100, ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> said:

> Not a windup, just the gut feeling that Solaris probably already has
> scriptable commands that would do such a simple job. Just looking for a
> solution that doesn't involve installing yet more software with
> attendant demons etc.

rsync ships as a package on the Solaris 10 software companion. I'm not
sure about earlier releases, but if it's not on the companion CDs there
are undoubtedly packages at sunfreeware. There's no daemon (you can
run rsync as a daemon but you don't need to and no daemon is set up by
default).

>
> If there isn't such a solution, then rsync does look like the way forward...

It's a fantastically useful tool for mirroring things.

On 2007-04-05, Tim Bradshaw <tfb@tfeb.org> wrote:
> On 2007-04-04 22:41:41 +0100, ChrisQuayle <nospam@devnul.co.uk> said:
>
>> Not a windup, just the gut feeling that Solaris probably already has
>> scriptable commands that would do such a simple job. Just looking for a
>> solution that doesn't involve installing yet more software with
>> attendant demons etc.

man find

Look at the time related, -exec & -cpio options.

>
> rsync ships as a package on the Solaris 10 software companion. I'm not
> sure about earlier releases, but if it's not on the companion CDs there
> are undoubtedly packages at sunfreeware.

pkg-get install rsync

Not hard ...


--
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those
who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this
or that problem will never be solved by science.
[email me at huge {at} huge (dot) org <dot> uk]