Question

Purpose of the script :

1.This script will delete Files older than 4 months.
2.Files older than 3 days will be compressed.

A script has been written such as :

 #!/bin/bash

 exec >> /dir5/dir6/cleanup-logfiles.log 2>&1

 # customer list job
 cd /dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/tmp
 find -type f -mtime +120 -exec rm -v '{}' \;
 find -type f -mtime +3 -name '*.csv' -exec gzip -v '{}' \;

Can anyone please explain usage of both the above commands (and how do they serve the purpose ?

And this script has been placed at /etc/. what could be the reason ?

Answer 1

exec without a command parameter redirects all output (stdout + stderr [2>&1]) from the current shell (i.e. this script) to /dir5/dir6/cleanup-logfiles.log

cd changes directory 😉

the find commands will find all files (-type f) whose modified time (-mtime) is older than 120, respectively 3 days and: delete them (-exec rm -v '{}' \;) or gzip them (-exec gzip -v '{}' \;). gzipping only happens when the file has a csv extension (-name '*.csv')

{} is a placeholder for the currently found file

the script is probably run through cron (/etc/cron.{d,daily,hourly,weekly,monthly} or /etc/crontab)