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Zip log files via script or cron job

Zipping log files to save disk space is quite a common task for system admin.

Logs can be kept for a certain period of time depending on the company policy.

To keep logs files and not delete them is quite a good strategy.

If something goes wrong, you will be able to trace and go back in time, and check what went wrong.

Zipping log files can be done manually, or via Bash or Shell script.

If the folder has a standard pattern, which is quite ideal then creating a shell script to automate the zipping of log files will be easier.

For example, if  the log files is on this path /mnt/log folder.

And it has this pattern, YYYY-MM-DD. Creating a script to avoid manual task can be done easily.

Depending on how busy the application is, log files can grow easily and may fill-up the disk quickly.


If the log folder structure is based on Year, Month and Date. Then the shell script knows what pattern to look for and the task can be automated.

Example Screenshot of the log folder structure:



Below is a script that follows the above folder structure.

The script below can be executed safely, since the commands are enclosed via an echo command.

Technically, the echo output is the command that will be executed against the system once the echo command is remove.

Echo command is good, to see how the script will work. If ever the output of the echo command is not as expected, then change the script as needed.

The /mnt/logs <<< this can be changed depending on the path of your log files or the path where the files resides that needs to be zipped

The  YYYY-MM-DD <<< this can be changed also depending the folder or pattern set on the system, change it accordingly as needed


if (( i < 10 )); then  

      i="0$i" <<< this part just append "0" to numbers 1 to 9

               without this, the date will be like 2023-04-1 

               2023-04-1 <<< will not match the folder 2023-04-01


for i in {1..10}; <<< Dates of the month from 1 to 10, change 1 to 30 or as desired

2023-04-<<< the year and month is hard coded but the script can be changed; to automatically get the date and month, modify the script if there's a need to

             

The script will automatically change folder, and zip the log files. Depending on how big are the files, it may take some time. But once all the folder has been traverse then the script will exit.


The script will execute properly, provided the system has some space. Since the xz command will create some temp files while zipping is being done.


Here's the script:

#==========================

#!/bin/sh

for i in {1..10}; do

   if (( i < 10 )); then  #<<only for dates 1 - 9 to make it 01, 02...09

      i="0$i" #<< append number "zero" to numbers 1 to 9 

      echo "$i"

echo "cd /mnt/logs/2023-04-$i; xz -z *.log;cd /mnt/logs/;"

    else

     printf "%d " "$i"

     i="$i"

     echo "$i"

echo "cd /mnt/logs/2023-04-$i; xz -z *.log;cd /mnt/logs/;"

    fi

done

#==========================


Echo command is there, to see if the script will execute properly.

Once the output of the echo command is confirmed and will work fine, remove the echo command and the script will do its job.

If unsure on how the script will work, create a test folder with some dummy files and run the script against it and see the output if that's what is expected.


echo "cd /mnt/logs/2023-04-$i; xz -z *.log;cd /mnt/logs/;"

Remove echo " and the " at the end.

After removing echo " and ", the command should look like the command below:

cd /mnt/logs/2023-04-$i; xz -z *.log;cd /mnt/logs/;


; <<< do not remove the semi-colon, the reason why its there is it will execute the commands in a sequential order. Or the commands will execute in-order, one after the other.


What it does change to the directory>>> cd /mnt/logs/2023-04-$i

Zip all the: xz -z *.log  log files

Go back to the logs folder: cd /mnt/logs/  

And try again the next one: cd /mnt/logs/2023-04-$i until the for loop is done.

$i <<< will change its value depending on the count in for loop



Cheers! Take care. Till next Time. Enjoy Bash'ing. Explore Linux and enjoy the journey..

Stay safe! and Keep things up! 

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Make time for Prayer and Meditation.

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