CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bash
Calvin House
Calvin House

Reputation: 13

Issue with backup script creating archive

I'm having a bit of an issue with my backup script. It uses a for loop to archive anything within a given directory using tar. It lists the directories perfectly and creates separate archives for each directory how I'd like them to be, but the variable isn't listing the path to the directory to backup. Can anyone give me an idea of how to make sure the variable is populated with the correct information?

Here's the script:

#!/bin/bash
set -xv
dirs=$(ls /home/phoenix/testarchive)
dest="/home/phoenix/backup/"
archive=".tar.bz2"

clear
echo "Archiving data..."

for dirs in $dirs
do
  echo "Archiving $dirs..."
  tar cjf "${dest}${dirs}_$(date +%F)${archive}" $dirs
  echo "Archive complete!!"
done

echo "All archives created!!"
echo "Test created archive to ensure validity."

ls -lh $dest

And here is my error output:

echo "Archiving data..."
+ echo 'Archiving data...'
Archiving data...

for dirs in $dirs
do
  echo "Archiving $dirs..."
  tar cjf "${dest}${dirs}_$(date +%F)${archive}" $dirs
  echo "Archive complete!!"
done
+ for dirs in $dirs
+ echo 'Archiving folder1...'
Archiving folder1...
++ date +%F
+ tar cjf /home/phoenix/backup/folder1_2017-07-18.tar.bz2 folder1
tar: folder1: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
+ echo 'Archive complete!!'
Archive complete!!
+ for dirs in $dirs
+ echo 'Archiving folder2...'
Archiving folder2...
++ date +%F
+ tar cjf /home/phoenix/backup/folder2_2017-07-18.tar.bz2 folder2
tar: folder2: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors
+ echo 'Archive complete!!'
Archive complete!!

echo "All archives created!!"
+ echo 'All archives created!!'
All archives created!!
echo "Test created archive to ensure validity."
+ echo 'Test created archive to ensure validity.'
Test created archive to ensure validity.

ls -lh $dest
+ ls -lh /home/phoenix/backup/
total 8.0K
-rw-r--r-- 1 phoenix phoenix 46 Jul 18 13:48 folder1_2017-07-18.tar.bz2
-rw-r--r-- 1 phoenix phoenix 46 Jul 18 13:48 folder2_2017-07-18.tar.bz2

The scripts, like i mentioned, is naming exactly how I want, but the actual data archive isn't getting created. I'm sure ls is the issue but I don't know of any other way to get the desired result...

Upvotes: 1

Views: 47

Answers (2)

Mark
Mark

Reputation: 4455

The short answer is that tar is using a relative path. I draw that conclusion from this error message:

tar: folder1: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

Anyway, I suggest you cd to the parent directory. You can probably test my theory just by cd'ing prior to running your script.

cd /home/phoenix/testarchive

You'll have to be careful with the location of the backup files, because they will be put in the current directory, too, unless you put a path in the tar statement.

Upvotes: 0

janos
janos

Reputation: 124646

It's always good to read error messages carefully and understand them:

+ tar cjf /home/phoenix/backup/folder1_2017-07-18.tar.bz2 folder1
tar: folder1: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors

This means that folder1 could not be found. Why? Where is folder1? It's in the /home/phoenix/testarchive directory. When you execute the script, is the current working directory in /home/phoenix/testarchive? Probably not.

I suggest to write the script like this:

#!/bin/bash

set -xv
dirs_basedir=/home/phoenix/testarchive
dest="/home/phoenix/backup"
archive=".tar.bz2"

clear
echo "Archiving data..."

for path in "$dirs_basedir"/*
do
  basedir=${path%/*}
  dir=${path##*/}
  echo "Archiving $dir in $basedir..."
  tar cjf "${dest}/${dirs}_$(date +%F)${archive}" -C "$basedir" "$dir"
  echo "Archive complete!!"
done

echo "All archives created!!"
echo "Test created archive to ensure validity."

ls -lh $dest

Although this may look slightly more complicated than your original, it's safer.

Upvotes: 1

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