scp files and delete files on remote directory

Question

I am a unix noob, so please be patient :-)

I have a script that scps a bunch of files to another server.

Suppose they are z1.foo, z2.foo etc. What I want to do is to scp files and delete files older than 5 days in the destination server.

How do I securely delete files from the destination?

Thanks.

"overwrite the files at the destination"? If you scp files that already exist on the remote dir they'll be overwritten automatically — Aki, Jul 10 '14 at 00:11
its good idea, to delete the files with a shell script locally.meaning that you are SCPing files whenever you like. but there is shell script which runs on daily basis to remove the files under a certain folder, where you keep the files.command will be something like:`find /path/to/files* -mtime +5 -exec rm {} \;` — Zareh Kasparian, Jan 05 '19 at 17:47

score 28 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 15 '10 at 16:06

28

To remove files non-interactively:

ssh hostname "rm -f z100.foo z200.foo"

answered Jul 15 '10 at 16:06

Warner

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what is hostname? is it `servername@ipaddress:path/to/dir/` ? – HattrickNZ May 27 '16 at 03:27
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hostname is just `user:password@ipaddress` or `user:password@dnsname` or you can omit the password if not needed. I just tried it with `root@somednsname` and it works fine. The `path/to/dir` part I put in the rm command, as an absolute path, to make sure it is correct. – AsGoodAsItGets Mar 08 '17 at 09:46
I don't think `user:password@ipaddress` works tho, only `user@ipaddress` works... – Aero Windwalker Feb 28 '20 at 11:35
if the command need SUDO??? – jlizanab Apr 30 '21 at 21:05

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 25 '14 at 17:03

You could accomplish both tasks in the same command by using the --delete flag to rsync.

> ls -1 localdir/
a.foo
b.foo

> ssh remote-host "ls -1 remotedir/"
c.foo

> rsync -a --delete localdir/ remote-host:remotedir/

> ssh remote-host "ls -1 remotedir/"
a.foo
b.foo

The --delete option removes files from the destination directory that don't exist on the source. There are some choices about when the files are deleted and how to handle excluded files.

> man rysnc
...
--delete                delete extraneous files from dest dirs
--delete-before         receiver deletes before transfer (default)
--delete-during         receiver deletes during xfer, not before
--delete-after          receiver deletes after transfer, not before
--delete-excluded       also delete excluded files from dest dirs

The man page also contains this warning:

This option can be dangerous if used incorrectly! It is a very good idea to run first using the --dry-run option (-n) to see what files would be deleted to make sure important files aren't listed.

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 05 '19 at 17:19

5

If you would like to set username and port number you can do the following:

ssh root@203.0.113.123 -p22 "rm -rf /home/amzad/test.php"

edited Jan 05 '19 at 17:19

André Christoffer Andersen

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answered Jun 24 '14 at 09:14

m82amjad

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scp files and delete files on remote directory

3 Answers3