Need a unix script to purge the /tmp directory of its content once it reaches 70% of its size: HP-UX unix shell script

Need a unix script to purge the /tmp directory of its content once it reaches 70% of its size

We have these HP-UX boxes running oracle databases on them. Due to heavy activity on the server the oracle /tmp directory gets filled up pretty quickly which eventually is causing space issues. I would thus need a unix(HP-UX) shell script which would look at the /tmp directory size and purge its contents once it reaches 70% of its size and would also notify me about the purge on my email. It is a HP-UX server.

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I think tfewster's `rm` solution in that PAQ is a bit risky - What if a file is in use? The process writing to it will keep writing and hence the file will keep growing, but it won't be visible to ls or du so you could run out of disk space but not be able to find the culprit. For each file, use `fuser <filename> 2>/dev/null` to see if there are any processes writing to the file.

You also need to consider if files that are _not_ open all the time are still essential to the running app for reference. Any files older than the last time the app was started are probably not essential . So before running an automatic purge, you should decide what rules to use to decide if a file can be deleted. Though any app developer who puts non-temporary files in a tmp directory needs to be shot. As well as ones that don't clear up their own tmp files once they're no longer needed! But maybe backing up the files before deleting them would be sensible.

If your app startup could purge the directory or at least create a timestamp file [to use with `find /tmp ! -newer timestamp_file -exec rm {} \;` ], that would be safer. Clearing down the directory at boot time is also sensible (the HP-UX default in the config file under /etc/rc.config.d ["tmp"?] is to list files rather than delete).

Oracle is fairly well behaved in that respect, but you might want to add Oracle to the zones this question is visible in. The DBAs should be able to advise on managing Oracle tmp files. I'm assuming these aren't archive/redo logs, that are needed in case of crashed or corruption...

By the way, you probably want to use `bdf` rather than `df` on an HP-UX server.

See the attached code snippet for a more cautious approach

#!/bin/ksh
 
PERCENT=`bdf /tmp | grep -v Filesystem | awk '{print substr($5,1,length($5)-1)}'`
 
if [ $PERCENT -gt 70 ]
then
     date > /tmp/cleardown.log
     echo "Before:" >> /tmp/cleardown.log
     bdf /tmp >> /tmp/cleardown.log
 
     # Back up /tmp if needed?
 
     # Find files older than the last reboot
     # Or you could use "ps" to work out when the app was last restarted
     for FILE in `find /tmp ! -newer /etc/shutdownlog`
     do
        # Check the file is not currently open (Unlikely after a reboot, 
        # but useful in case you go for a more aggressive policy)
        if [ -z `fuser $FILE 2> /dev/null` ]
        then
          echo "Removing $FILE" >> /tmp/cleardown.log
          rm $FILE 2>> /tmp/cleardown.log # Logs any errors e.g. directories
        else
          echo "$FILE is open" >> /tmp/cleardown.log
          fuser $FILE >> /tmp/cleardown.log 2>&1
        fi
     done
 
     echo "After:" >> /tmp/cleardown.log
     bdf /tmp >> /tmp/cleardown.log
 
     cat /tmp/cleardown.log | mailx -s 'Purged tmp dir' myuser@myhost
fi

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Need a unix script to purge the /tmp directory of its content once it reaches 70% of its size

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HP-UX unix shell script

HP-UX Unix

KornShell (ksh)

Unix Systems Programming

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