Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I have 2 different log servers and logs are stored in both of them at varied times. Those servers have same files stored at different times. I want to retrieve the latest of the log files that are stored inthe servers. Say "file.log" is present on both servers, i want to check which of it is latest and retrieve it for my analysis.

As of now i have a script to FTP the "file.log" from both the servers and store at one location, but how can i know which of it is latest while the file is present in the server itself.

With my script i am able to FTP the file from both locations and store it at one location in my log server and then i am checking the timestamp by following statement, but it will always give temp_fms02 directory file as latest as it is being FTPied after the first one

if [[ /temp_fms01/icc-2-19-0.log -ot /temp_fms02/icc-2-19-0.log ]]
then
use temp_fms01 file
else
use temp_fms01 file
fi


Pls let me know if there is any other way to check which of the locations is having the latest file and directly FTP it and use it.

Any help or suggesstions are highly appreciated.

Thanks!

ftp is a bit cumbersome to script, so if you could switch to scp or rsync that might be the easiest solution. With ftp I guess you would have to issue a remote ls and parse the result, and hope the file isn't updated on either server while you figure things out on your end.

The file is being updated continuously on one of the servers! I want to pick the one which is being updated and it doesn't matter if the update process is still going on in the background!

you should read the manuals for your ftp program to check if there is a way to preserve times.

also, the "-ot" option, well, in the manual page of the box im stading now, it dosnt specify if its creation time, or modification time.

if you have gnu date, it has a switch to return the modification time in seconds since epoch.
if you dont have it, i found a 4 lines c app that does exactly that. (it saved my day, when i needed to check time since last modification of a log file in an ancient sunOS)
general pastebin - modtime - post number 1186288

in my opinion, you should switch to scp (which can preserve time stamps)
maybe, copying the 2 files to only use one is not the best.
you could also use a HERE document with ssh to get the modification time, and only scp the one you need.
on this subject you could also use "expect"
which is a scripting language made specificly to manage interactive programs within a script.
Expect - Expect - Home Page