I was looking for an update to Automysqlbackup that would allow me to delete older files and keep down the disk space being used. The daily and weekly directories are rotated in version 2.5 that I have used for the last couple of years, but the monthly are retained in perpetuity.

Sourceforge has version 2.5.1-01 as the latest from 2010 which I grabbed to see what has changed.

While Mark over at his MySQL Fanboy site has also made some updates to Automysqlbackup to add some deletion options. The download link in his post is broken, but you can find his updated Automysqlbackup script in his Files area.

Now, just to be sure of what I was working with I ran up BeyondCompare (the excellent comparison tool that I have used for years) to see what Mark had done to Automysqlbackup and what the new version held.

To start Marks version is based from the July 2010 2.5.1-01 Sourceforge release and he has updated the version numbers as he added features, currently 2.5.3 released Jan 2011. Except in the script proper at line 511 where it is still v2.5.2. I think it could be added as a constant in the settings at the top of the file which would ensure consistency.

There are a few other changes he has made including directory chmod’ing of 700 to the directories that it makes. Again I’d prefer to see this, if it exists, not to be hard-coded but driven by a setting that can be modded at the top of the file like:  PERMISSIONS= ‘0700’  or 0770 as I would prefer.

Now the bit I was interested in was the retention of older files.  The new version from Sourceforge has added monthly rotation settings which are hard coded into 2.5.1-01 as 5 months.  Marks 2.5.3 provides two new constants that allow for the selection of periods other than 5 months or weeks.

In the end Marks changes dont really help me, so I am sticking with the 2.5.1-01 version for the moment. However some of the features he has added may be useful in the future so the time I spent today was not wasted.