README for ugly-autodelete 1.0.2

 * ABOUT

Autodelete is a shell script for use with crontab.  It allows the user several
ways of deleting within specified paths: by date, by size, and by percentage
of space used.  In addition to these basic functions, it has the following
features:
 
 -debug mode: prints the 'rm' commands that the script would normally execute
              had debug mode been disabled
 -free limit: allows the user to set a minimum amount of free space that should
              be available on the site's device(s) before the script executes
              anything else - this keeps disk usage low so that the script can
              be frequently run
 -exceptions: list of patterns in file/dirnames that, if matched, will not be
              deleted under any circumstances
 -dated-dir
  detection:  after defining the format that dated (by week or day) dirs are
              set up, the script will change behavior if a path is found to
              contain dated dirs - it will delete in an ascending order, rather
              than by modification time, the latter of which can vary when an
              old dated dir's contents are modified in some way (nuking a rel
              after day has ended, etc.)
 -FreeBSD
  support:    as this script was written for a FreeBSD box, it will work on both
              FreeBSD and Linux - it should work on Open/NetBSD as well, but it
              hasn't been tested

Description of the various delete functions:

 -----------------
  DYNAMIC DELETE:
 -----------------
   In this function, the user specifies a maximum percentage of space that can
 be used by a path on a device.  To calculate this percentage correctly, the
 user will also add a list of any paths that also reside on the device, but are
 not within the dynamic path itself.

 ----------------
  STATIC DELETE:
 ----------------
   Static delete simply deletes the oldest directory in a path until a specified
 size is attained.

 ---------------
  DATED DELETE:
 ---------------
   The third and final delete function of this script will delete dirs within
 a path after they've gone beyond a defined age limit (in days).


 * INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION

Copy autodelete.sh to a directory and 'chmod 755' it.  Open the script in an
editor and set up the paths as described within it.  Verify that the shabang
(the '#!/bin/bash' statement) at the top matches the path to bash on your
system.  This script will not work with any shell except bash.

It's *HIGHLY* recommended that you set "debug" to "YES" the first time you run
the script, as well as every time that you change its configuration.

Next edit crontab ('crontab -e') and add a line similar to this:

 */20 * * * *   /jail/glftpd/bin/autodelete.sh

The above line will run the script every 20 minutes.  Running the script this
frequently is only recommended if free_mode is NOT set to "".

If you're a FreeBSD user, you will need to install shellutils and fileutils.
They are available in the ports tree as misc/sh-utils and sysutils/fileutils
respectively.

 * CONTACT

Please report bugs to:

 - ugly on EFNet