hallo list,

I have recently started to learn shell scripting. Now i am trying to write a script to backup /etc and /var to my home dir in a separate folder and then backup the home dir to usb drive using rsync. My goal is when i will run the script it will output status to standard output in form of bold messages with time and simultaneously logs to another file in /root dir. I have labled the usb drive as "usb-mass-storage". the script runs fine according to my requirement. Now i need suggestion to improve the script further. Thank you.

the script is as follows:

#!/bin/sh if blkid |grep USB-Mass-Storage then if [ -d /media/backup ] then /bin/mount LABEL=USB-Mass-Storage /media/backup echo "------------------------------------------------------------------------- " >> /root/backup.log echo $(date) >> /root/backup.log /etc/rc.d/init.d/named stop &> /dev/null echo "CONFIGURATION backup starting "|tee -a /root/backup.log /usr/bin/rsync -a --progress --delete /etc/ ~freedom/backup/etc/ >> /root/backup.log;echo "CONFIGURATION backup finished" |tee -a /root/backup.log;echo "VARIABLE backup starting"|tee -a /root/backup.log;/usr/bin/rsync -a --progress --delete --exclude=ftp/pub/media/ /var/ ~freedom/backup/var/ >> /root/backup.log; echo "VARIABLE backup finished" |tee -a /root/backup.log;/etc/rc.d/init.d/named start&> /dev/null echo " Now we are going to backup $(date)" |tee -a /root/backup.log /usr/bin/rsync -a --progress --delete /home/freedom/ /media/backup/ |tee -a /root/backup.log; echo "BACKUP FINISHED $(date)" |tee -a /root/backup.log else echo "$(date) DISTDIR does not exist" |tee -a /root/backup.log fi else echo "$(date) USB drive not entered"|tee -a /root/backup.log fi

1>the /root/backup.log is the log file 2>i stop the named service before starting backup as i run the named process in a chroooted environment and if i trey to manually backup /var with rsync i get :/var/named/chroot/proc/kcore: <file> has vanished ! 3>my home dir is /home/freedom 4>i exclude the /var/ftp/pub/media/ folder as it is just the copy of centos 5 dvd which i use as my local base repo.