Top Shell Scripts Asked in Interviews
Backup Script
Task: Write a script to back up a directory (e.g., /var/log/) to another location, compress it, and add a
timestamp to the filename.
#!/bin/bash
src_dir="/var/log"
backup_dir="/backup/logs"
filename="log_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).tar.gz"
tar -czf $backup_dir/$filename $src_dir
echo "Backup completed: $filename"
Disk Usage Alert Script
Task: Monitor disk usage and send an alert if usage exceeds a defined threshold.
#!/bin/bash
threshold=80
usage=$(df / | grep / | awk '{ print $5 }' | sed 's/%//g')
if [ $usage -gt $threshold ]; then
echo "Disk usage at $usage%, sending alert!"
# Uncomment below to send email (requires mail setup)
# echo "Disk usage alert" | mail -s "Disk Usage Warning" [email protected]
fi
Service Monitoring Script
Task: Check if a service (e.g., Apache) is running, and restart it if it is down.
#!/bin/bash
service="apache2"
if ! systemctl is-active --quiet $service; then
echo "$service is down, restarting..."
systemctl start $service
else
echo "$service is running."
fi
User Creation Script
Task: Create users from a file containing usernames.
#!/bin/bash
input="users.txt"
while IFS= read -r user
do
useradd -m $user
echo "User $user created."
done < "$input"
Log Rotation Script
Task: Rotate logs by compressing logs older than 7 days.
#!/bin/bash
log_dir="/var/log/myapp"
find $log_dir -type f -mtime +7 -exec tar -czf {}.tar.gz {} \; -exec rm {} \;
echo "Logs older than 7 days have been archived."
File Archiving Script
Task: Archive files older than 7 days.
#!/bin/bash
src_dir="/data/files"
archive_dir="/archive"
find $src_dir -type f -mtime +7 -exec mv {} $archive_dir \;
echo "Archived files older than 7 days."
Database Backup Script
Task: Back up a MySQL database.
#!/bin/bash
db_name="mydatabase"
backup_dir="/backup/db"
filename="db_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).sql.gz"
mysqldump -u root -p $db_name | gzip > $backup_dir/$filename
echo "Database backup completed: $filename"
Log File Parsing Script
Task: Extract specific keywords from a log file.
#!/bin/bash
logfile="/var/log/syslog"
keyword="ERROR"
grep $keyword $logfile > error_log.txt
echo "All ERROR entries saved to error_log.txt."
File Processing Script (Processing 100 lines at a time)
Task: Process a large file in chunks.
#!/bin/bash
filename="largefile.txt"
chunk_size=100
split -l $chunk_size $filename part_
for file in part_*
do
echo "Processing $file..."
# Do some processing here
rm $file
done
Automated Remote File Transfer Script
Task: Automate the transfer of files from a local machine to a remote server.
#!/bin/bash
src_dir="/local/path"
dest_user="user"
dest_server="server.com"
dest_dir="/remote/path"
scp -r $src_dir $dest_user@$dest_server:$dest_dir
echo "Files transferred to $dest_server."
