Automator and/or AppleScript Help

Is it a complete necesity to make it all in Automator?
If not... then some thougts:

Are you compressing the backups? (Or maybe you see it as cumbersome?).
If not but want to, you could call a bash script that does it for you at the end, and so you'll end up with a filename to handle for an entire backup.
If not and don't want to, you could still call a bash script to move the most recent files to folders with a date hierarchy (not sure if you do this already).

Whether you are compressing or not the backups (single .tgz file for instance, vs a folder for each date), you could then have another bash script called at the end, to make the cleanup for you.
For instance, this one, in the current directory, would delete the oldest file

Code:

rm -f "$(ls -1rt | grep ^d | head -n 1)"

Or this one, would delete the oldest folder

Code:

rm -fr "$(ls -1rt | grep d | head -n 1)"

Of course there are many ways to accomplish that using some bash scripting magic, but that's just what I can think off right now.

To the second question, there are also many ways of doing it (you could, again, have Automator call a bash script), I was thinking particularly of something using wget... but then I remember MySQL comes with a tool called mysqldump, is that what you're using to dump the data? (Or something like PhpMyAdmin perhaps?). If you have that tool installed, then it's trivial to execute a command and voilà.

If you like the idea of using bash scripting then lemme know, I could lend a hand (although google is obviously faster).

 

The Find Finder Items and Filter Finder Items actions use spotlight metadata to produce their results. More info here

Check out the mdutil command in Terminal to turn indexing on or off and print indexing status.

Code:

Aldebaran:~ test$ mdutil 
Usage: mdutil -pEsa -i (on|off) volume ...
	Utility to manage Spotlight indexes.
	-p		Publish metadata.
	-i (on|off)	Turn indexing on or off.
	-E		Erase and rebuild index.
	-s		Print indexing status.
	-a		Apply command to all volumes.
	-v		Display verbose information.

Aldebaran:~ test$ mdutil -vs /Volumes/LeopardFirewire
/:
	Indexing enabled.
	Scan base time: 2013-05-04 05:56:55 +0200 (35487 seconds ago), reasoning: 'scan not required - avoided catchup scan'

 

I assume then, you are not yet "automating" the transmit interaction via Automator yet?

To be honest I like AppleScript and Automator but since I'm a developer I tend to either use bash for simple things or then something soft and uncomplicated such as a python/perl/ruby script for the rest if required.

Notice it's dead easy to copy a remote directory locally (which is what you're doing via transmit) using something like scp.
Example:

Code:

scp -r login/password@server:/var/www/yourwebsite/ .

So (1) and (2) are covered.
Number (3) was mildly covered with my previous reply, but you could also say, delete "all files older than 60 days" with something like

Code:

find /backup_path/* -type f -mtime +60 -delete

Now, if you don't have shell access to your server, it still can be done. I'm sure there is a fool-proof way (sometimes I overcomplicate things), but I'd simply check how phpMyAdmin executes the backup, and see if I could issue that url (with parameters) via wget. One could look at phpMyAdmin sources, or, one could use a sniffer like Wireshark (easier).

Basically, I've used wget countless times to
1. Log into a website, saving the cookie.
2. Issue a "command" (call url with right parameters, either GET or POST) using the cookie.
In theory this should work and you'd need two wget invocations for it to start downloading your database dump locally.
In short if the last part was confusing, I'm talking about using wget as you'd use your browser (login, click something to start backup), but in an automated way of course.

I'm always "recommending" so far to use bash scripting via invocation on an Automator "Workflow" (is that the name for it?), which I'm sure you can, but you could also create a cron job to get the script running every N hours, days, whatever.

I'm interested in your post, since I'd do something similar once (and if I ever) get my website running, except I don't really like MySQL much (more of a PostgreSQL guy nowadays), but I could install it on my local server in conjunction with phpMyAdmin and try out the wget thingy I talk about, if you want and think it's something you'd desire (bash scripting).

Also notice, when I say bash scripting I'm overstating things... your backup workflow is not that complicated so that you'd have to become a master of bash scripting hahah... it just takes a few, un-linked commands to do the whole thing.

 

Ok cool, glad you got it working now!