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Hosting Operations

Read-only, can be slow

Show Release Directory Ages

You need to confirm recent releases exist and identify their order.

Command

find releases/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -printf '%T@ %TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort -nr | head -10 | cut -d' ' -f2-

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Can create load on large logs, directories, filesystems, or process tables.

When not to use it: Do not use it if directory modification time is not meaningful in your deploy process.

Expected output

The most recently modified release directories.

System impact

Read-only, can be slow. Nothing changes. The command lists release directories by modification time.

Scope this to the smallest useful path or service on busy systems.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

When to use it

Use during deploy checks, rollback planning, or release cleanup reviews.

When not to use it

Do not use it if directory modification time is not meaningful in your deploy process.

Explanation-only example

Illustrated output, not a live lab run

This example is intentionally illustrative. It shows the command shape without killing real processes or changing your machine.

demo@lab:~$

$ find releases/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -print

releases/2026-06-25-1215
releases/2026-06-25-1200

$ find releases/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -printf '%T@ %TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort -nr | head -10 | cut -d' ' -f2-

2026-06-26 00:27 releases/2026-06-25-1215
2026-06-26 00:27 releases/2026-06-25-1200

View commands shown

These are the commands shown in the sanitized transcript.

Commands shown

find releases/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -print
find releases/ -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -printf '%T@ %TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort -nr | head -10 | cut -d' ' -f2-

next steps

Related commands

Hosting Operations Can be slow

Exclude the Current Release from Cleanup

Release cleanup should prove what current points to before listing old directories.

current=$(readlink -f /lab/disk-inode-cleanup/home/deploy/current); find /lab/disk-inode-cleanup/home/deploy/releases -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d ! -samefile "$current" -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %p\n' | sort

Hosting Operations Can be slow

List Restore Points Before a Drill

A restore drill starts by proving which backups actually exist.

cd restore-dr && find backups -maxdepth 2 -type f -name MANIFEST.txt -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %h\n' | sort -r

Hosting Operations Can be slow

Find the Newest Build Logs First

The failing file is usually one of the newest artifacts.

find artifacts logs -type f \( -name '*.log' -o -name '*.txt' \) -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort -r | head

Hosting Operations Can be slow

List Newest Source Files Before Backup

Before trusting a backup, know which files changed most recently.

find source -type f -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort

Hosting Operations Can be slow

List Newest Build Artifacts

Confirm what your pipeline actually produced before you deploy it.

find artifacts/ -type f -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %10s %p\n' | sort | tail -20

Study mapping

Use this as independent command practice: read the notes, predict the output, then compare it with the example before using a real shell.