Explanation of Yesterday directory

As happened today, “Yesterday” isn’t always yesterday! A brief explanation.

All AFS home directories (and some group areas) contain a Yesterday sub-directory. This directory contains a copy of your home directory from “Yesterday”, which can be useful if you accidentally delete a file.

The Yesterday directory is actually a by-product of our backup system. “Yesterday” usually means “from around 9pm”. But if the backups are running behind schedule, as can happen once a month when full backups are taken, then “Yesterday” could mean “from around 1am” or “11am” – it just depends.

This command line will tell you when your Yesterday was created:

/usr/sbin/vos exam `fs lsmount ~/Yesterday | cut -f4 -d\' | tr -d \#` | grep Creation

To recap, “Yesterday” is usually around 9pm the day before, but for operational reasons it could be as little as “a few seconds ago”.

Neil

About neilb

Computing staff at the University of Edinburgh. Part of the Services Unit.
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