Based on code from Oren Solomianik’s ec2-delete-old-snapshots ec2-manage-snapshots does things a little differently.

Oren’s script would delete any snapshots older than n days for (a) given volume(s). I improved the code a little bit so as to handle a –region parameter ( –region eu-west-1 is an example) an –noop so as to tell us what it would do but not actually do it. That’s the ec2-delete-old-snapshots you’ll find in the included archive.

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Because I wanted to manage snapshots differently I heavily modified the original script to create ec2-manage-snapshots so that for a given volumes, it would keep snapshots made:

• in the last 7 days
• the past 4 sundays
• every first day of the month

and erase the rest.

Its behavior can be easily modified but I wanted to make sure I kept monthly snapshots, last 4 weekly & last 7 days worth. It assumes you’re doing one daily snapshot of each volume.

Download here: ec2-manage-snapshots

Failsafe
Like its ancestor, the program checks to see that each vol-id entered on the command line has at least one newer snapshot than the deletion date, to prevent deletion of all snapshots of a certain volume. The deletion process will commence for a volume only if such a snapshot was found. More importantly, you can use the --noop command line option or the constant in the code (NOOP) and the script will tell you what it would have deleted but won’t actually delete anything.

Disclaimer: This program is in development. Although it has been tested and worked on production environments, it can’t be guaranteed to perform without unexpected results. Use at your own risk.