When NWCSAF is left running operationally it automatically cleans up old files. This is usually determined by seeing when they were last accessed/created and if this was longer than a few hours ago then they are deleted. This process prevents the system getting swamped in imported and exported data files and temporary files produced by NWCSAF-GEO. Because of this feature it is important to manage the movement of files produced by NWCSAF by automating the copying of files that are wanted for nowcasting/forecasting or research beyond the timescales that NWCSAF would automatically delete them.
To do this it is simplest to mirror the export directory using rsync regularly to another directory (export_archive)
To do this open your crontab and add the following line
0-55/5 * * * * /usr/bin/rsync -au $SAFNWC/export/* $SAFNWC/export_archiveThis entry to the crontab will execute every 5 minutes and will use rsync with the archive and update functions to copy the new files present in the export directory into the export_archive directory. This will mean that all the files that are produced by the NWCSAF-GEO program using our "real" data will be saved here while the versions in the original export directory will get deleted when they are over a certain age.
Please be aware that in an operational context mirroring your export directory like this would not necessarily be a good idea especially if you did not have your own archive/cleanup mechanism in place to make sure that your NWCSAF computer did not fill up.