This would help any Sysad who wants to retain or keep the latest backups or files automatically using a script.

Sample Codes Below:

#!/bin/bash
#
# This script retains 2 files
# Created by Burnz Barbosa
#
#
LOG_FILE="/var/log/retain_script.log"
cd /mnt/backups/full
num_files=`ls | wc -l`
rm `ls -tp | grep -v "/$" | awk '{ if (NR > 2) print; }'`
num_files2=`ls | wc -l`
/bin/echo "[$(date)]You have the latest $num_files2 retained in backup files " >> $LOG_FILE

Script Explanations:
The script is to keep the latest 2 files under /mnt/backups/full
1. We declare the log file at /var/log/ named as retain_script.log
2. Go to the backup directory, lets assumed /mnt/backups/full
3. Then we remove the count of oldest files and retain the latest 2
4. We ask to display the counts or number of files that it contains
5. We write a log with a date telling how many backups have retained and put it in the logfile