i'm trying to write a simple backup script using rsync, tar and crontab .. but i want to be able to rename a newly created archive with the current date .. could anyone point me in the right direction please? thanks

I sometimes use dates in file naming, but I prefer sequential numbering since that is unique, and I still have the date stamp of the file to show me when it was created. When using dates, consider including hour and min, and maybe even sec. Following example uses only ymd. The nested command in back apostrophes is replaced by its output: outfile=backup_`date +%Y%m%d` /etc/fbackup -f $outfile ... compress $outfile If the utility does not let you name the output, but instead always outputs to some default file name, you can rename it after creation: outfile=backup_`date +%Y%m%d` /etc/mybackup_utility mv backup.out $outfile compress $outfile