How to Display Your “Uptime” using Bash

Bash is a powerful scripting tool and comes in handy on more than one occasion. Here is a fun one: Write your server uptime to a text file so that you can display it on a webpage.

#!/bin/sh

# get the uptime data
days=$(uptime | awk '{print $3}' | sed 's/,//g')
hours=$(uptime | awk '{print $5}' | sed 's/,//g')
label=$(uptime | awk '{print $4}')

if [ "$days" = 1 ]; then
day_label='day'
else
day_label='days'
fi

#format labels
if [ $hours = 1 ]; then
hour_label='hour'
else
hour_label='hours'
fi

#format output
if [ "$label" = 'mins,' ]; then
echo 'This server has been on for '$days minutes'' > /var/www/uptime.txt
elif [[ "$label" = 'day,' || "$label" = 'days,' ]]; then
echo 'This server has been on for '$days $day_label, $hours $hour_label'' > /var/www/uptime.txt
elif [ "$label" = '2' ]; then
echo 'This server has been on for '$days hours'' > /var/www/uptime.txt
fi