Scenario

Your application uploads files from /tmp/app/, but the maximum allowed file size is 1 MB, and some files exceed this limit.

Task

Find all files larger than 1 MB in /tmp/app/ and its subdirectories, split each oversized file into 1 MB chunks in the same directory where the original file is located with a recognizable naming pattern (e.g., original_filename.part_aa), keep the original files intact, and verify that the chunks were created successfully.

Example

# Before (files exceed 1 MB limit)

/tmp/app/uploads/video.mp4 (3.2 MB)
/tmp/app/data/archive.tar.gz (2.5 MB)

Cannot upload due to size restrictions

# After (files split into 1 MB chunks)

/tmp/app/uploads/video.mp4
/tmp/app/uploads/video.mp4.part_aa
/tmp/app/uploads/video.mp4.part_ab
/tmp/app/uploads/video.mp4.part_ac

/tmp/app/data/archive.tar.gz
/tmp/app/data/archive.tar.gz.part_aa
/tmp/app/data/archive.tar.gz.part_ab

Chunks ready for upload within size limits

Step 1: Find all files larger than 1 MB in the directory

find /tmp/app/ -type f -size +1M

Step 2: Create a script to process and split each large file

Open a new script file using nano (or vim):

nano split_large_files.sh

Add the following content:

#!/bin/bash

# Find and split files larger than 1 MB into 1 MB chunks

while IFS= read -r -d '' file; do
  split -b 1M -d "$file" "$file.part_"
done

Step 3: Make the script executable

chmod +x split_large_files.sh

Step 4: Run the script

find /tmp/app/ -type f -size +1M -print0 | ./split_large_files.sh

This will locate all files over 1 MB in /tmp/app/ and split them into 1 MB chunks named like:

video.mp4.part_aa
video.mp4.part_ab
archive.tar.gz.part_aa
archive.tar.gz.part_ab

Step 5: Verify that chunks were created

find /tmp/app/ -name "*.part_*" -exec ls -lh {} \;

Step 6: Check that original files are still intact

find /tmp/app/ -type f -size +1M -exec ls -lh {} \;