Clean out old apple updates (older than 24 hours) because softwareupdate often refuses to install them

clean_old_apple_updates.py

#!/usr/bin/python

"""
Removes cached apple updates that are older than 24 hours
"""

import datetime
import os
import shutil
import sys


def main():
    """
    Main event
    """

    update_dir = '/Library/Updates'

    # If the directory isn't there, might as well exit
    if not os.path.exists(update_dir):
        sys.exit()

    now = datetime.datetime.now()
    day_ago = now - datetime.timedelta(hours=24)
    # Get all directories in /L/Updates
    for item in os.listdir(update_dir):
        if item == 'PreflightContainers':
            continue
        if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(update_dir, item)):
            modification_time = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(
                os.stat(os.path.join(update_dir, item)).st_mtime)
            if modification_time < day_ago:
                # This is ick, but we would rather eat the error than
                # halt the Munki run
                try:
                    shutil.rmtree(os.path.join(update_dir, item))
                except Exception:
                    pass


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()