I need to delete old call monitor records (from /var/spool/asterisk/monitor on the server). I can do this directly from unix shell, but wonder if there is a utility to use that performs the deletion and updates the database simultaneously. Does anyone know?
What database are you referring to.?
Asterisk does not keep a record of monitor recordings in a database. Perhaps you are using FreePBX? If so, you may want to ask you question in the appropriate forum.
That being said, assuming there is a mysql database that stores call record information, it probably would not be too difficult to write a script to find records older than a certain date range, retrieve the record number and filename, delete the file and delete the DB record. In theory that is.
Understand now that this is related to FreePBX. At the forum for FreePBX I found that the call monitor recordings are NOT tracked in the database, so they can be deleted directly without negatively impacting applications. See http://www.freepbx.org/forum/freepbx/users/delete-recordings