Re: crontab $MAILTO question

[Carlos Sousa <csousa@tvtel.pt>]

DvB wrote:

> Alec <alec1976nyc@yahoo.com> writes:

(...)

> > Can I configure cron to mail me
> > a) *only* when there were errors
> > b) email only STDERR (not STDOUT)
(...)

> I assume you're asking about some type of special cron functionality
> which e-mails automatically... however, I would probably do this with a
> script... i.e.


In Alec's case I'd perhaps try a quick-and-dirty solution like adding 
this to a file in the /etc/cron.d directory:

# Run queue every day at 04:30
30 04 * * *  root  backup-script >log-out 2>log-err || cat log-err

I haven't tried this, but the redirections should send program output on 
stdout and stderr to their respective logfiles thus avoiding any mail 
from cron, and the "cat" part should output the error log on stdout only 
if errors occur, which would then be mailed by cron to the MAILTO address.

--
Carlos Sousa