topic Re: cron job completion emails in Operating System - HP-UX

cron job completion emails

Joe Profaizer — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:15:56 GMT

I'm getting spammed upon my cron jobs completion. Is there anyway not to have a cron job upon completion NOT email root?

..Joe

Re: cron job completion emails

Robin Wakefield — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:27:01 GMT

Hi Joe,

If the cron job has produced no output, nothing will be mailed, so redirect stdout/stderr to /dev/null, e.g.:

0 1 * * * jobname >/dev/null 2>&1

Rgds, Robin.

Re: cron job completion emails

Joseph C. Denman — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:42:27 GMT

Robin is correct. When a cron job fails or produces output, an email is sent to root. Redirect your strout and stderr.

...jcd...

Re: cron job completion emails

Thierry Poels_1 — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 12:00:47 GMT

hi,

cron will send all output (stdout & stderr) to the mailbox of the cron user. You will have to redirect all output yourself if don't want this to fill up your mailbox, as already mentioned.
1 1 * * * job > /dev/null 2>&1 is however not always a good idea, you might miss error messages which you will not be able to review ever.

regards,
Thierry.

Re: cron job completion emails

Magdi KAMAL — Fri, 24 Aug 2001 13:07:08 GMT

Hi Joe,

I confirm, with crontab jobs, all standard output and standard error will be sent to the user who had plan the cron job ( because there is no related attached tty to that script ).

If you want to remove all these output ( Standard and error ) you should redirect them to /dev/null.

But attention, sometimes these information are really important to debug some abnormal situation.

If you know about standard output and you assume to redirect to /dev/null, I would PREFER leaving standard error go to the mail so that in case of troubles you will be at least notified for that.

Examples :
1. Redirection of both standard output and standard error :

* * * * * /users/.../script1.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

2. Redirection of only standard output :

* * * * * /users/.../script1.sh > /dev/null

3. Redirection of only standard error:

* * * * * /users/.../script1.sh 2> /dev/null

Good luck.

Magdi