Cron Job - How to send an output file to an email

Question

I have this line in crontab:

* * * * * /var/www/dir/sh/mysql_dumb.sh | mail -s \"mysql_dump\" example@mail.com

(every minute only a sample)

Answer 1

Look at the last line of mysql_dumb.sh: /usr/bin/mysqldump -u USER -pPASS DATABASE > /var/www/dir/backup/backup_DB_`date +%d_%m_%Y`.sql

The > is redirecting the output of mysqldump to the file /var/www/dir/backup/backup_DB_date +%d_%m_%Y.sql

Do you want to store a backup of the database locally?

If not, take out the the > /var/www/dir/backup/backup_DB_`date +%d_%m_%Y`.sql and put the crontab entry back to

* * * * * /var/www/dir/sh/mysql_dump.sh 2>&1 | mail -s "mysql_dump" example@mail.example

If you do want a copy of the file locally, I would suggest using tee which will write the output to the file and put the output back out on stdout, which will later be picked up by crontab.

I would change the last line of mysql_dumb.sh to be: /usr/bin/mysqldump -u USER -pPASS DATABASE | tee /var/www/dir/backup/backup_DB_`date +%d_%m_%Y`.sql

Again I would change the crontab entry back to: /usr/bin/mysqldump -u USER -pPASS DATABASE > /var/www/dir/backup/backup_DB_`date +%d_%m_%Y`.sql

The advantage here is mail can read the information from stdout and isn't dependent on the file being written and then read correctly. While that may be a small difference, in my experience using tee will be more reliable.

Answer 2

If you want to store your cron job's output on the file on server and also want to send that output file to your mail address then you can use below command.

And you can use it on cronjob to automatically run on specific interval of time, here i am dumping mysql db and sending it to my mail with attachment of dumped sql file.

* * * * * mysqldump --user username --password='p@ssword' DBNAME | gzip > /home/user/db_backup/db_backup_`date +\%d-\%m-\%Y-\%H-\%M`.sql.gz && mailx -a /home/user/db_backup/db_backup_`date +\%d-\%m-\%Y-\%H-\%M`.sql.gz -s 'database backup date:'`date +\%d-\%m-\%Y-\%H:\%M` example@gmail.com

Answer 3

From a crond perspective more accurate is to place in to your cron:

MAILTO=example@mail.com
* * * * * /var/www/dir/sh/mysql_dumb.sh
* * * * * /var/www/dir/sh/other.sh
* * * * * /var/www/dir/sh/other2.sh

Answer 4

If the script is reporting errors, they may be going to stderr, but you're only redirecting stdout. You can redirect stderr by adding 2>&1 to the command:

* * * * * /var/www/dir/sh/mysql_dump.sh 2>&1 | mail -s "mysql_dump" example@mail.example