Send email about status of cron job completion

Question

I have some scripts that do usual stuff like backing up MySql database, gz, tar some files and put them on FTP or sync with some other backup/mirror system. Some scripts are running quite frequently (like twice/thrice per hour). I am sending email with attached log output from commands after completion of job. It is quite a lot of email to keep track of.

I want to send email only when script fails to do something, that is when some command in script fails. How can I accomplish this?

Answer 1

Check the return value of the command and proceed accordingly. Normally all the Linux commands return 0 on success and some other number(specifying the reason) on failure.

Update:
Forgot to mention that the status of last command is saved in variable "$?". Thanks @bbaja42

Answer 2

here is an example of script that I wrote for my work that's being used on daily basis

[alexus@wcmisdlin02 ~]$ sudo cat /usr/local/uftwf/mysql/_mysql.sh
#!/bin/sh
# $Id: _mysql.sh,v 1.2 2011/05/31 16:02:56 alexus Exp $

if [ -d /var/lib/mysql/ ]; then
    cd /var/lib/mysql/
    for i in `ls`; do
            /usr/bin/mysqldump \
                --user=root \
                $i > /usr/local/uftwf/mysql/$i.sql
            /bin/gzip \
                --force \
                --quiet \
                /usr/local/uftwf/mysql/$i.sql
    done
    /usr/bin/mysqladmin \
        --user=root \
        flush-logs
    /usr/bin/mysql \
        --user=root \
        --execute='PURGE BINARY LOGS BEFORE subdate(curdate(), INTERVAL 1 DAY);'
fi
[alexus@wcmisdlin02 ~]$ 


[alexus@wcmisdlin02 ~]$ sudo crontab -l -u mysql
@daily      /usr/local/uftwf/mysql/_mysql.sh
[alexus@wcmisdlin02 ~]$ 

it will only email you once you get some sort of an error, it will not mail if job ran ok. This shell script resides in /usr/local/uftwf/mysql and that's where backups goes as well. Modify this script to FTP/rsync files to your remote location.