Getting an email from every job

[Doles284]

On my home server running 12.10, I have a few things I want to set up email notifications for, mainly backups.

However, when I set up an smtp server, xmail or ssmtp, etc, I get an email for every job that the server does!

In crontab, I even suffix the jobs with

>> /dev/null

to push output to /dev/null, to no avail

I still get the full description of the job with >> /dev/null at the end

Is there some other notification system I could use? Or can I tell ssmtp to only be used by certain programs? I only want to know if a backup from backintime fails, that is all

Thanks all

[DJ_Max]

It should be

&> /dev/null

If you still get emails than it isn't cron sending you emails.

[SeijiSensei]

You can alternatively turn off emails globally in crontab, then use

1 2 3 4 * some_command 2>&1 | mail -s 'Running Backup' you@example.com

The "2>&1" ensures that any messages sent to syserr also get mailed to you.