backup apparently not working

[Tyler Littlefield]

Hello,
I was kinda rushed with the last message.
First, I'm running the script from command line:
./backup.sh
the line in the script works great, but when I run it from the script, it 
says it's cowardly refusing to create empty archives.
Also, when it runs, it shows removing leading slash, and that's what's sent 
to me in my cron mail.
Is there a way I can direct errors to /dev/null from within the script?
This is what's happening to my crontab script with update, too.
It runs apt-get update
and then sends me mail with all the output--I've tried
apt-get update>/dev/null
Thanks, and sorry for all the questions--I'm not extremely familiar with 
bash scripts.
I'd be greatful if someone could supply a decent tutorial that they've found 
useful; I've found a few things, but they didn't go in to much depth.


Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
email: tyler at tysdomain.com
web: tysdomain-com
Visit for quality software and web design.
skype: st8amnd2005

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler at tysdomain.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 6:36 PM
Subject: Re: backup apparently not working


>I am not running it from crontab. i'ts running from the command line.
>
> Thanks,
> Tyler Littlefield
> email: tyler at tysdomain.com
> web: tysdomain-com
> Visit for quality software and web design.
> skype: st8amnd2005
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Kerry Hoath" <kerry at gotss.net>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 6:11 PM
> Subject: Re: backup apparently not working
>
>
>> Exactly what I said.
>> Just because you execute a script from crontab does not mean it has all 
>> environment variables set inside the script.
>>
>> Your script is relying on the fact that the HOME environment variable is 
>> set, which i'm sure it is when you run the script from the command-line, 
>> however it might not be the case when the script is run from cron.
>>
>> What user is running the crontab and what value do you expect HOME to be?
>> Also is the script running under /bin/bash and is the backquote expantion 
>> actually working?
>> Modify your crontab so it echos your command into a temporary file so the 
>> command that is executed is what you think it is.
>> Regards, Kerry.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler at tysdomain.com>
>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>> Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 8:33 AM
>> Subject: Re: backup apparently not working
>>
>>
>>> what do you mean is it set in the crontab? I just execute that script 
>>> from crontab. it's the script that's not working.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Tyler Littlefield
>>> email: tyler at tysdomain.com
>>> web: tysdomain-com
>>> Visit for quality software and web design.
>>> skype: st8amnd2005
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "Kerry Hoath" <kerry at gotss.net>
>>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
>>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>>> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 4:32 PM
>>> Subject: Re: backup apparently not working
>>>
>>>
>>>> Is HOME set correctly in the crontab?
>>>>
>>>> Regards, Kerry.
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>>> From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler at tysdomain.com>
>>>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
>>>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>>>> Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 7:52 AM
>>>> Subject: backup apparently not working
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>> First. I've partially figured out the problem.
>>>>> It's throwing a fit about removing leading slash.
>>>>> second, I've got the following line in a script:
>>>>> tar -czvf ~/backups/valiant/`date '+%m-%d-%Y_%H'`.tar.gz 
>>>>> ~/valiant/moo/db.db
>>>>> when I ran that from the command line, it worked. when I tried to run 
>>>>> it from a script, it "cowardly refused to create an empty archive," 
>>>>> and then decided to try to run every file in my directory, it looks 
>>>>> like.
>>>>> Ideas?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Tyler Littlefield
>>>>> email: tyler at tysdomain.com
>>>>> web: tysdomain-com
>>>>> Visit for quality software and web design.
>>>>> skype: st8amnd2005
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Speakup mailing list
>>>>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>>>>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>
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