backup apparently not working

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

Tyler,

How about replacing those tilde characters with the explicit home
information? e.g., /home/username/valiant, etc.

On the redirection, many commands produce output to both stdout and to
stderr. When you use > /dev/null, you are only redirecting stdout, not
stderr. To redirect both, use their file handles like this:

command arg1 arg2 1>/dev/null 2>&1

The 1 means stdout, but is assumed if omitted. The 2 means stderr, and
ampersand 1 means "the address of 1". So you are redirecting 1 to null,
and 2 to the same place.

HTH

Chuck


On Sat, Nov 08, 2008 at 12:41:38PM -0700, Tyler Littlefield wrote:
> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Speakup mailing list
>>>>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>>>>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>>>
>>>
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>>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
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>
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-- 
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (76% of Full)

My web site: http://hallenbeck.ftml.net -- my telephone: 1-518-334-9022.
                                --------
The best defense against logic is ignorance.