Cron failing - logging options?

Jeff D    Aug 24 12:53PM 2017

Now that I've got the ssh public key bit figured out, I'm having trouble with the cron option. I've setup a job (./vertical cron 16:15 backup myvm --email) and it runs, but I'm given the follow error via email:

Subject: [Failed] Vertical Backup 1.1.1 Email Notification (vmsrv)

2017-08-24 16:15:02.242598 INFO PROGRAM_VERSION Vertical Backup 1.1.1 2017-08-24 16:15:02.633761 INFO LICENSE_INFO Trial license expires on 2017-09-20

The job runs fine via the command line, but where can I look to find out what exactly is failing when running it via cron?


gchen    Aug 24 6:54PM 2017

By default, vertical cron will add > /dev/null to the cron command, but if the time is specified in the original cron format it won't do that and you can set up your own redirection:

./vertical -v cron "15 16 * * *" myvm --email "&> /opt/vertical/vertical.log"

The entry in the cron file (/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root) will become:

15 16 * * * /opt/vertical/vertical backup myvm --email &> /opt/vertical/vertical.log

You will then be able to find the full log in /opt/vertical/vertical.log.


Jeff D    Aug 25 10:27AM 2017

Okay - that showed me I was having an issue with the ssh keys. I'll post in the thread w/ ssh-related info about that.

Now that it's working, it's exactly what I was looking for -- specifically, a lightweight backup utility which I can set and forget. But I do think you should consider a bit more documentation. Knowing this cron redirection trick, and the format of the password file, would have saved me a ton of time getting this setup.


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